Peeling the Banana

In this Death Match, manipulate and play cards from a shared deck to perfectly peel your banana.

Designer(s): XNimus	Match Type: DM (for 2 players)
Featured in: The Genius: Cosmic Banquet

DM5: Peeling the Banana

In this game, players will play cards from and manipulate a shared deck in order to perfectly peel a banana and score points.

🍌 Gameplay

The game is played with a deck of cards shared by both players. Each player is also given a board in the shape of a banana where tile cards can be played.

The deck consists of piece cards, coin cards, and special cards.

Piece cards allow you to play that piece on your board. Pieces can be rotated and/or reflected. Pieces may overlap with existing cells but you only score 1 point for every empty cell you fill.

Coin cards give you coins, which can be used at the shop that each player will visit after playing a card.

Special cards allow you to take specific actions associated with the card.

Each card can be available to both players, one player, or neither player. A card can only be played by a player it is available to. Cards that are available to neither player are removed from the deck.

Before the game starts, the deck will be shuffled and every card in the deck will be shown face up in order. To start the game, the DMO will select which player takes the first turn. The player that goes second starts the game with 2 coins.

🧠 Your Turn

At the start of your turn, gain 1 coin. Then, you must play one of the top 3 cards in the deck that are available to you, skipping (not discarding) any cards along the way that are unavailable to you. The card directly after the selected card will be the new top card of the deck and all cards before it will be discarded.

If at any point if you are attempting to "draw" from an empty deck, all of the discarded cards will be shuffled and become the new remaining deck.

After selecting a card and playing its effect, you will visit the shop where you may choose to purchase a card or upgrade. You may make as many purchases as you want per shop visit. Cards and upgrades can be purchased multiple times unless specified otherwise.

Purchasing a card that is not in the deck or is already available to you adds another instance of that card to the discard pile where it will eventually become part of the existing deck and that card will only be available to you.

Purchasing a card that is only available to the other player makes that existing card available to both players. If there are multiple cards that apply, cards in the discard pile will be prioritized, followed by the bottommost applicable card in the deck.

Purchasing an upgrade does not add a card to the deck but will give you a permanent benefit.

👑 Winning

The game ends when a player has completely filled out their board or when both players have taken 25 turns each. Players lose points equal to the number of empty cells in their board.

The player with more points at the end of the game wins. If this is a tie, the player who did not take the first turn wins.

The winner of Peeling the Banana will stay in the game and earn 2 garnets for their victory.

The loser of Peeling the Banana becomes the fifth eliminated player from The Genius: Cosmic Banquet.

⏰ Timing

Players will have 75 seconds to take their turns plus 5 minutes of reserve time, used in 10 second increments. If you run out of time, you automatically lose Peeling the Banana.

🃏 Deck

The deck consists of the following cards at the start of the game:

🛒 Shop

The shop consists of the following cards and upgrades:

Here is an example of the board: