Neopets Pick Your own is a simple point-and-click exploration game located in the land of Merridel. Pick Your Own is available to play once per day, and will cost 400 neopoints per game. Paying this fee gives you access to a punnet (aka basket) which can hold up to 6 items that you may come across when clicking around the fields. By playing Pick Your Own, you have the chance to receive a variety of items as well as the opportunity to earn a secret avatar. There is no time limit on how long you can spend in the fields, but you ARE limited to 20 clicks before your time is up and the game will end. Whatever you have in your basket at that point is yours to keep, so it’s important to gather wisely!

Pick Your Own Instructions

The goal of this game is to fill your basket with berries before you run out of exploration clicks.The game itself is mostly randomized, involving a basic map which shows different areas of the farm available to “explore” (click on) in order to scavenge for berries. When exploring the map, the images that show are randomly generated, and sometimes the same picture will be repeated, so pay careful attention to when you click the navigational arrows. This ensures that you are clicking on a new area each time.

Gathering In Pick Your Own

To gather an item, all you have to do is click anywhere inside of the image:

This will either bring you to a page where you find a berry, a non-berry item, or nothing at all. If an item IS found, it will automatically be added to your basket. With my first click, I found a boot, which is shown above the map and also added into my basket. You are also then given a button to leave the farm and end the game at any point, moving forward. I would not recommend this as there is nothing to gain by ending a game early… but if for some reason you need to, the option is now available.

Next, click one of the navigational arrows and repeat these steps in a new area in order to gather more items:

Here, you can see I found a half-eaten berry. At this point, I may decide that I no longer want the boot, and do not want it taking up a slot in my basket in case I find something better. In order to get rid of the boot, I simply click on it in my basket. This will cause a pop-up alert on your browser (so make sure pop-ups are enabled!) that will display the confirmation message: Are you sure you wish to discard [item]? You have the option to select [yes] or [no], and this gives you a chance to back out if you change your mind. I was certain, however, that I did not want this boot and so I proceeded to confirm the discard:

You can see that I am still in the same area of the farm, but the boot is no longer in my basket. Discarding items does NOT count against you as one of your exploration clicks! Sometimes, you will click an area of the map and not find anything at all. In this case, the following message will display:

Even though you do not gain any berries or items into your basket, this click DOES still count as one of your allocated 20 movements. Moving back to an area you already visited, likewise, will also count, and exploring an area where you already found a berry or other item will return this “nothing found” message. This is why it is important to keep track of where you have already been- going around in circles can easily waste clicks!

Ending A Pick Your Own Game

Once you have exceeded your 20 clicks, you will be automatically navigated to the end-game screen, where you are shown everything that you have collected and can potentially take with you:

In my case, I did not have enough berries to fill the basket before I ran out of clicks. Even though the game is over, you still have the option to click and discard items from your basket if you would like to. Honestly, there is not much benefit to this as junk items can easily be sold, donated, or discarded from your own inventory.

If you are satisfied with your basket’s contents, then simply click the button to collect berries and leave farm, thus completing your Meri Acres adventure. 🙂

In closing, there is generally not much profit to be made with this game- it is possible to find expensive berries, but they are very rare and require a lot of luck to discover. However, gathering berries is a quick way to get a decent amount of junk items or food to feed your neopets, so for some it may be worth the fee.

Pick Your Own Avatar

For avatar collectors, there is also an associated secret avatar that can be won:

The process is fairly simple but, again, requires a little bit of luck! In order to earn this particular avatar, you must leave the farm (either by ending the game or using up all your clicks) with 6 non-dung items inside of your basket. The best way to increase your odds at this is to discard each piece of dung as you find it, don’t wait until the end! This maximizes your chances of filling your slots with berries or (non-dung) junk items by freeing up slots as soon as possible.

Pick Your Own Prizes

The below images are a visual reference to all the items that can possibly be obtained from the farm, divided into “berries” and “non-berries” (the clover items are only available annually on the special holiday March 17… St. Patrick’s Day!). Feel free to use these charts in order to cross reference what you may or may not want to keep:

Pick Your Own Cheats

Though there are no legitimate cheat codes intentionally put into the Pick Your Own game, there are a few tricks that one can try in order to gain certain advantages.

• Pick Your Own ignores the neopets inventory limit, so even if you are carrying your maximum 50 items, everything in your basket that you end the game with will still be added to your inventory- this makes it possible to carry over 50 items with you around the site.
• It is sometimes possible to receive more than 6 items in your basket by spam-clicking a single area of the map over and over again without touching the arrows. The extra items will not display in your basket, but when you end the game they will appear in your inventory. It’s also possible that you might not get extra items and end your game prematurely, so use with caution.

Best of luck, and happy picking!