SHEEP GAME

Based on the previous games that I worked with, I really did not want to chose a game which I would have to cut out tiny little pieces and spend the time preparing and understanding the rules. I wanted something interesting, quick and easy to play; and I found it, though it took a lot of searching (since there were other games that I thought would be interesting, turned out either too confusing to understand or had too many pieces). The game is called Hello Dolly! which is about sheep that have scattered due to a storm and the shepherd, named Albert, who must find them. The goal of the game is to get as many sheep into the barn as possible. The player who has 5 or more sheep pieces in the barn wins.

This game is a two person game only, with 18 sheep pieces (9 sheep for each player and you can chose to be black sheep or white) and one shepherd in the middle. The sheep are on mountain-tops that surround the playing map.

This is the basic layout of the game where the sheep start out on the mountain sides and make their way towards Albert who can only move around the highlighted route. The barn is the squares to the left which resides 9 holdings. If you get 5 sheep you win automatically since the maximum is 9 and therefore you would automatically defeat your opponent). The action of the sheep can only move straight forward to the end of its line or until it his another sheep piece. You cannot jump over any sheep piece and you cannot block a sheep (as shown below).

As you can see, I demonstrated a move that you cannot do - If you love any sheep in front of a sheep on a mountain (that allows no access for the sheep to move) then you cannot move there.

When moving Albert, he moves as many spaces as your sheep has moved. So if the sheep moved on the line 5 spaces, then Albert moves in a clockwise rotation, 5 spaces. Once you have three sheep surrounding his pathway (it does not matter if they are all one color of sheep or not) and the shepherd lands on the spot where all the sheep are surrounding him, then all of those three sheep get moved to the barn.

Space: The space of the game is very circular and the sheep can only move on the lines. They stay within the boundaries of the lines, and when they are put into the barn, they do not move. Albert is the only one who cannot move on the lines and must stay between them. He cannot move from the path either, he must only stay within the boundaries despite his sheep are all over the mountain sides.

After playing the first time, I did not see any logic behind this game since I was mainly focused on understanding the game rather than trying to win. However, over time I learned that when moving the sheep (after a few turns) you start using sheep to get in a triangle formation, even if it means using the other players pieces. Also, we started using Albert as a way to either keep him in our favor or to move him away from a competitors triangle.
The reward of getting your pieces off the board and into the barn ends up feeling good, and if you do not have all the pieces in the triangle, if you have at least 1 you still feel as if you have accomplished something and are not at a complete lost and that you still have a chance to win!

My personal view on this game is that I actually really loved it. I loved the simple idea of the sheep needing to get home and the simple mechanics of the game. I did not have to cut out a single card. All I had to do was find 18 play pieces and a distinct piece for the shepherd (I picked the lego man though I could not find his legs!). I thought the design could use some work though. There was no color in the game. But with this design, it would be easy to put some design and make it look interesting. When I first was looking for a version of this game, someone had made their own design of it. The game was fun, short (it didn't take to long to finish maybe 10-15 minutes on average) and appealing!