We were kindly given the game Bananagrams to review.
The game consists of a case like a pencil case that looks like a banana.

When opening the case inside there are 144 lettered tiles in a bag and instructions.
On the instruction page there are alternative suggestions to play the game Best Of…, Banana Smoothie, Banana Café and Banana Solitaire as well as the original game.

When we had a spare hour or so myself, my husband and my eldest daughter decided to get this out and try it.
First we had to make sure we had enough space to play and decided the dining table would be the best option for this.
We got all the tiles out of the bag and faced them down on the table, They were called the “Bunch” Then the fun began…
With 3 of us playing ages we got to pick 21 letters from the “Bunch”.
My husband then said “Split” and we could reveal our tiles and start to make our own little crosswords.

Simple! well not really simple as if you run out of letters you say “Peel” and take a tile from the “Bunch”, but all other players have to take a tile too. So you have almost finished and get the worst letter possible so then have to changed your crossword to fit this one particular letter in somewhere. If the letter just isn’t working anywhere in your crossword then you can say “Dump” which you replace your bad letter into the “Bunch” and collect 3 letters in return. This only effects the person that dumps the letter though.

So there we are racing to win, we are quite competitive so that made it all the more fun.
My husbands letters were much to be desired, think ‘Typical Bloke words’ and you get the idea. Where as myself and my daughter used clean words.

The game ends when all the letters from the “Bunch” have been used and the first person to use all their letters. This player then called out “Bananas” and wins the hand but only if the words are acceptable in the dictionary if not then that player becomes a “Rotten Banana” and is out and all their tiles are returned to the “Bunch” and the game resumes until one of the other players win.

This was a great game, we were able to use our brains and think about what we were doing rather other mundane games I have played in the past.

The game lasts around half an hour with three of us playing but with more players it would last a little less as they would have less letters to start with and less in the “Bunch”.

Another great thing about Bananagrams is that as it doesn’t have a board to play on I can pop it in my bag and take it with me when visiting friends and family so if we get bored we can have a quick game.

I would highly recommend this game, It’s fun, portable and no big boxes to store either.

Bananagrams RRP is £14.99 available from Amazon.co.uk, Play.com, Tesco.com, John Lewis and all good stores.

BANANAGRAMS­® (RRP £14.99) — named Toy Fair 2009′s “Game of the Year”, Bananagrams is a fast and fun anagram game that drives players bananas! Requiring no pencil, paper or board, Bananagrams comes in a small portable banana-shaped pouch and is perfect fun for kids from 7 – 107 years old, at home and on the go. Created by a word game – obsessed family of three generations, Bananagrams is available online as a free Facebook Application and on the iPad™, iPhone™ and iTouch™ as well as in a series of books. Bananagrams is also available in Hebrew, Spanish, French, Norwegian and German as well as in a larger version — DOUBLE Bananagrams, the big banana the larger the bunch (for up to 16 players)!

**This was reviewed for MummyNews