We take a look at Bombanana, a party game about defusing bombs with a funny twist: each player is either blind, deaf, or mute.
A New Take on the Bomb-Defusal Genre
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Bombanana introduces a brand-new spin of the “bomb-defusal” genre that builds on games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes— putting you in the shoes of three monkeys, each with impaired senses, tasked with defusing as many bombs as possible in their budding neighborhood.
The major gimmick of Bombanana is that each of the three player-controlled monkeys has an impaired sense. One monkey is deaf and unable to hear what everyone is saying, another is blind and can only feel the texture of the bomb, and the third is mute and cannot speak, but can hear all the mess unfolding during the defusal process. No monkey is perfect here, and as the town’s ever-reliable bomb-defusal experts, they have no choice but to invite us in anyway.
From the get-go, we already knew what to expect: total chaos. There wasn’t any short instructional video teaching us the basics of how bomb defusal works, apart from a “Bomb Defusal for Dummies” manual in the game’s main menu. Of course, as silly as we all are, we just winged it and headed straight into the defusal process, only to be met with constant screeching, screams, and panic from not knowing what to do.
Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil
What Bombanana does so well here is that each of the monkeys has a distinct role in the equation, all designed to create friction through their specific impairments. This setup leads to moments of pure hilarity, but also frustration as things inevitably spiral out of control over the game’s different types of bomb-defusal mini-games.
The mute monkey is in charge of reading the manual but cannot speak through the game’s voice chat or give clear instructions to the others, leaving them at the mercy of the game’s in-game gesture system. Through this, they can communicate only through simple movements like using their fingers to indicate numbers, nodding, or even flipping off their friends when things get too frustrating.
The blind monkey is the one seemingly capable of cutting wires and pressing buttons in this situation. Of course, the game knows the drama this creates, as they are stuck on a constant black screen, only able to perceive the bomb through silhouettes and gut feeling. Thankfully, the game also includes a diegetic braille system built into the bomb itself, which I found to be hilariously convenient and part of its intentionally chaotic game design.
Finally, there is the deaf monkey, who cannot hear what anyone is saying but can see the bomb clearly. They are essentially tasked with relaying instructions, interpreting whatever the mute monkey is gesturing, and identifying which buttons to press or wires to cut for the blind monkey.
Combine all three monkeys and put them together in a small van with a bomb rigged to explode, and you get a party game that probably should not be played in the middle of the night while everyone is asleep. Otherwise, you might just end up inviting an actual bomb squad to your front door.
Demo Impressions
Games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes have an entire library of rules and instructional manuals for defusing bombs, with each one becoming more complex the further you flip through the pages. Bombanana captures that same kind of disorder, albeit simplified.
In the demo we played, we only had a handful of bomb modules available across seven tiers of difficulty. The first tier is essentially the standard “cut the wire” setup, just to show us the ropes. By the fourth and fifth levels, however, things become increasingly tense, pulling us back into what feels like seventh-grade math as we panic at the sight of odd and even numbers, greater-than and less-than signs, and other directional challenges that had me and my friends screaming in collective frustration and shared trauma.
We managed to breeze through the demo’s seven levels of hell after mastering our first roles and coming up with a game plan after every embarrassing explosion. We also decided to spice things up by switching roles, just to let everyone experience the frustration each monkey carries. Safe to say we all had our own problems, but also walked away with a new appreciation for the everyday senses we often take for granted.
As we mastered each of the monkeys’ roles, it became clear that this is the kind of game that will likely find its place in Steam’s long list of party-games, perfect for friend groups with Discord channels or anyone just looking for quick bursts of fun, which my buddies and I definitely did. Bombanana feels relatively easy compared to its peers, but I can’t judge it too much just yet since it is still a demo. The manual we were given even had a few blank pages where more instructions should have been, which feels like something the full release will eventually fill in.
Bombanana as Part of Steam's Next Fest for June 2026
Bombanana is one of the games featured in Steam's Next Fest event, Valve’s showcase for up-and-coming PC games from small creators. This year’s event runs from June 15 to 22. Bombanana is not the only game we discovered on Steam with a demo. Silver Pines, which we reviewed just a few weeks ago, was part of the same lineup, as was the DragonNest spiritual successor, DragonSword: Awakening.
Bombanana is another entry in an already stacked selection, and as my buddies and I trudged through this party game’s 2 to 3 hour demo, we started to see the vision and are excited to see the full game coming out sometime in August 2026.
