Clouds & Sheep

What can I say about Clouds & Sheep? Well, first off it's free and I'm trying to avoid reviews of such games. At the same time this one is different. Ok, not totally different as it really falls into a 'sims' style of game. This time, however, instead of managing a city or a family or a farm or a... you get the idea... you're managing a flock of sheep. If that doesn't sound like fun then you're right on board with me. It's not.

Two things fascinate me about this game. The first is that over 36,000 people have given it a 5 star rating on the Android Market (and that dominates the runner up rating of 4 stars). I don't see it. Perhaps I'm so removed from mainstream gaming that I shouldn't be writing game reviews. Second, this game is VERY polished. It's beautifully done. And it's done by the company that has created one of my favorite Android games (Panzer Panic).

Ok, what's it all about? You've got some sheep on a green pasture. They're really dumb and need all the help they can get. Dumb as in "hey there's food over there... but I'd rather stand here and starve" dumb. So it's your job to drag their lazy a@@'s to the food before they die. Obviously you need to grow food so you can do neat stuff like drag clouds together and tap on them to make it rain and create a little puddle thus watering the grass to grow more food. Or you can keep on a tapping and create a larger watering hole. And the game slowly progresses with more stuff like that. Very slowly. I actually started playing this while waiting half an hour in a dentist's office and only made it to the watering holes. From the screenshots there's all sorts of neat stuff that comes along later, but I just didn't have the patience for it nor the desire to grow more sheep.

Typically when I see a game like this come around I expect there to be some grand strategy. The game bills itself as a sandbox style game. That it is. But let's use SimCity as an example. The thrill in that game is trying to grow a city while maintaining a sustainable balance of things like jobs, services, tax revenue, ...etc. Here that's lost on me. I'm just trying to grow my sheep herd.

As I've already said, the game is quite pretty with its cartoony style graphics. Sound and controls match that polish. If the hot thing to do in real life was to raise sheep then this game would be #1! I just don't see it. It's awfully hard for me to rate this game or even call it a game. Obviously the goals in creating it were met almost perfectly, but the fun just isn't there... at least for me it's not... apparently 36,000+ Android owners would disagree. But it's free so you make the call. 3/5 stars.