Fruit Fight

About this board game

Fruit Fight is a press-your-luck card game for 2–5 players that plays in about 20 minutes. Draw numbered cards to build your score, steal matching cards from opponents, and decide whether to stop or push your luck.

On your turn, reveal a card from the deck and place it in front of you. If you wish, you can steal all cards of the same number that are currently in front of other players. After every draw, you must choose: stop and protect your gains, or draw again in search of more points.

The danger comes when you reveal a number that you already have in front of you. If you have at least three cards there, all of those cards are discarded from the game, wiping out the gains you were building during that turn. Timing your decision to stop is just as important as finding valuable cards.

• 90-card deck: eleven cards each numbered 1–5, and seven cards each numbered 6–10.
• Stealing: take opponents’ cards that match the number you draw, if you choose.
• Scoring: cards are placed face down in personal score piles, then their values are added at the end.

At the start of a turn, any cards still in front of you move into your personal score pile face down before you begin drawing again. When the draw pile is exhausted, everyone scores the cards remaining in front of them as well. The player with the highest total wins.

Released in 2021, Fruit Fight has also been released as No Mercy and HIT!. Its straightforward rules create a tense contest between collecting more and knowing when enough is enough.