Banana Battle First Impressions

Banana Battle makes you go Woof, Meow, Cluck and Bang!

It’s Uno, but not as you know it.

A fun, light & silly card game where 3 to 7 players sit around a table and compete by playing action cards that challenge each other through reaction speed and mimicry. May the BEST. MONKEY. WIN.

Banana Battle Game Play

Players have a hand of cards, and you’re off!

You take turns playing a card into the discard pile that matches either the Action or the Colour of the previous card.

Then, players participate in the action with the slowest player drawing a card:

• Drop their hand of cards and clap
• Put your hand on the deck
• Woof like a Dog
• Meow like a Cat
• Pukaak like a Chicken
• Staring contest, the first to blink or laugh loses

There is also a card where everyone votes for a player simultaneously and the player with the most votes will draw a card.

Finally, there are cards that only affect the players on either side of you and again, the slower player draws a card.

• Make a finger gun, shout bang and shoot the player

If you have no cards in hand you put your hand on your head and if you have your hand on your head on your next turn, you win.

Theme

Hmmm…

Setup

Shuffle the deck, deal hands.

Components & Artwork

Prototype components…

The art is fun and more importantly, the colours and symbols are easily recognisable. All the animals are being strangled so yes, a monkey is choking the chicken.

Even if the cards are upside-down for one player and not for another, you don’t feel hard done by.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

VERY simple indeed and of course, very accessible.

Banana Battle Summary

For Uno, Uno Varient Pina Pirata is my favourite and one of my favourite games of all time. This is basically an Uno variant with speed, action and noises.

One issue Pina Pirata has is that some rules bring cards back into the game which slows rounds down. Here, cards are always coming back into the game nearly every time a card is played so I wonder how it is with a large player count?

Being able to play several banana cards in one go does help a bit I guess. We only played 3 players so I can imagine more players exponentially adding time to the game.

There is fun to be had in doing things and making animal sounds as quickly as possible. Not sure how it would go down in one of my game groups with its small, echoey room. 🙂

But it is good fun, give it a go!

Jesta ThaRogue