Game summary:
A game for 1 – 4 players
Play time 30 – 45 minutes
Designer: Neil Kimball
Artist: Zoé Plane
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Unboxing
This very large box contains the following components:
1 Game Board
1 Fence Token
1 Scoreboard
1 First Sheep Token
4 Sheep Tokens
4 Wink Tokens
4 Pillow Tokens
40 Zzz Tokens
1 Nightmare Token
1 Web Token
30 Dream Tiles
50 Sheep Cards
30 Nightmare Cards
3 Nightmare Reference Cards
2 Pillow Reference Tiles
1 Rulebook
here you see an example of the board with the sheeps, the Nightmare token and a couple of the Dream tiles.
Let’s get it to the table
Place the board in the middle of the table and then place the Fence in the Game board between the 10 and 1 spaces.
Place the scoreboard near the game board, find the pillow reference tile that corresponds with the number of players in the game and place this above the scoreboard.
Each player chooses a color and collects all the game tokens of that color (so 1 sheep, 1 wink, 1 pillow and 10 Zzz tokens). All players place their sheep token in front of them, their Wink token on space 0 of the scoreboard and their pillow on Space 40 on the scoreboard.
Decide with all the player which Nightmare you’re going to use. It is your first game then I would recommend to use the Nightmare Wolf. Set the reference card for the chose Nightmare near the scoreboard and place the Nightmare token in the middle of the game board.
Form a deck by shuffling together all of the chosen Nightmare’s cards with the Sheep cards and remove any number of cards that are intended for a higher number of players. When playing a 2-player game, use only cards that are marked with a 2, in a 3 player game you can use the cards with a 2 and 3 and when playing with 4 player you can use all of the Sheep cards.
Shuffle the 30 Dream tiles and place them in a deck face-down near the scoreboard. Reveal the top Dream tile and place it on space 5 of the game board, reveal the next tile and place this one on space 10. The reveal 4 Dream tiles and create the Dream tile market and place them near the scoreboard.
Whoever went to sleep the earliest last night becomes the first player, that player receives the First Sheep token.
Now we’re ready to play!
Sheepy Time is played in 2 phases;
The Racing phase and
The Resting Phase.
In the Racing phase players will play cards to move around the Game board and collecting Winks. In the Resting Phase the players will add new Dream tiles to the board and prepare for the next round of racing.
Racing Phase;
This phase take turns in order starting with the first player, each turn contains 4 steps.
1 Play a card
The active player choose 1 card from their hand to play and resolve it
Most of the cards will move a player’s sheep token a certain number of spaces. To move a player moves around the game board in a clockwise direction, starting with space 1 if that player’s sheep token isn’t already on the game board. When you end your movement on a space with a dream tile containing 1 or more Zzz tokens, you can use it this dream tile (step 2).
Some card will give players also an option to catch Zzz tokens. To catch a Zzz token a player places 1 of their Zzz tokens on any dream tile, if a players chooses to catch one but all of their tokens are already on the board they may move a token from any dream tile to a different one. Some cards allow players to catch multiple token, when using this card a player may choose to place all of the tokens on a single dream tile or divide them among multiple dream tokens.
2 Use a dream tiles
If a player lands on a space with a dream tile containing 1 or more of that players Zzz tokens that player may remove 1 token to their supply and use the ability of that dream tile.
When you already have an infinite token on that tile then it can never be discarded or moved from that tile. When you land on a dream tile with an infinite token, you can use the ability without removing any tokens from that dream tile.
3 Resolve fence crossing
When during your turn you have to cross the fence between spaces 10 and 1, you have to perform the following steps:
1. You gain 5 winks
2. You decides whether you would like to continue taking turns this round or call it a night and retire for the round.
Crossing the fence can only be done in a clockwise direction, whenever a dream tile ask you to do so then you stay on space 1.
When you call it a night, you place your sheep token in front of you and discard your hand. You can no longer take any actions until a new Racing Phase begins. When you’ve call it a night your save from the Nightmare for the rest of this Racing Phase.
4 Draw Cards
Once you’ve completed the steps 1 till 3 and you didn’t call it a night, you can draw cards from the deck until you have 2 cards into your hand.
When during your turn you draw a Nightmare card, you must reveal and resolve the instructions on it. Once you’ve drawn for your turn, you passes to the next player in clockwise order.
Resting Phase;
During this phase all the players have an opportunity to dream up new strategies by adding new dream tiles and Zzz tokens to the game board.
Beginning with the player that has the First sheep token and continuing clockwise. Each player chooses 1 of the 2 options;
1 add a new dream tile to the board; choose 1 of the 4 face-up dream tiles in the market and place it on any empty space of the game board. The bottom right corner of the tile will instruct the player to either place 3 Zzz tokens or 1 Infinite token on that dream tile. After this is done, you refill the market with a new tile. When all the 10 spaces already have dream tiles, you can’t choose this options.
2 catch 2 Zzz tokens onto dream tile; place 2 Zzz tokens onto dream tiles. You can divide them in any way.
When every player has chosen an option, you continue to the next Racing Phase.
Nightmare
When you draws a Nightmare card you immediately reveal it and resolve the instructions on the card.
There are 2 different types of movement;
1. Move; when you have to move the Nightmare token also move the same way as a sheep but he doesn’t use the dream tiles.
2. Jump; When a cards instructs the Nightmare to Jump, the Nightmare directly moves to the new space. The players that are on the exact space they will be scared.
– When you’re sheep is scared by the Nightmare, you knock over your sheep token to its side. – When your sheep is already scared, it wakes up. When this happens, the following steps occur;
* Place your sheep token in front of you
* They return their wink token to the 0 space on the scoreboard
* They discard their hand
Players who wake up during their turn, take no further actions during this Racing Phase.
If the Nightmare crosses the fence, all player who haven’t been woken up or called it a night, immediately wake up and the Racing Phase ends.
A few examples of the dream tiles
Game ends
The game ends in two different ways:
The Racing Phase ends when all sheep have either called it a night or woken up. When the Racing Phase ends, check the scoreboard for a winner. If any player’s wink is at or past the pillow they win the game. If multiple players would win, the player that is the furthest from their pillow wins.
If none of the players has won the game, each player lowers their pillow on the scoreboard based on their placement in collected winks per round.
The player whose pillow is on the highest number takes the first sheep token. Once scoring is completed, players reset the board as follows, all players place their sheep tokens in front of them. Return the Nightmare to the center of the game board. Return all the cards that were played, discarded and in the hand of the players and shuffle them into a new deck. After this the game moves to the Resting Phase.
A couple examples of the cards with the sheeps. Aren’t they cute?
A couple examples of the cards with the nigthmares. I hope you can sleep after this 😉
Final Conclusion & rating:
Weight: 2 / 5
Replayability: 8
My rating: 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲 🎲
Set up of the game
Setting up Sheepy Time is not a lot of work but because it contains all different and separate game components. Because of the explanation in the game rules it does seem like a lot more work but that is because everything is well and clearly explained. There are clear references from the explanation to images of how and where to place something.
The only downside I find is that everything is separate on the table, I remain a real fan of a standard game board (in any shape or size) or a playing mat. But setting up the different boards does not take much time, in the beginning you will have to shuffle all the cards well because the cards are double in each type, but after a few plays this is not a problem anymore. Each player gets his or her own color cushion, sheep etc. and that makes it very nice to see.
Quality of the components
As with other games from AEG, the quality of the games is top notch! The game looks at first glance like a cozy game by the colors used and the clouds but the game itself is slightly more exciting than it looks. You have to connect certain parts to the game board and even then everything looks good and it all fits. The wooden parts in the game are very well thought out and make playing a lot more fun!
As you may know, I’m a fan of inserts when they’re really great! First I thought that this was an excellent insert but after a couple of times I really missed something in the box. Maybe already created for an expansion? But anyway, everything fits great in this insert!
The graphics on the cards look really super nice! The nightmare cards are real nightmares, I hope I’ll be able to sleep afterwards ;-). If I can’t fall asleep, I will definitely count the sheep on the cards. These look very nice and cute! You can really tell that this was well thought out.
Overall impression of the game
Sheepy Time is a push-your-luck game so you have to like those type of games. As mentioned earlier Sheepy Time looks cozy at first, but when you start setting up the game and playing it you quickly end up in a nightmare. No, not because the game is bad but nightmares come to mind while playing. The game is very nice but I must say the rules are clearly explained but this could have been better. I really had to set up the game a few times and read the rules well before I got the hang of it and could explain it to other players. The replayability of Sheepy Time is great though, there really are more than enough cards included and dream tiles so you can play the game very many times without having the idea and actually knowing what is going to be on the table. Also because not all dream tiles will be on the table it really makes this game replayable many times.
Sheepy Time can be played by 2 players but is really recommended to play with at least 3 players, so you have a little more interaction and that makes the game much more fun. Sheepy Time is a nice game but I don’t think we will play it often, partly because the theme will not appeal to everyone but also because it is really fun with 3 or 4 players.
I want to thank AEG for giving me the possibility to review Sheepy Time and for creating an awesome picture for the campaign. You can order Sheepy Time from the website of AEG or at you local game store.
