BOMBANANA! (Bomb Banana) Wires / Cable Module
The full solve in five steps
Wire (Cable) modules are usually the first thing a new team meets. The complete procedure is:
count → light → target color → position from the left → cut
- Count the cables (3 or 4 — this chooses the rule set).
- Read the active LED color on the module.
- Use count + LED to get the target cable color.
- Turn that color into a physical position (e.g. "third from the left") using the current cable order.
- The Blind Monkey cuts exactly one wire per confirmed cycle.
Count first — 3 and 4 wires use different rules
The same LED can point to a different target depending on the cable count. A Blue light means Green with 3 cables but Yellow with 4 — so the count is mandatory and always leads the callout. A clean wire call sounds like: "Wires, top right. Four. Left to right: green, blue, red, yellow. Red LED. Waiting for the cut."
3-wire target colors
| Active LED | Target cable |
|---|---|
| Red | Blue |
| Blue | Green |
| Green | Yellow |
| Yellow | Red |
4-wire target colors
| Active LED | Target cable |
|---|---|
| Red | Green |
| Blue | Yellow |
| Green | Red |
| Yellow | Blue |
A complete three-cable solve, start to finish
Take this panel state: 3 cables, Green active light, cable order left to right Green / Blue / Yellow.
- Count and light give the rule: 3 cables + Green light → Yellow.
- Locate Yellow on the current panel: it is third from the left.
- The final call is "Third cable from the left. Yellow."
- The Blind Monkey repeats it back, gets a confirm, and cuts the third cable.
Learn this structure rather than memorising a physical slot — the cable order changes between bombs, so the position always has to be re-derived from the current panel.
Use one packet for the panel, one for the answer
Keeping the input and the answer deliberately different prevents a colour mentioned in the panel description from being mistaken for the final target:
| Packet | Contents | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Input | module → count → LED → colours left to right | "Cable. Three. Green light. Green, Blue, Yellow." |
| Answer | target colour → position from the left | "Yellow. Third from the left." |
Three partial calls that are not enough
- Only the cable colours — "Green, Blue, Yellow" gives the physical order but not the rule. The count and LED are still missing.
- Only the LED — "Blue light" is ambiguous, because 3-cable and 4-cable boards use different mappings.
- Only the target colour — "Cut Yellow" may be the correct lookup result, but is unusable to a Blind Monkey until it is converted into a position.
If the target does not fit the panel, re-read instead of improvising
A normal Cable solve produces one target colour in one clear physical position. If the solver says Yellow but the current cable list contains no Yellow, do not substitute another cable — re-check the cable count, the active light, every cable colour and the left-to-right order, then restart the packet. Repairing one field while the rest of the team still holds an older version of the panel state is how bombs get lost.
Four cables can punish a remembered three-cable answer
The easiest Cable mistake to make after learning the module is carrying a correct three-cable answer into a four-cable board. Suppose the team has learned Blue light → Green. That is right with three cables and wrong with four, where Blue light points to Yellow instead. Nothing about the LED changed — the branch changed because the cable count changed.
That is the whole reason the callout opens with "Cable. Four." before the LED or the colors. If the count is confirmed first, the manual reader cannot silently solve the wrong half of the table.
Confirm the color list one at a time
When a panel is being read for the first time, the colors are safest delivered one at a time rather than as a burst: the reader calls a single color, the manual holder signals yes or no, then the next color follows. It sounds slower and it removes the exact failure that costs runs — a color list arriving faster than it can be checked, leaving nobody certain whether the third color was called at all.
Report the position, not just the color
The manual may say "Blue," but the player touching the bomb needs to know which cable. So the final instruction is "Second cable from the left" (with the color as confirmation), not just "Cut Blue" — the Blind Monkey may not have the same visual information to identify a cable by color alone.
Repeated Cable failures are usually a relay problem
If the table is being read correctly but the cut still fails, trace where the information was lost along panel state → target color → physical position → cut. If the count disappears before the lookup, the wrong rule set is used. If the target is right but no position reaches the Blind Monkey, the solve stalls at the final handoff. If the position itself changes between players, another table lookup will not fix it — that is the moment to fix the relay and perspective language instead.
Cable is ready when the callout needs no discussion
Nobody needs the mapping memorized before moving deeper into the Campaign — the manual or the solver can carry the lookup. What should become automatic is the shape of the packet: count → light → colors left to right, then target → position → cut.
Two phrases tell you the packet is still broken. If a Cable module still opens with "How many?", the count is not leading the call, so the rule set is being chosen after the fact. If it still closes with"Which one do you mean?", the answer never became a physical position. Fix those two before adding more modules and Chaos pressure — once the team can describe the state once, get one position back, and cut without reopening the same discussion, Cable has stopped being the bottleneck.
Where the Cable module shows up
Cable is the module most teams meet first. In the Campaign it is the whole of Level 1(2:30, one module), then reappears in a combination: Level 3 pairs it with Color Slider, and Level 6 stacks Calculator + Cable + Color Slider under Pressure chaos. That first 2:30 slot is deliberately generous — it exists to let the team settle the callout while nothing else is competing for attention.
Cable keeps returning in later random and fixed mixes, so the module is never really "finished". What changes is the amount of spare attention around it: by the time Pressure and Alarm are running, a Cable read that still needs three attempts is no longer a Cable problem. See all modules for the tier each one sits in.