[h3]While it has appealing graphics and natural ambiance, Berries Challenge is a hollow, pointless exercise to click and drag produce to a basket, and then trek back to your truck. There's no progression, no challenge, and most importantly, no fun to be had.[/h3]
[i]Berries[/i] represents one of the latest iterations of Steam shovelware, likely cobbled together with easily obtainable assets and little to no care for the user experience. The game's starting screen serves as both a flimsy tutorial and an upgrade menu, telling you each berry's value and teasing you with things to buy to presumably make better gains. But, spoiler: They don't really do anything.
Upon clicking start, you'll be spawned in a dense woodlands, with nothing but a basket. You must click and hold this basket as you walk around in search of brightly colored foliage with tiny berries underneath its leaves. This miracle plant can spawn all four varieties of berries at once, luckily for us. Clicking on a berry will pluck it, after which you can put it in the basket or eat it. Eating it is meant to serve the purpose of restoring stamina in hardcore mode, but--big surprise--they don't. Not only do you run the risk of depleting your stamina after eating a berry, you are also plastered with blinding hue effects. These berries are actually drugs!
Returning to the truck is how to cash out your run, and with your newfound wealth you can buy a bigger basket, a knife (that does nothing but add a passive point multiplier), stones to create trails if you venture out too far, a horn, and a bear. I mean dog. But it's a bear. The horn teases us about enemies in the game (wolves), but I couldn't find a single one. The bear-dog points you in the direction of bushes. And that's about it. None of these are necessary.
While the game is playable, it's not fun. Speaking of which, it's littered with bugs. I lost count:
[list]
[*]The game loses focus each time you start, making the mouse unresponsive. Try clicking over the black text box to continue.
[*]You can clip or run off the map and get stuck in infinite freefall
[*]If you try resetting a run, the truck randomly stops prompting exit. To be safe, you must exit to menu each attempt.
[*]Not a single berry restores stamina
[*]No objects (besides the truck) have collision. You can phase through the trees
[*]Berry bushes spawn in across the map after starting. Meaning, you'll see them pop in out of nowhere as you begin to search
[/list]
TL;DR - Overpriced asset flip with easy achievements. Get it if you're a collector, but only if discounted all the way. Otherwise, pass. Consider all of the challenge games at risk of removal, if valve QC audits them.
[u]Achievement Hunters[/u]: Pick one of each berry. That's it. Easily obtainable in <1 min by running to the first visible bush and clicking on each berry type once.
