SNAP Review – Sheep in Disguise

Whether it’s wolves, aliens, or… rampaging kaiju? –

I think that’s actually a carnivorous wombat of unusual size.

– It seems sheep are always on the menu for some kind of villain. But there’s safety in numbers, and barring that, we’ve got a game this week that suggests hiding sheep in plain sight with some clever misdirection.

This is a SNAP review for Sheep in Disguise.

Gameplay

Sheep in Disguise is a party set collection game for 2-6 players age 10 and up. It’s published by Skybound Tabletop.

Art

Sam Pratt did the art in Sheep in Disguise – and it’s great! Start with the box front and don’t stop, because all of the card art is hilarious.

I’m partial to the Dad Sheep, naturally.

The iconography is great, there are icons in opposite corners. And it’s pretty obvious to tell a sheep from anything else. You will need a reader to play this game, but most of the cards are pretty light on text.

Gameplay

So let’s talk about how to play Sheep in Disguise.

Everyone gets five cards from the shuffled deck to start the game. The instructions say to remove the instants, shuffle and distribute, and then re-add them, but really, just deal five to each player, and have people discard their instants, and shuffle them back into the deck. Lay three cards out face-up and you’re ready to go.

On your turn, you may play Action cards from your hand. You can play as many as you want, resolving them one at a time and putting them in the discard pile.

One time, at any time during your turn, you can swap a card from your hand with a card in the field.

Any time you have three matching sheep in your hand, you play them out in front of you, as a flock of sheep.

Finally, end your turn by drawing a card.

If you ever draw an instant card – which is an attack card – you have to put it out immediately, resolve it, then draw another card to replace it.

And honestly, that’s pretty much the game! You need to collect a certain number of flocks of sheep to win, depending on your player count.

There are five flocks in a two or three player game, four flocks in a four player game, and just three flocks if you have more players.

Of course, if you get the flock of Golden Sheep, you immediately win the game!

There are a few more details, like what the different action cards are, and what they do, but we’ll let you find those out for yourself.

Expectations

So what did we expect from this game?

I expected it to be simple and goofy. First of all, you can tell immediately from the front of the box that everything wasn’t exactly serious and sober in a game of Sheep in Disguise.

You mentioned the art was done by Sam Pratt. He makes the webcomic Rustled Jimmies. It’s a pretty irreverent web comic –

Aren’t they all?

I mean, yes.

– so I expected some of the humor might be a little bit rough.

I… did not have high hopes for this game. This art style tells me that this is a dumb game, for big kids. And I don’t have a lot of patience for that.

Surprises

So what surprised us about this game?

Well, I mentioned the humor might be rough – it’s not! The game is totally clean! And honestly, it is pretty funny to see all of these different kinds of sheep in this game.

Sheep in Disguise is a light family game with just a little bit of take-that. We did have some hurt feelings when players would “expose” another player’s sheep, which meant they were abducted when an attack card was played – but the game is light and moves quickly enough that we could pretty much get past that.

The art is silly, like we said, and the idea is simple enough that Sheep in Disguise plays well for a family even with younger kids, as long as they can read, or they can keep enough card pictures in their head to remember what all those special cards do.

I was also pleasantly surprised – there’s a good balance here of different ways to collect your sets and to prevent other players from getting what they want. It’s still kind of a dumb game, but it’s fast, and it’s interesting enough that I’m always willing to play.

We’re going to give Sheep in Disguise 3½ sheep (ew) out of five.

And that’s Sheep in Disguise, in a SNAP!

Get Sheep in Disguise direct from Skybound Tabletop or ask for it at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Sheep in Disguise from Skybound Tabletop for this review.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?