Banana Blitz 2023

Banana Blitz is a trick-taking game similar to Hearts. There are four fruit-based suits numbered 1-12 plus four Fruit Salad cards. The deck is dealt out as evenly as possible and remaining cards are added to the first trick.

Players must generally follow suit and the high card of the suit led wins the trick. However, the Fruit Salad cards are numbered 13-16 and can always be played, even when a player could follow suit. They always count as the led suit.

Players start with 25 points and gain points after each hand for the banana and Fruit Salad cards. However, a player winning at least 12 of the possible 16 cards instead loses points for them. There are two special cards which double and halve the banana scoring if they are won.

The game continues until a player has either 0 or 50 points, at which point the player with the lowest score wins.

There are special rules for two or three players.