Banana Governance (2025)

Overview

To achieve the position of boss monkey, you need the support of the other monkeys. To achieve this, you need to rely not only on physical strength but also on something more practical bananas.You need to give the monkeys bananas generously to keep them in line, but if your own banana reserves become insufficient, they will begin to look down on you.Only the monkey who can gain the support of the most monkeys with fewer bananas can become the boss monkey. This is the beginning of banana governance (control through bananas)

Banana Governance is a drafting and auction game , playable in about 30 minutes which is played in two phases: first, players receive cards they cannot rearrange, then divide them into groups using divider cards before passing them to other players, creating a “I split, you choose” style draft. In the second phase, players use banana cards to bid across five auction rounds for monkey cards worth points, while the lowest bidder takes bird penalty cards. Final scoring multiplies the total value of remaining banana cards by the total monkey value after subtracting penalties from bird cards, rewarding players who gain strong monkey support while preserving enough bananas.