Will Ewe Keep Up? A Preview of Sheeple

Sheeple is a new party game on Kickstarter about coming up with the same answers as other players, but hopefully not too many of the other players.

Travel to Ewe-niversity and follow the herd. You don’t want to be a black sheep, do you?

Gameplay

Each player takes a sheep character and places it at the start of the board. The goal is to get from E-lamb-entary school at the start to the Graduate Ewe-niversity space at the end.

On a player’s turn, he draws a card which contains three categories to choose from. Examples of these categories are 'famous plays', 'words that start with the letter M’, or ‘if you had to design a city from the ground-up, what would you build in it?’.

Once the category has been chosen and read aloud, a one-minute timer is started and all players write down as many things as they can think of that fit into that category. Once the timer runs out, players compare lists. If exactly two players match an item, they score two points each. If three or more players match an item, they score one point each. Items that do not match score zero points. After all lists have been compared, players move their sheep a number of spaces on the board equal to the number of points they scored that round.

If you end your movement on a space on the board with a description, such as move forward five spaces or move back two, you have to follow this instruction. You can also land on a Sheeple space, which means you have to draw a Sheeple card and go forward or backward as many spaces as it instructs.

Review

Sheeple has an extremely fun sense of humor. Many, many sheep puns are scattered throughout, and we loved drawing Sheeple cards to see what the next sheep joke would be. The game feels silly and fun, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. The sheep artwork is all adorable and fits the game well.

With only a minute to work on your list, the time crunch which will often leave you desperately trying to think of an obvious answer and sometimes coming up with some pretty silly ones. The fact that you score more points if you match an item with only one other player means you are left trying to come up with something that’s obvious but not too obvious. A delicate balance to achieve which can pose an interesting challenge, particularly in some of the more difficult categories.

The game suggests several ways to make it playable for families and keep it fairly balanced for kids and adults to play together. Categories are marked to show which ones are fair for children, suggested limits are imposed on the number of items you can list in a category based on the age of the children playing, and suggestions for team play are also given.

There are quite a few spaces on the board that will move you backwards or forwards, and these can chain together (for example, a Sheeple card can send you to another Sheeple space, which could in turn send you onto a board space that moves you several spaces). You can make huge advancements this way, or be sent back a significant amount — this adds a level of randomness that some players won’t enjoy in their quiz game. But as light-hearted as this game is, this is not an issue that should be taken too seriously.

Sheeple is a fun twist on the party game genre. You’ll do some hard thinking, and it’s very satisfying to see your sheep making progress along the board the more points you score. If you want to be a sheeple, check it out on Kickstarter.

Pros: Fun sense of humor, family-friendly rule alternatives, board is a nice addition to the party game mechanics

Cons: Board spaces can lead to some randomness if not playing with rule varients

Disclosure: this preview is based on our evaluation of an unpublished prototype of the game, which is subject to change prior to publication. While a modest payment was received to expedite the review process, our thoughts and opinions expressed here are honest and accurate.