by Beth Schwartz

Created on: July 07, 2009

I come from a family that is obsessed with playing games. Unfortunately, nowadays it's really difficult to find a game that's worth playing more than a couple times. Luckily, I came across Bananagrams.

Bananagrams is basically a game where you create your own crossword puzzles. Depending on what method you choose to play and how many people are playing, you pass out a certain number of tiles (approximately 20 if only a couple of people are playing, less if more people are playing), leaving plenty of tiles left over in a pile. Players race against each other to spell out words and build words off of words until there are no tiles remaining in his or her hand. Each player creates his or her own crossword puzzle - you do not play off of each other's puzzles. Make sure you have plenty of table space!

Once a player has used all the tiles in their hand, he or she yells "Peel!" and picks up a new tile. All other players also have to pick up a new tile to add to their hand. If a player decides they can't use a letter, they can yell, "Dump!" and put the unused letter back in the pile, but they then have to draw three tiles in exchange.

The game ends once a player runs out of tiles and there are no more tiles left in the pile (or if there are fewer tiles left in the pile than there are players in the game). Much like Bingo, you shout "Bananas!" once you run out of tiles. Before declaring "Bananas!" be sure that all your words are valid, because, if any word is unacceptable, you are disqualified. Other team members inspect your words before declaring you the winner.

I purchased the game at a store for approximately $15 and it was well worth it. I went back to purchase a couple more as gifts. The tiles come in a cute banana-shaped bag, making it a very easy game to take on trips or to a friend's house.

My husband and I could not stop playing the game. It ended up being quite educational - I learned words from him, and he learned words from me.

After awhile, we got creative and made different rules. For example, we made a rule for one round that our first word had to be a type of food, or a family member's name, or something in the room we were in, etc. Typically, proper nouns are not acceptable, but like I said, you can certainly make up your own rules.

A typical game takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes. My husband and I would play best-of-five. When on vacation, we will simply tally each win and see who wins the most games during the trip.

Great game - I highly recommend it!

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