The new crop of games from the makers of Bananagrams: Zip-It, et al.

First they brought us Bananagrams. Last year they introduced Appletters and Pairs in Pears. This fall, they released so many new items that I feel like I am going to have to make a list:

1. Zip-It is like an accelerated version of Bananagrams, except instead of tiles, you get twelve letter cubes. And unlike in Boggle, you can turn each of those cubes and use whichever side you want. A typical time for forming those cubes into a grid of words is reported to be about twenty seconds! It sounds super-frenetic, like playing Bananagrams on a roller coaster. Zip-It comes with Weords, a small book containing game-winning weird words.
2. The 4th Bananagrams book has been released: 10-Minute Bananagrams, in which each puzzle is designed to be solved in 10 minutes or less.
3. The Bananagrams 2011 Page-a-day Calendar - perfect for your favorite Bananagrams addict.
   
   

2014 UPDATE: More recent games from the makers of Bananagrams: Bananagrams WildTiles - a new version of Bananagrams with extra monkey-themed wildcard tiles.

Also available are the French version of Bananagrams, for the family Francophile or polyglot, and the German version of Bananagrams.

UPDATE 2: The release of Oh-Spell is apparently not as imminent as I had wishfully thought. But in the meanwhile we have, coming very soon... Fruitominoes, the first non-word-game game from the makers of Bananagrams.

Article about Bananagrams, Zip-It, and Oh-Spell

A Rhode Island newspaper published an article on a talk that Abe Nathanson (the Top Banana at Bananagrams International) recently gave. There are lots of great quotes. For instance, he reveals that, while he originally wanted to have Bananagrams sets manufactured locally, that would have resulted in them being sold for seventy to eighty dollars apiece.

Best of all, there's plenty of information on the new crop of games:

Zip-It, Nathanson said, was developed to be played within an eight-square-inch area and "is almost as fast as rock, paper, scissors." It involves 24 six-sided cubes and plays like a sped up version of Bananagrams, with players racing each other to complete ten word-grids first.

The simplicity and rapidity of Zip-It, says Nathanson, would make it a great drinking game for bars.

"I suspect that at bars it will start as Zip-It and wind up as Tip-It," Nathanson said.

His latest creation is based on the traditional card game "Oh Hell." Nathanson's version, Oh Spell, is a word-based card game that substitutes font patterns for suits.

"I don't know why no one has thought of this before," Nathanson said. "With numbers you are limited, but with words, creation is infinite."

This tells us that Oh-Spell will be a trick-taking card game, which still sounds kind of like Quiddler, but we may have to wait a couple more months to find out exactly how Oh-Spell works.

Zip-It and Oh-Spell!: Two new games from the makers of Bananagrams

The makers of Bananagrams unveiled their latest creations at the American International Toy Fair this month.

Zip-It is a two player game in which each player gets 12 letter cubes (dice with letters on all sides) and then has to assemble them into a grid of words as quickly as possible. The first to finish their grid says "Zip!" and scores one point. You can keep track of the score by incrementing the two zippers built into the bag for the game pieces.

Coincidentally, I have been recently thinking that it would be neat to make a game with letter cubes, like in Boggle, except that the player would get to choose which side to use. The cube aspect of Zip-It is tantalizing. Imagine playing Bananagrams with letter cubes. I imagine that there might be a lot of head-tilting to look at cubes from the sides. If you don't like one of the face-up letters, you could just rotate it until you found a letter that you liked. But is that the fastest method? I really want to play this right now and find out!

Oh-Spell! is the first card game from Bananagrams International. It sounds somewhat like Quiddler in the sense that the cards have letters rather than numbers, and the objective is to form words. There is a twist involving the cards having suits... It's not yet clear how that will play into the game. And I have a suspicion that rather than making separate words, players will form a word grid from the cards in their hand. But at this point, that's just a rumor (which I started because I think it will make a cool game).

I will report back when I have more details on these games.

Zip-It and Oh-Spell! should be available in a few months.

UPDATE: OK, these games were not released by the summer, as I had expected. Oh-Spell has been delayed indefinitely, but Zip-It is now out. Get it while it's hot!