Keep Your Fruit Close!

Can you bring more fruit to the trading post than your fellow monkey friends, or will the gorilla catch you in the act and snatch back all that stolen fruit? Let’s find out!

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What Is It?

🎯The Goal of the game is to have the most points (by collecting the most fruit)
⚙️Pick Up and Deliver – Each turn, new fruit will come out on the trees. When a tree is full, and a player lands on it with their movement, they can collect that fruit for points. In order to bank that fruit and keep it safe, players can visit the trading post in the center of the board
⚙️Push Your Luck – Players can try to gather as much fruit as they want before heading to the center (or they can choose never to go to the center), but if they get caught by the gorilla, they must discard any unbanked fruit

Who Is It For?

👥2 to 4 Players – Fine at any count, pretty similar
👥Ages 6 & Up – Very small ruleset, approachable for all ages
👥Fans of random draws, pick up and deliver, and a little push your luck
👥Players who don’t mind the potential to lose points

PROS

🟢Aesthetics – Cute art
🟢Components – Nice player/gorilla pieces
🟢Rules are clear – very approachable for a wide audience
🟢Turns are quick/snappy and smooth
🟢Doesn’t overstay its welcome

CONS

🔴I wish the player pieces/gorilla were printed on both sides
🔴Luck of the draw – While you may be able to push your luck at times, sometimes you’ll get caught by the gorilla the turn right after you picked up fruit, and just immediately lose it. And sometimes a player will draw a bunch of gorilla tokens in a row, which can just be a little less exciting when resolving
🔴While turns are snappy, the beginning of the game can feel a bit slow, since you can’t collect fruit until trees start filling up

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Final Thoughts

It’s light with a cute and colorful theme. It can feel a bit “mean” in a way, if a player is losing their fruit more often than others, but that comes back to players choosing whether or not to try pushing their luck in their plays. Though, again, sometimes, you just get unlucky and pick up fruit only to immediately lose it before you get another turn. That can happen at any player count, but I think I see it more often with the full 4. If you don’t mind some luck, and you want a light, quick game, you might have a better time than I did.

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Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 5/10

Designer – Reiner Knizia
Artist – Cesar Ayala
Publisher – Analog Game Studios
Website
Kickstarter