
As you would immediately assume, a wild tile (the funny monkey-looking ones) can be any letter you need it to be. As you might not anticipate, until you’ve played a game or few, is what that wildness does to the game. Because, see, in the process of playing Bananagrams, you often find yourself having to rearrange your tiles. You know how when one player uses up all her tiles and calls “peel” and everyone has to take another tile from the, um, “bunch,” and that new tile just won’t fit in unless you can figure out a way to use some of the letters you’ve already so brilliantly used and mix them up, and maybe every word they’re connected to, so you can find a way to incorporate that one stupid tile into your vast, and once demonstrably brilliant assemblage; or you can just wait and hope that when someone else calls “peel” the new tile, plus the one you’ve been trying to work in, will magically give you just the letters you need; or maybe you can just “dump” that tile back into the “bunch” and draw three, yes THREE new tiles? Well, see, if one of those tiles is wild, you just might be able to substitute another tile and use that wild tile again to build another word that turns out to be not only totally, perfectly different, but also far longer, more cunning, and lexicographically brilliant. And if you happen to have two wild tiles, O, the possibilities you will find, and furthermore, O-wise, the complexity, the sheer, delightful complexity to which you will find yourself so totally heir!
What joy those little monkeys bring! What welcome opportunity to, shall we say, monkey around and around! What wonderfully new twist to it all! Major fun just when you thought the fun couldn’t get majorer.