“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”

~ Will Rogers

Fancying themselves spies like those in the movies, a group of little animal rascals have decided to sneak into Farmer Papa’s neighbouring orchard to gather gardening intelligence (i.e., fruit) they can use on their own farm. Competing with both open and hidden information, they must identify bluffing and beware of the others’ weapons. The player who can obtain the most yummiest fruit will be recognised as the best fruit spy!

Everyone has 8 cards, numbers 1-7 and a trick ‘Tool’ card.

There is a circle of large farmhouse boards and one features Daly, the other has Farmer Papa. They’re standees…

Each farmhouse also has a number of face-up Fruit tokens on it.

Card Play

On your turn, you play one card face down on any farmhouse…

If there is already a face-down card on that farmhouse you flip it face up, showing that card’s value. But if it happens to be a trap card, the trap and the played card are discarded.

If a card is played on a farmhouse with one of the standees it moves, one moves clockwise, the other anti-clockwise.

Once either Daly or Farmer Papa gets back to their starting spot, or everyone has played all their cards the game ends.

Resolving Cards

All cards are flipped face-up, and players take one fruit token each from strongest value or cards down to weakest (ties broken based on the adjacent farmhouse) with any remaining tokens all going to the strongest player.

Daly is also in play at this stage and counts as a 10-point token.

The farmhouse with Farmer Papa on is worth 0 points.

Most points win.

Fruit Spy Summary

Fruit Spy is a nice little game that’s very straightforward, very cute and easy to teach. I’m not sure about tactics though… Or how to play better or even if you can plan anything at all…

Not 100% sure about replayability either… I doubt I could convince anyone who played it to play it again.

I’ll try it with a different group and see but right now even though I feel it’s nice and fun,  it’s way down the filler list.

Jesta ThaRogue