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At the start of play, you have a personal island that looks something like this:
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On a turn, you (generally) move one of the fruit baskets to start, collecting as many fruit of the type moved as the number of spaces it moved. Then you can use any fruit you've collected to fulfill a boat order, scoring the points listed and removing that boat from your island to open that space for future basket movement; alternatively you can use the fruit to purchase business tiles to score points in some manner or get another thing that you can move at the start of turn, either an ice cream cart or an upgraded fruit basket.
You start slow, collecting only one or two fruits at a time, but by the end of the game, your island might look like this:
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This is an extreme case from one of the six games I've played on a review copy from Capstone Games, which is releasing the game in North America, but it's possible: All but one boat removed, and the island developed to the point of stagnation.
Juicy Fruits rewards efficiency and planning, with each player (mostly) doing their own thing on their own island to the best of their ability. You compete against others to acquire business tiles, but often the competition feels more like a buffet, with one tile being nearly as good as another, especially in the four-player game.
With two players, you have only ten (random) business tiles available, so you might have only a single ice cream cart, upgraded fruit basket, or 2x2 development, which means that if you miss out, you have to settle for something else; with four players and twenty business tiles on the board, you often have near duplicates available, creating less urgency to buy something, which means you probably spend more time clearing boats from your board to set up long empty rows in which to race those fruit baskets.
My side of the table = unorganized fruit
The game's clock is determined by the number of business tiles purchased, so if people rush to buy early, you potentially have a Dominion-style cascade in which others worry about the game ending before they can transform their fruit into something grander, so they buy, too. Purchase too early, however, and the "provinces" might clog your "deck", making your engine sputter.
The game includes a "juice factory" expansion that's visible above the score track in the preceding image, with this factory adding a tad more interaction. After moving and spending fruits, you can choose to spend fruit — sometimes fruit of your choice, sometimes 1-2 specific fruits — to move 0-2 tokens across one arrow in the factory. This additional scoring option ups the challenge of being efficient because you have one more factor to consider with each basket movement: Can you grab or stockpile the fruit required to keep your tokens moving? (I have no clue what these tokens represent. Your ability to control the assembly line? A testament to your ability to squeeze fruit really, really hard? No matter...)
To see lots of examples of play, the various business tiles, an overview of the solo mode, and a close-up of those sweet wooden bits (complete with sound effect), check out this overview video:
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