Some IPs never truly die. They rise from the grave again and again, the result of near necromantic product research and nostalgia cycles. The undisputed undead queen of the comeback is Strawberry Shortcake, wouldn’t you know? Asking someone to sing her theme song is a litmus test for how old they are—since first appearing on greeting cards in the early 70’s, she’s been revived so many times that whole generations have different memories of Straw-ba-ba-ba-ba-berry. She and her cast of friends’ appeals endure. She’s sweet, colorful, and greets each day with a berry glow.
Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Besties Bake Off channels all things cute and soft into a tableau-building betting game. The rules are simple enough to play with a wide range of ages, but have enough strategy and decision-making to keep you on your toes. If you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to stay in a cake made of strawberry, or you just want to see what makes her so easy to resurrect time and time again, take a bite out of Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Besties Bake Off, a card game by for 2-5 players.
Gameplay Overview:
The goal of Berry Besties is to build the best shortcake card tableau. Players draft cards from a central market to build a 4×4 grid in front of them. Each card in the deck features a number, one or two characters, and one or two ingredient symbols. When players are building their card tableau, they get points for each matching character in a row, and each matching ingredient in a column. The numbers on the cards are used for bidding and for special recipes.
Players start the game with four cards in their hand and a number in the central market based on how many players there are, plus one. At the start of a round, everyone places one card face down in front of them. Once revealed, the player with the lowest number will get to select a card from the market to add to their tableau first, the second lowest chooses next, and so on. When everyone has selected, the cards that were bid during the turn are placed in a line and become the new market. Play continues until everyone’s hands are empty, then the market is reset, new cards are dealt, and a new round starts.
To place a card in your tableau, it either has to be horizontally adjacent to a card with a matching character or vertically adjacent to a card with a matching ingredient symbol. If the card you draft doesn’t match either, you can place it wherever you want. Recipe cards drawn at the beginning of the game give you different patterns or end goals to try to achieve with your tableau as you play, and award four extra points at the end of the game if you can complete them. When everyone has assembled their 4×4 grid, players tally their scores, and the highest number wins.
Game Experience:
There’s a solid market for games that you can play with kids that aren’t mind numbing. My eight-year-old niece might not be interested in a eurogame about industrialization or the intricacies of rail networks, but she’s also advanced past the threshold for matching tile games being able to hold her interest.
That’s where the niche fits in for games that parents and kids can both be engaged in and interested in playing together, and Strawberry Shortcake Besties Berry Bake Off ticks that box well. I played it with a table full of grown men while throwing back whiskeys and, in between coming to near blows over who got to grab the Orange Blossom card with a balloon bouquet, they were all surprised by how much fun they had. They were also surprised by how many characters they remembered, triggering deep-seated Saturday morning cartoon memories.
The art is nostalgic, colorful, and distinct enough that the cards are easy to read and interpret. Functionally, the fact that it’s Strawberry Shortcake being featured doesn’t really impact gameplay. It could be reskinned just as well to be Garbage Pail Kids, and would work just as well. This makes gameplay feel a bit generic and indistinct.
Because the cards you bid make up the next turn’s market, there is some strategy in the decision of what order to play things in. If someone else is trying to fill a row with Pupcakes, it might be worth holding onto the one in your hand, even though it has a low number, until they’ve been forced to fill that row with a lower-scoring combo. Completing your recipe card gives you a nice bonus, but it isn’t worth enough points to sacrifice the possibility of a perfect row. Players have to strike a balance and make a plan for what they want to go for if they want to make the most out of their tableau. The game goes on long enough for everyone to get the hang of it, but not so long that the repetition of the turns starts to wear on you.
Final Thoughts:
Not only is Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Besties Bake Off a well-presented artifact for fans of the property to collect, It’s a fun to play family game with just enough strategy to be interesting. The art is well executed, and the game mechanics are simple enough that I can see them being re-skinned infinitely for different properties. This game would make a great gift for nostalgia collectors and family gamers alike.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars – A sweet and sugary, but still strategic, addition to a family’s game closet.
Hits:
• Colorful, easy to interpret cards
• Strategic gameplay that’s easy enough for kids to master
• Well balanced number of turns that doesn’t drag on or play out too quickly
Misses:
• Gameplay isn’t tied to the property in a meaningful way
