I bought Pies for a lot of reasons. First, I like trick-taking games. Second, I’ve really been appreciating small-box games that I can bring to people’s houses or out on our adventures without having to haul a whole separate bag. Third, the designer, Matthias Kramer, is also the designer of one of my favorite games, Glen More II, so I was quite intrigued to see what he could do with a small-box card game.

And probably the biggest reason I bought Pies is because Allplay sold it for $3.14 on March 14th. I do love me a good deal.

Now, I said above that I love trick-taking games, but I’d argue that Pies is not really a trick-taking game. It’s more of a tricky card game.

In Pies, there are three rounds, and each round has its own deck of cards. Each round, you’ll deal out all the cards to all the players and then, turn by turn, place a single card face up on the table. After everyone has placed one card, you’ll determine who played the highest number. They get the first-player token. The person who played the second-highest value gets the second-player token, and so on, all the way down to the player who played the lowest value card, who gets the last-player token.

Once player order has been decided, the person who played the highest-value card gets to take any one of the face-up cards and place it in front of them, creating a tableau. Then the next player does the same, and so on down the line. The last player takes the final card on the table plus one plum card as compensation for their poor showing.

Many of these cards will have a special action on the top, and when you take a card with a special action, you must perform it immediately. That can be anything from stealing a card from another player to gaining pie tokens, which you can use on future turns to increase the value of your card. Or it might be taking the dog token and placing it in front of you, protecting you from those dirty fruit thieves.

The other thing that can appear at the top of these fruit cards is a recipe, which is how you score points and ultimately win a game of Pies.

At any time when you take a card from the table, you can then fulfill a recipe, or make a fruit mix. To do so, you’ll take one of the cards in your tableau that has a recipe on top and discard cards from your tableau that match the requirements shown on that recipe.

These recipes might ask for two or three of one type of fruit, two matching pairs of fruits, or even five completely different fruits. The recipe card itself can be part of the fruit mix, but it doesn’t have to be. If you use a recipe card with fruit on it but don’t include that fruit as part of the mix, you still have to discard all the cards that make up the fruit mix plus the recipe card itself. So it’s slightly more efficient if the recipe card is actually contributing fruit to the recipe you’re completing.

And that’s largely the whole game. You’ll play cards, take cards, trigger special actions, and make fruit mixes. At the end of three rounds, you’ll reveal your fulfilled recipe cards, count up your points, and whoever has the most points is the winner.

I think the first point to make here is that the fruit artwork is really beautiful. It’s very reminiscent of the kind of art that adorns Wingspan cards, or the tree artwork in Arboretum, or the artwork that adorned my grandmother’s porcelain bowls. It’s just quality, real-life fruit artwork.

The gameplay is nicely interactive, but in the mean way where you’re actively undoing what other players did on their turns. Because you play a single card each round, having a card stolen from you feels pretty punishing. It’s not the kind of interaction that I particularity enjoy. I do enjoy the tension of the card play, though. Trying to reserve certain cards so you can play them at the moment you can use their abilities for full effect. Or, waiting until you’re last in player order so you can play the card you really want to take into your tableau when you can be certain you’ll pick first.

I don’t think Pies shines at 3 players, however. There were not many Dog cards, so one player just had immunity from being stolen from for the majority of the game. Unsurprisingly, that player won that game. But the player who steals the most is certainly not guaranteed a victory. The player who manages to actually fulfill their pie recipes is the winner, as ending the game with a tableau full of fruit will give you nothing but fruit flies at the end of the day.

There was a fair amount of luck in Pies, whether you’re gifted the cards that you want, or if you have the opportunity to snag any recipes when it’s time to pick cards. Of course what often feels like luck is other players conspiring against you to get the good cards for themselves. I think as players get more and more familiar with the cards, you’ll be able to make some clever plays, but most of the score will come from snapping up the right card at the right time.

At the end of the day, we enjoyed Pies, but not as much as some other trick taking games, such as The Crew or NYET!. Especially at 3 players where 3 Witches absolutely shines. The card play is a little too thoughtful to be a pub game, but if you’re really into trick taking games and want something to end a board game night with, Pies is the perfect gaming dessert.