Do you want early access to our giveaways? Do you want to read our reviews before your friends?

Join the COOL KIDS by subscribing to EverythingBoardGames.Com’s Email List Today!!

Quick Look: Bananarchy

Publisher: Pick Up & Play Games
Year Published: Coming to Kickstarter next month! (Link at bottom of review!)

No. of Players: 3 – 8

Ages: 8+

Playing Time: 30 minutes.

Find more info HERE.

From the Publisher:

Snatch, stash, snack, and smash all the bananas to claim your crown as Monkey King! Never wait your turn in this fast-paced, energetic, and chaotic game full of monkey mayhem! Will you Trick your “so called” friends, craftily hoard your stash, or embrace the Bananarchy and launch the Banana Revolution? 

Disclaimer: The publisher provided the prototype copy of Bananarchy. The opinions expressed in the review are completely my own.

Review:

I am admittedly not the biggest fan of card games. While I have many memories of playing games with standard poker decks such as speed, slap jack, and 21, a few others such as the tried-and-true Uno grace my recollections with an overall sentiment of “meh…”. 

I do find that one of the biggest criticisms I have overall with the form factor of card games is either the randomness/lack of control or the lack of interaction between players. 

Bananarchy first hit my eyes with a bright and comical art style that defied the normal placidity of Uno’s many incarnations, which to my eye, are usually rather dull and overly utilitarian. The premise of monkeys quite literally monkeying around over bananas seemed to offer a form of multi-player mayhem that I often find lacking in many other card games, which can often seem too controlled and deterministic once a certain point is reached ; the outcome often times feels known well in advance of one person’s win.

Now keep in mind that I received a prototype for Bananarchy, so some things may be subject to change. But here’s how the game goes.

There are two decks of cards in the center of the game play area. One is a deck of banana cards, with varying numbers of points garnished when these cards are drawn and placed in a specific player’s personal space. The other deck is composed of Monkey cards that make up a player’s hand, and serve as the actions players can take during their (or others’) turns.

Each color coded type of monkey card is as follows :

Red — Action Cards. You can play just one of these per one of your turns

Blue — Reaction Cards. These are played in response to specific triggering events.

Green — Anytime Cards. These can be played, well…you can probably guess.

Yellow — Add conditional bonus points

All cards usually let you either obtain or prevent other players from obtaining precious banana cards in some way, shape or form.

During a player’s turn, they can play one Action card and as many Anytime Cards as they want and possess.  They then draw up to their hand limit of 5, and the turn passes to the next player.

Now there are all sorts of ways to wreak havoc on other players, and plenty of ways to lose (or cause others to lose) a monkey’s favorite snack. With a card’s action, you can cause bananas to be stolen, lost, smashed into oblivion, slapped away to another player and so on. Thankfully, there is a nifty mechanic where you can also discard your whole hand at the start of your turn to permanently stash one of your bananas and leave it invulnerable to subsequent attempts to steal it, so there is a way to protect your vital interests in winning.

When the deck of points (banana cards) runs out, the game is over.

So now that we’ve had a chance to get a few games under our belt, here’s what we have to say about Bananarchy.

—Many card games leave you feeling a sense of helplessness regarding the outcome. In Uno, for example, if someone is about to win the game, there is pretty much only one person who can stop them, namely the person whose turn precedes them. In Bananarchy, thanks to the Anytime and Reaction cards, this problem is pretty much nullified, ensuring that pretty much anyone always has a chance to turn the tide.

—Because of the constant ebb and flow of bananas flowing across the table via sabotaging, the game duration is not as quick as one may expect from a card game. A stated time of 30 minutes is spot on, and allows for something a bit deeper than tradition might expect from this particular form factor. 

—The art is bright, colorful and brings something fitting of the fun and frantic nature of the theme.

—Card stock quality is very good, with a glossy coating that also helps the cartoony nature shine through.

—The game is simple to learn, easily able to be taught in a minute or two.

—The game scales exceedingly well with larger player counts. In fact, it excels in direct proportion to the player count, with larger groups adding to more unpredictability and mischief.

—Players can expect to have more control over the outcome than many other card games.

—Portable enough to be pocket-stowed.

Any flukes for us?

—There was one bit of information that I seemed to find missing from the initial rule set, namely where it is exactly that banana cards go when drawn. This is something that I had to infer since it wasn’t directly stated, but it would be nice to have this officially cleared up before launch.

—I am not sure why the recommended player age is 14+ on BGG or on the prototype (I received a prototype for Bananarchy, so some things may be subject to change). It can easily be enjoyed by those a good deal younger, though your mileage may vary depending on player ability and reading comprehension.

Other than that…no really big and glaring downers for us. Which again, I would probably attribute to a better sense of control when compared to other card games.

Those of you looking for more fun than a barrel of monkeys would be wise to check out Bananarchy. It is easily superior to quite a lot of the more mainstream card games out there, and anyone looking for something new and exciting to try in the realm of card games would be wise to look into this portable little treasure.

After reading Jazz’s review, if this sounds like a game for you at the time of this posting Bananarchy will be going live on KICKSTARTER around Tuesday 19 May. Check it out and follow along here so you can back it HERE on Day 1.

We’ve opened up a community discussion where you can share your rating, thoughts, or a mini-review:
👉 Join the discussion HERE!