Pairs in Pears (2009)

Pairs in Pears is a word game consisting of plastic letter tiles inside a cloth bag shaped like a pear. It is from the Bananagrams (letter tiles in a banana) company.

The Pairs in Pears game involves making pairs of intersecting words that consist of tiles of all the same pattern. One word is up/down and the other is left/right, and they share a vowel or consonant. Whoever makes a certain number of word pairs first, wins. Pairpoints is a variation that includes a more elaborate scoring scheme (1 point for non-pattern-matching words, 2 points for matching words, 5 points for finishing first).

The large, ivory-like tiles show capital letters in four designs: solid, outline, lines and dots. The different patterns function like different suits of cards. As there are four suits, each containing a complete alphabet, there are a total of 104 tiles. Just as in a deck of cards, each tile is unique (e.g., the G of solids or the H of dots). This adds an interesting new dimension to play with (although the games in the rules only ask that a word consist of same-pattern letters).

The instructions emphasize the educational value of the tile set: a fun way for children to develop memory and cognitive skills while learning alphabetical order, word construction, vowels, vocabulary, rhyming, and more.