Berried Treasure Review

This is the fourth version of a game originally published in 1962 and it really shows its age. The new strange-animals-grabbing-pie theme adds nothing, other than an air of slight bewilderment, and the game is far too lucky for players to feel invested in the outcome.

On your turn, you take a pie from the end of one of the four lines of overlapping cards. If the card shows some grabby paws, you can steal cards of the same colour from another player. If the card has ‘Moar’ on it, you can take another card of the same colour, if one is available at the end of a line. Why ‘Moar’? Who knows?

There are choices in the game but few that are meaningful. It’s common for one (very moany) player to just never get a chance of a good pick and spend the game scraping around for crumbs. The two player variant is even worse as each player has access to different cards.

The one interesting part of this game is the scoring. At the end of each of three rounds, players score if they have the most, second-most or third-most of any colour of pie. Scores change each round, so pies that were valuable in the early game may give small returns later. You keep your pies from round to round, so you can benefit from a good pick for multiple turns. In addition, any players who have an equal number of one colour score nothing. In theory, this sounds like it would throw up some interesting situations, but in practice, it often means that players don’t take cards that would tie them in first place, as they just won’t score. This leaves players fighting for the lower places and stealing from each other while a runaway leader cleans up.

This game will be leaving my collection as swiftly as it entered. I can’t think of a group I’d want to pull it out with. Let’s hope there isn’t a fifth version.

Ellie Dix

PLAY IT? No

Still want to play? Find a copy here

Designer: Sid Sackson

Publisher: Restoration Games

Time: 20 minutes

Players: 2-5

Ages: 7+

Price: £20

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