Bananarama: Raiders of the Lost Bananas (<1Mb)
For my next trick, or is that slip?! Another game with banana in the title (well, bananas are the world’s favourite fruit!) but this time with a monkey and loads of bananas in game! (There’s a different online game called Banana Rama).
Bananarama is an excellent platform game that has elements of Indiana Jones, Lode Runner and Bomberman, and deserves to be much better known. It is in fact available at several top game sites.
A species called ‘Man’ has invaded the island and is driving the resident super-intelligent monkeys to very near extinction. Dr Bombkey has taught you (a monkey of course!) how to drop bombs, but you will need to learn many other skills as well if you are to escape and get ‘man’ permanently off of your island home! And would you believe it, there are obstacles and monsters to get right in your way! (or is that up your monkey nose?!). But each level is only a couple of screens-worth or so, so you ‘shouldn’t’ have too much trouble? Or maybe your monkey needs to do an ‘Anne Robinson’ and brush up on its skills. You wouldn’t want your monkey to be the missing link now, would you?!
The puzzles are nicely graded and should keep you well-occupied, but not hopefully scratching you head (or other monkey bits!) too much as to lessen enjoyment as you play.
There are 16 levels, and 4 different zones with the added bonus of 3 skill levels to earn. You only get some abilities as you progress and some might find waiting until level 5 before you can jump as making early progress more difficult, and maybe more difficult than you would like to begin with!
But, Gee you can teach your monkey new tricks! There’s even a bonus fruit-machine (no pun!) game where you can earn new extra lives! And Gosh, bananas by the dozens!
The game runs full-screen in XP, Vista and Win 7. I did find moving the monkey on the slow side but that might have been because of having apps/a lot of browser windows/tabs open. But this would make it more suitable for young players! The keyboard controls are listed in the readme file in the installed game folder.
It might be a bit retro in today’s terms but it’s a lot of fun! Had the levels been a bit longer it might even have been good enough to have commercial success, but it’s great for a freebie!
Go get Bananarama: Raiders of the Lost Bananas!
