I was very doubtful as to whether snatching pears would be a good game. It gives exploding kittens vibes (and that game shall have no place on my table). However, there’s actually traditional pick-up pears and then the snatching pears variant.
Published by Happy Yeti games who sent me a copy to play, which I’ve gifted as a Christmas present to some non-boardgamers because I suspect they’ll love it! If you’re a Euro gamer and only want that heavy thinky, I need to plan every turn and plan 8 turns in advance. Snatching pears isn’t for you, but what snatching pears is is simplicity, fun, and familiar. It’s that familiarity that had us playing pretty much straight away (although the last setup step was a surprise to the other players).
Place pears in the middle and then shuffle up the tiles around the centre. On your turn, turn over two tiles if they match names and colours. They are yours, and you get another turn! If they match colours, everyone can attempt to grab a pear from the middle of the table, with those fastest getting a point, the tokens are then put back. If they’re no match, they go back to the table. Repeat until all the tiles are taken.
That’s it. Nothing complicated, rules on a postcard.
Obviously, if you’ve got a good memory(or better than others around the table), you are probably likely to win every time… I’m sorry, I won 4 games in a row and won most of the tiles. However, snatching pairs works for me and my nonboardgaming friends. Now, it might not work for you or your non board gaming friends, but we had fun and were going to gift multiple copies this Christmas.
As you know, I rate games on a scale of:
Buy or play
Wait for sale or play if you like game XYZ
Avoid
Snatching pairs is a game that, after playing with different groups of non boardgames, I’ve enjoyed. However, I’m never going to take it to game night, as I can’t see it being either requested or enjoyed. Now, maybe I’m making a big assumption, and actually, my local board gamers want to play. But I don’t think if I gave Snatching Pears a “buy or play” recommendation, that would be fair because it’s not for the vast majority of those that read my blogs. But maybe you’re in need of a new game to play with nonboardgamers that’s, familiar and can be played by all age groups. I’m not convinced it’s a party game, though (as it says on the box).
I realise I haven’t given Snatching Pears a recommendation, and I think I can give it a “buy it for non boardgamers, if they want a new game this christmas” don’t force a non-traditional game upon them that they might not like, go familiar, fun and simplicity. However, I wouldn’t recommend adding it to a personal collection to sit alongside say Terraforming Mars, Twilight Imperium 4 and Revive.
Disclaimer: We’ve ordered and bought two more copies of Snatching Pears to gift this Christmas.
