BOMBANANA! Blind Monkey Guide
The Blind Monkey is the only player who can physically touch the bomb โ and the one who can see almost nothing. You stare at a near-black screen, perceive the bomb through silhouettes and touch, and read the bomb's Braille markings by feel. Every wire you cut, button you press and key you type is done on trust, following instructions you cannot double-check. It is the most hands-on role in the game and, in Chaos rounds, the busiest.
What You See
- A simplified, near-black view of the bomb โ no colors, no readable text on the screens.
- Silhouettes and shapes: panels, cables, buttons, switches read as forms, not labels.
- Braille dots you read with your fingers (see below).
- In some setups you hear the countdown timer clearly โ you carry the clock.
What You Own
- Every physical input: cutting wires, pressing buttons, typing keypad digits, flipping switches, sliding sliders.
- Braille reading โ nobody else can read the raised dots, so you are the sole reporter of those numbers.
- The countdown awareness โ you often have the best (or only) sense of how much time is left.
You cannot see colors, so you depend on the relay to translate everything visual. The good news: you can hear and speak, so you can ask for confirmation in real time.
Braille by Touch
Braille appears inside Direction, Calculator, Switch and Piano panels. The rules:
- Read the dots and report plain numbers โ never guess what a dot pattern "probably" means.
- The Direction table uses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 โ there is no 8. If a pattern feels like an 8, re-read it before anyone presses anything.
- If a dot is ambiguous, say "unknown" and re-scan. A guessed number can cascade into a failed ENTER.
The Clock and Chaos
- You carry the timer. A useful habit: announce "under a minute" / "under 30" so the Mute knows when to switch from full description to targeted questions.
- Chaos rounds give you a hazard to babysit (the rising slider) while solving. Rule: stabilize the danger first, then re-confirm the panel's current state before acting on any older answer. The team's correct lookup from before the interruption may already be stale.
How to Ask for Great Callouts
You are the consumer of the relay, so you get to shape it:
- Ask for positions, not just colors. "Cut yellow" is useless if you cannot see which cable is yellow. Ask for "third from the left."
- Ask for one action at a time. "Press 5" beats "press the button that resolves the calculator."
- Repeat every instruction back once. The repeat is the error check, not wasted time โ it is how the Mute hears what their gesture actually produced.
- Say "wait" freely. A clean reset protects the remaining modules; panic inputs stack mistakes faster than calm retries.
Common Blind Mistakes
- Acting before the confirmation. The single most common first-run explosion is touching the bomb before the Deaf has finished the callout and the Mute has confirmed the branch.
- Guessing a Braille number instead of waiting to feel it properly.
- Reusing an old answer after a wrong input changed the light, number or stage. After any change, re-read the panel from scratch.
- Trying to solve the puzzle. You are the hands, not the brain. When you start reasoning about the manual, you stop reporting the state the Mute actually needs.
Best first role for a nervous beginner? Many sources recommend exactly this one: you follow short, confirmed commands, and the game is most forgiving when a calm player is on the bomb. Rotate off it as you get comfortable.