BANANAGRAMS

The tile race, for people who already know it

Build one connected grid from your tiles. Every run of two or more letters has to be a real word.
Used every tile? Call Peel — everyone draws one.
Stuck on a letter? Dump puts it back and gives you three.
When the bunch runs dry, finish your grid and call Bananas!

Spellcheck On — bad words turn red as you build Your name

Drag a tile, or tap it and tap where it goes. ·

Room

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Scan the code or send the link. Up to four players.

The rules

The goal

Use up every tile you hold by building them into one connected crossword grid. There are no turns — in a multiplayer game everyone builds at the same time, as fast as they can.

Your grid

Words read left to right and top to bottom. No diagonals, no backwards.
It must be one connected block. No floating islands off on their own.
Every run of two or more letters counts as a word — including the ones you make by accident where words cross.
Two-letter words are fine.
No proper nouns, no abbreviations, no hyphenated words.
You can tear the whole thing apart and rebuild it any time. Nothing is ever locked down. This is the part that makes it not Scrabble.

The three moves

Peel — the moment your rack is empty, everyone draws one tile, you included. So finishing first doesn't win — it speeds the game up for everybody.
Dump — stuck with a Q and no U? Put one tile back and take three. Costs you two extra tiles, and only affects you.
Bananas! — once the bunch is empty and your rack is clear, call it. Your grid gets checked.

How it ends

When the bunch has fewer tiles left than there are players, nobody can draw again. From then on, the first person to use every tile in a valid grid and call Bananas! wins.

If their grid turns out to have a word that isn't real, it's a rotten banana — they're out — and all their tiles go back into the bunch, which can start the game up again for everyone else. So calling Bananas on a grid you're not sure about is a real gamble.

Spellcheck

On — bad words turn red the moment you make them. Friendly, good for a mixed table, good for kids.

Off — no help at all. You find out whether your grid holds up only when you call Bananas. This is how the game works on a kitchen table, and it's the better game once everyone knows what they're doing.

Tiles

144 tiles, no blanks. Letters aren't worth points — a Z is exactly as valuable as an E, which is to say: only as valuable as your ability to get rid of it.