MOTHER SHEEP (Playroom Entertainment, 2-6 players, ages 8 to adult, 30 minutes; $20)
Some animals seem to lend themselves to gaming. Think of those lovable hedgehogs
always appearing in the games from Doris und Frank. But lovability is not
restricted to hedgehogs. How about sheep? Not too
long ago, we did a feature on Wooly Bully (Fall
2003 GA REPORT). Sheep made another major character appearance in
Shear Panic (Spring 2006 GA REPORT). Now, once again, those lovable sources of
wool have become the focal point of an entertaining game by Jeb Havens: Mother
Sheep.
Mother Sheep contains a large Mother Sheep tile (placed in the center of the play area) which is randomly surrounded by 10 smaller Sheep Tiles. The 10 Sheep pawns are placed on the smaller Sheep tiles). The other components include 80 fences (and a bag to hold them), a corral board and 18 My Sheep Cards.
The smaller sheep tiles have names (Annabelle, Bob, Dusty, Francesca, Gertie, Langston, Millard, Norman, Prince and Tabitha). The My Sheep Cards are shuffled and each player is dealt one. These cards display the names of five of those sheep. It is the goal of each player to corral the five sheep named on his card. You corral sheep by fencing them in and that's the tricky part.
All fences in the game have a green back but the front of each fence is
divided into several colors. At the start, all players randomly draw three of
these fences and keep them, face down, as their own supply of "personal
fences". The first player (in keeping with the theme, the player who is
wearing the most wool according to the rules), draws three more fences from the
bag to create a "community" stock of fences. On a turn, a player MUST take one of the community fences and place it in the
play area. There are several rules for fence placement:
Any ONE unused color segment from each fence may overlap the Mother Sheep. (Mother matches ANY color.)
A placed fence must overlap either the Mother Sheep and/or another fence (or fences) already placed.
Overlapping fences MUST match colors (red on red, blue on blue etc.) but the same color segment can NOT be used twice.
No fence may touch a sheep (except the Mother Sheep)
No part of a color segment can overlap or be overlapped by a segment of a different color.
Only one sheep may be fenced in at a time and you may not place a fence that would make it impossible to fence in a sheep.
On a turn, a player may use any of his personal fences in addition to the community fence. In that case, while those fences may be placed in any order, they MUST touch each other.
When a sheep tile is completely surrounded by fences, the player placing the final fence moves that sheep token from that tile to the corral board. Should all five sheep on a player's My Sheep card be fenced in, whether that player actually fenced in the sheep or not, the player holding the corresponding My Sheep card wins the game!
The fencing mechanism of play is both colorful and challenging, especially when you are on the verge of corralling a sheep and you need a fence with the necessary matching color combination. That's where your personal stash of fences should be used for peak effectiveness. Since playing a personal fence with a community fence allows you, in effect, to take a double turn, the best times to use it are when the direction of played fences may take you away from one of your targeted sheep OR when a surrounding is possible and playing a community fence with a personal fence completes the color links to make it happen. You only have three personal fences so three double moves per player are possible in the game.
As the game unfolds, the colorful fences create a mad maze in all directions. Sometimes, it becomes impossible to fence in a sheep. Fortunately, in those cases, you are allowed to adjust a minimum number of fences to remedy the situation. On the other hand, although two sheep may not be in one fenced area, it is possible to fence in TWO sheep on a turn by creating two separate corrals with one move. You get another turn when you fence it one sheep. Do you get TWO extra turns when you fence in two? The rules do not say.
The sheep are in, virtual, alphabetical order. But letters are skipped. Why not Carl for sheep C instead of leaving gaps in the alphabet? Just asking. More significantly though is something that could fall into the "lost opportunity" category and that is the black sheep.
There are two black sheep (Francesca and Norman) on the corral board but NO black sheep tokens! The rules make no mention of this and there is apparently no significance to the black sheep. Probably production costs ruled out the additional cost to create black tokens. Understandable but... The presence of black sheep present several possibilities. You could modify victory conditions to involve point totals with the black sheep worth more points (or negative points) so when the game ends with someone having all the fenced in sheep, another player could still win if his point total is higher. Or give the person who fences in a black sheep the ability to automatically remove a sheep from play into the corral? Or, if you want to give the game a real nasty turn, allow the person who fences in a black sheep to liberate a sheep on the corral board and place him back in play? Or.... create your own house rule to add a tweak or two to the game.
At its heart, Mother Sheep is a light game designed for a younger audience that offers a lot of color and charm. But the game has a bit more heft than might be expected with room for planning placements. Because of that, this is a game that can bridge the gap between young and old; a perfect game for parents and children to play together.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Herb Levy
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