I’m not a big fan of word games in general.

However, there are a few that buck the trend and end up being word games I enjoy playing.

For example, though millions of people love playing Scrabble, I steer clear of it. Yet I quite enjoy playing Boggle. And the team word game, Word on the Street, is one of my favorite party games.

So when we got a copy of Bananagrams Duel from Bananagrams, the big question was, will this 2-player, dice-rolling, word-building, race-game buck that trend as well?

Let’s find out!

 

How to play Bananagrams Duel

Banagrams Duel is a super simple game to learn and play.

The game is played over a series of rounds in which players try to be the first player to use all of their letter cubes in a word grid.

To begin, each player takes 12 letter cubes. Then players simultaneously race to form their own crossword grid of words.

Like a typical crossword, words must read either horizontally or vertically, left to right or top to bottom. And all words must intersect to form one unified grid.

The first player to complete a word grid with all 12 cubes wins the round and gets one of the Banana cards.

To start a new round, all the cubes are again mixed together and each player randomly takes 12 cubes.

The first player to win 10 Banana cards is the winner!

 

Variations

What we’ve just outlined above is the basic way to play Banangrams Duel. Yet there are still more ways to play the game — all likewise simple variations on the basic game play.

• Theme: Before each round, players flip over one of the Banana cards to reveal a theme. To win the round, a player must include at least one word in their grid that matches the theme. (A variation on this variation is that all words in the grid must match the theme.)
• You Get What You Get: At the start of a round, players roll their letter cubes and can only use the resulting letters to make words and form their grid — no re-rolls or turning dice allowed. If neither player can complete their grid, the player that uses the most letters wins the round.
• Rollin’: Similar to “you get what you get” but it allows for re-rolls.
• Rhyme Time: Play the basic game, but players score an extra Banana card for every pair of rhyming words in their grid.
• And There’s More: This variation is really just a way to tell players to iterate to their hearts content — giving examples of adults being required to use longer words than kids, etc.

Can the whole family enjoy Bananagrams Duel

Bananagrams Duel is a game everyone in the family that knows how to spell can enjoy playing. The recommended age from the publisher is 7+ which is right in the age range when kids learn to spell.

So if you’ve got readers (spellers) in your family, they might enjoy some word-spelling duels.

One of the things we really like about Bananagrams Duel is the simultaneous play. There isn’t any down time because players are playing the whole time. As soon as someone finishes their grid, the round ends and you’re on to the next one.

Of course, it’s also a race to be the first finish — so there’s also a level of stress involved with finding words quickly. And we know that not everyone is going to enjoy such pressure.

While writing this review, I’ve wondered if Bananagrams Duel is a “word game” or a “dice game”. And even though the letters are on dice, it’s only in a couple of the game variations where you roll the dice. So in the end, we’d group it in the “word game” category rather than “dice game”.

That being said, our favorite way to play is by combining a few of the variations.

Because we’ve got older players, we like using the categories on the cards to require players to use words that match the category. We missed the part in the rules that said you only needed to include 1 word that matched the category in the grid and right from the start played where all words needed to fit the category. So we’ve actually played that way ever since.

We also like the randomness of rolling. So our favorite combination of play is “Theme” plus “You Get What You Get”.

And that’s ultimately why we give Bananagrams Duel a thumbs up — because you can vary the way you play from game to game.

 

How does Bananagrams Duel score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

Bananagrams Duel scores well on our “let’s play again” game meter because it’s a quick game to play, involves some thinking with luck, and it has lots of variations. So it’s easy to play multiple games back to back.

Plus, it’s a very portable game to take and play wherever you’d like. And if you’re really tight on space, just throw all the dice and small cards in a baggie. (Or you can skip the cards and make up your own categories.)

If you’ve got some budding spellers in your family, go ahead and challenge them to a Bananagrams Duel.

We’d like to thank Bananagrams for a review copy of Bananagrams Duel.