Gone Bananas

"In GONE BANANAS your ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO come together on a game board that confronts you with real-life situations. You take risks and develop strategies. You will experience 'the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.' But win or lose, you will know that you have been in a game!"

This is a fairly typical "special interest" roll-and-move game with a psychoanalytical theme and a couple unique twists.

As players move around the outer track, they collect ID, EGO, and WOW!/OW! (Superego) cards through square instructions and a Chance card mechanism. You use these cards throughout the game to buy BUTTONS and ZAPPERS, and to avoid penalties.

Linked at the corners of the outer track are four independent alternate routes, one each for the themes IS/EGO/SE and GONE BANANAS. While on these alternate paths you have the chance to earn a BUTTON (literally) of the corresponding color...but each path also entails risk and expense.

Some of the squares along the outer track where "Chance" cards are had can be "owned" by players by buying ZAPPERS with ID cards. Once bought, the squares are marked with one of the player's ZAPPER tokens. That player gets benefits for landing on the ZAPPER, while his opponents landing there have to give him a BUTTON or WOW! cards, and the opponent gets all his OW!s. Each ZAPPER location can be bought and re-bought (at a higher price) throughout the game.

The game ends immediately when one player has buttons of all four colors (representing a balanced personality) and more WOW!s than OW!s (representing positive self-worth...I guess).

The production value is first-class, as is the professional artwork on the nicely-mounted board. The bits are plastic and specially designed for the game - the player tokens are bananas on a little colored base. The cards are the only weak spot, small print on heavily-colored, cheapish card stock.

The double goal and constant shift of buttons might make this game a cut above the standard RaM fare. Keeping resource cards and buttons hidden would also increase the fun...and the chaos. I've had many of these low-volume specialty games pass through my thrifting hands, and this may be the first I actually try. The Freudian theme might wear thin early, but who knows, I might learn something about myself...or my mother.