BOMBANANA! (Bomb Banana) Braille Module
What the Braille module actually is
Most modules start with the Deaf Monkey reading the screen, but Braille flips that flow: the Blind Monkey is the only one who can read the raised dots by touch and report the value back to the team, digit by digit. That makes Braille the one module where the Blind Monkey originates information instead of just receiving it.
The three-monkey relay
The same four-step chain still applies, just reshaped:
- Blind Monkey feels the Braille dots and reports each number aloud, digit by digit.
- Deaf Monkey repeats those digits back — not to relay them elsewhere, but to confirm the whole team heard the same numbers (there is no screen to double-check against).
- Mute Monkey matches the reported digits against the correct manual row, cross-checked against the current indicator light color, then signals approval.
- Only then does the Blind Monkey act on the confirmed value.
Braille ownership — only the Blind Monkey reads
Player guides are consistent on one point: no one but the Blind Monkey should ever guess a Braille value, even when the answer seems obvious from context. There is no second source of truth on a Braille module — a wire module gives the Deaf Monkey a screen to check, but a Braille module gives everyone except the Blind Monkey nothing until the digits are spoken aloud.
Direction: Braille number + LED color → which way
In the Direction module, the active LED color and the current Braille number (1–9) together return exactly one direction: Up, Down, Left, or Right. The 4 LED colors × 9 Braille numbers make 36 combinations, but they collapse into five patterns because four number pairs share the same four-color mapping.
| Active LED | Braille 1 or 4 | Braille 2 or 7 | Braille 3 or 5 | Braille 6 or 8 | Braille 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red LED | Up | Right | Left | Up | Down |
| Blue LED | Right | Down | Up | Left | Up |
| Green LED | Left | Up | Right | Down | Left |
| Yellow LED | Down | Left | Up | Right | Right |
Braille 9 keeps its own row — its answers (Red→Down, Blue→Up, Green→Left, Yellow→Right) do not match any partner, so read it from its own line rather than by pattern.
Read two values, press once, then re-read
For Direction, get the active LED color and the current Braille number together — never one at a time. Enter those two values, press the returned direction once, then look at the panel again. If the module stays active, treat whatever appears next as a fresh state: read the new LED and the new Braille number from scratch rather than continuing with the previous answer.
That habit is what stops an old answer leaking into the next state — the Direction module can require several presses in a row, and each press invalidates the pair that produced it.
Soundboard: Braille number + color → 3×3 grid
The Soundboard also leans on Braille. Press buttons one at a time until one makes a sound, then read only that button's Braille number and color and press every marked 3×3 position for that state (TL, TC, TR, ML, MC, MR, BL, BC, BR). The sounding button is a key into the manual, not necessarily the position you press. The full 36-cell lookup lives in the solver — during a live bomb, search for the sound first, then resolve the grid.
What the Blind Monkey actually reports
The Blind player is feeling raised dots, not reading a number, so the report has to be built out loud in a fixed order. In recorded playthroughs you can hear players doing exactly that — counting the dots, then naming the arrangement ("two dots, one left and two right", "it's blue and it's diagonal") before anyone arrives at a digit.
Two habits make that report usable:
- Count out loud in one fixed order — same direction every time, so a repeat-back actually verifies rather than re-reads from a different starting point.
- Report the digit, not your interpretation of it. "It says five" is enough. The Mute player holds the manual and does the interpreting; the Blind player's job ends at an accurate number.
And assume it will change. A Braille value is only true for the state you are looking at — after any input, the panel can move on and the digit with it. That is why the Deaf Monkey repeats the number back immediately: it is the only chance the other two have to confirm they heard the same thing, since neither of them can see the dots.
If Soundboard feels like a memory test, your callout is carrying too much
A very common complaint is that Soundboard "has too much to remember" — one recorded player joked about needing a pencil. That reaction is a symptom, not a module difficulty: it appears when the team is trying to holdnine button positions plus a Braille number plus a colour in their heads at the same time.
The fix is to stop retaining and start writing down — out loud. Only one button sounds at a time, so the entire job is: find the sounding button, read its Braille number and colour, then press the marked cells. Nothing needs to be remembered across steps if each step is confirmed before the next one starts. If your team is still reciting the grid from memory, the Soundboard solver is the quicker reference.