Honeybears is a tidy little game from Austrian company Piatnik, which, before the description by their attentive representative at Essen, looked like a Pigs Trotters clone. That it isn't is entirely down to Reiner Knizia's designing skills, because if I'd been involved, there would be a law suit pending.

Honeybears involves moving four wooden bear dobbers into various scoring zones by means a of a colourful and durable pack of cards. These depict the four bears involved -- red, yellow, blue, green -- plus some neutral cards which permit the advancement of any bear.

So, play a card, move a bear (either one or two spaces, as depicted by the honeypot icons), and prepare to absorb the unique scoring method. Rather than hold secret title to one of the bears, the cards retained when one bear has reached the plus 3 area are matched against the other zones. For example: Yellow has finished, and Jan has one "double honeypot" yellow card. This earns six points. She has two red "single honeypot" cards, which add a further four points, the red bear having finished one space behind yellow. Her other coloured cards score zero (blue and green are in the 0 area), whilst the neutral cards do not score. A bonus of six points is awarded to the player who concludes each heat, which I thought a might excessive.

If I've written this intelligibly, you will have deduced that you need to quickly move the bear in which you have a majority of cards (like Formel Eins), but retain some to secure points. Which leads me to the game's only blemish. If you are blessed with a hand of mostly neutral cards and those of a single colour, you will be firmly in the driving seat. But, played over a few rounds, any imbalance will be washed away.

Interestingly enough, Honeybears is the one game from Essen which my children have requested repeated playings, which, I think, points to its market.