SNAP Review – Word-A-Melon

Don’t you love watermelon on a hot summer day? …Yes, but this isn’t watermelon. It’s Word-A-Melon!

This is a SNAP review for Word-A-Melon.

Game

Word-A-Melon is a word-crafting and memory game designed by Garrett Donner and Michael Steer. It is published by Bananagrams, who recently re-released it in this more traditional-looking box.

Art

Speaking of the box, let’s talk about the art in this game.

Everything in this game is watermelon-themed: the board, the letter tokens, and the box.

Even the rules pamphlet is green on the outside and pink on the inside!

Mechanics

Let’s talk about how to actually play this game, though.

Set up the watermelon-shaped board and get out all the letter tokens. Flip them all face down to the “seed” side, then place a seed in each space on the board. Return any leftover tokens to the box.

On your turn, roll the die and flip over that many seed tokens (3, 4, or 5). Try to make a word with only the available letters. Then take all the letters you used and add them to your score stack.

Flip over any letters you weren’t able to use – and remember where they are so you can pick them another time!

When there aren’t enough letters left to make any more words, the game is over. Whoever has the most seed tokens wins!

There are two variations in the rules, too: Letter-Up (in which unused letters are left face up, allowing for longer words and less of an exercise of memory), and Word-a-Yellin, which turns this into a speedy game to shout out the longest possible word from available letters.

Expectations

We have a kid who likes word games and a kid who likes memory games and also puzzles like Wordle. I hoped this would bridge the gap between the two.

Bananagrams games are usually quick to setup and easy to explain – whether they’re based on a food pun or not – so I expected Word-A-Melon would be some of the same.

Surprises

Word-A-Melon was pretty much what we expected. But there were a few small surprises.

It took the kids a little while to warm up to the game, but by the second or third time they played, they began to understand the strategy – not just turning over letters randomly, but trying to combine some new letters with others that they knew but which hadn’t been used yet.

It is a little disappointing to see Bananagrams move away from its signature “game in a bag” packaging. But this still isn’t a large game – and being made solely of cardboard makes it more environmentally friendly (if that’s something that you’re concerned about).

Recommended?

Do we recommend Word-A-Melon?

I’d definitely recommend it for casual family play. I especially liked playing it one-on-one, with just one of our kids at a time. For us, that provided great practice with both vocabulary and anagram-making.

You know, I think you’d love to play this with your mom sometime.

Oh yeah! She loves Scrabble, but I think this is a word game I think I could actually win against her!

In light of that, what are we going to rate Word-A-Melon?

We’re going to rate it 4 seeds out of 5.

And that’s Word-A-Melon, in a SNAP.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Word-A-Melon from Bananagrams for this review.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?