Is BOMBANANA! worth it?
Short answer: yes if you have two friends who will actually show up, and the 3% of reviewers who say no have one fair point — the campaign is short. Here are the real numbers, what players praise, the four complaints that keep showing up in negative reviews, and the math at $7.99.
For scale: the demo pulled more than six million players during Steam Next Fest in June 2026, so the launch audience was always going to be loud. What matters is that the ratio held after launch — the game sits in Steam's Overwhelmingly Positive band, which very few releases ever touch, and it got there with 1,880 reviews in ten days, not 50.
What the 97% are actually happy about
Not "cute monkeys." Reading through the reviews, two things come up over and over.
First, the lobby browser. One of the most-liked positive reviews is essentially a thank-you note to the devs for shipping complete: campaign, Endless, Custom and a public lobby browser all on day one, with no need to add strangers on Steam first. Another reviewer with no regular trio describes queuing into a lobby, getting a "perfect team of 3 monkeys," and clearing nine levels with two people they'd never met — gesturing the whole way.
Second, the role system does what it promises. The blind monkey touches but can't see, the deaf monkey sees but can't hear, the mute monkey holds the manual but can't speak, and the game refuses to give you a callout menu. Groups invent their own sign language under a timer, and that invented-language moment is what people screenshot and clip. The Steam page calls it "anti-friendslop," which is marketing, but the reviews back the sentiment.
The 3%: four complaints that keep showing up
The negative reviews are short, recent, and oddly consistent. Grouped, they come down to four things.
1. It's short — and they have numbers
Several negative reviews, from players with roughly two hours logged, say they finished the 30-level campaign in one evening and want more. One calls Endless "just repetition of the same modules with rising difficulty." If your group treats a co-op game as one-and-done, this is the complaint that will apply to you.
2. Mouse and controller jank
More than one review describes a mouse-sensitivity problem — one says the slowest setting feels like a gyroscope — and a settings option labeled "mouse volume" that they couldn't make sense of. Another points out controller button prompts that show keyboard keys, and gestures that take fiddly stick-work to select. None of this breaks the game; all of it shows up before the fun does.
3. The deaf-monkey role is exhausting — and one accessibility complaint worth reading
The deaf monkey reads everything and hears nothing, and reviews from that seat describe it as tiring in a way the other two roles aren't. More seriously: one deaf player's review says the game was a blast until Level 8, where their group hit what they describe as an accessibility wall. It's one review, not a pattern yet, but if anyone in your trio is deaf or hard of hearing it's worth reading the recent negative reviews before buying.
4. First-encounter modules are where trios stall
The mute monkey is the only one who can read the manual, and communication only flows one way. On a module nobody has seen before, the manual-holder can't describe what the others don't know exists — one review calls first-time modules "impossible to communicate accurately." In practice groups eat a bomb or two per new module, then get it. Whether that's "puzzling" or "bad guidance" depends on your table.
The $7.99 math
Steam price checked September 12, 2026. Launched Sep 2 at $4.95 (38% off); that launch discount has ended and there's no active deal today.
Two hours of campaign for $7.99 is, per hour, worse than most story games and better than a movie ticket. But a party game's value isn't the campaign — it's whether the group comes back. Endless and Custom modes are the actual product for a trio that plays weekly; for a group that will run the campaign once and shelve it, the negative reviews' "wait for a sale" is reasonable advice. The free demo those six million Next Fest players used is no longer listed on Steam (checked September 26, 2026), so the only way to try it now is to buy it.
Buy it or skip it
Buy it if:
- You have two friends who can play at the same time (or you're fine with lobby-browser strangers)
- Your group likes shouting, inventing gestures, and blaming each other — the miscommunication is the product
- You'll actually replay: Endless and Custom are where the game lives after level 30
Skip it if:
- You want a solo or two-player co-op game — there is no mode, no bots, no scaling
- You measure value in campaign hours and won't replay
- Controller-first player: the prompts and gesture controls get consistent complaints
- Anyone in your trio is deaf or hard of hearing: read the recent negative reviews first (see complaint #3)
FAQ
- Is it worth it with only two players? Yes, via the public lobby browser — the third slot fills in seconds and positive reviews specifically praise stranger teams. You just lose the shorthand you'd have with a real friend.
- How long is it really? 30 campaign levels, about two hours for a competent trio. Endless scales forever; Custom lets you set bombs, timers, modules, hazards and allowed mistakes.
- Any discount right now? No — $7.99 as of September 12, 2026. The $4.95 launch discount ended after launch week.
- Mac? Yes, the Steam page lists Windows and macOS. No consoles at launch.
The full game page — roles, modes, and how the information split works — is in our BOMBANANA! overview. The current price is on the Steam store page — the demo is not there any more.