GAMES WORLD^ OF PUZZLES^ | may 2019
- )0)'8632-'+%1)6):-);7ƍ BY THOMAS L. MCDONALD
CARD
SHEEPING AROUND
FLEON LABS
ANDROID/IOS: $3
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAY TIME: 10–15 MINUTES
PLAYERS: 2
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S
heeping Around is a card control
game with charming graphics
and a light touch. The premise
pits sheepdog versus fox: one guard-
ing, the other stealing. Mix in a bit of
deck-building and you have the basic
ingredients for a fun little game.
The play is very easy to learn. Three
sheep are lined up in a common area.
The sheepdog and the fox each have
a hand of cards to help gain control
of them, with various cards to provide
bonus actions. Each turn a player gets
to play one basic card and up to three
action cards. The basic cards are where
the work of stealing or protecting sheep
is done. Each is worth a point or two
and is played to any one of the three
sheep, with the sheepdog’s Guard cards
on one side and the fox’s Lure cards on
the other. Once someone has played 4points’ worth of cards, they can play a
Whistle (sheepdog) or Steal (fox) card
and make the sheep theirs. Grab two of
the three sheep to win.
It’s a very simple tug-of-war made a bit
more interesting by the variety of cards.
A Bark card can reduce the opponent’s
graze value by 1 or 2 points. Guard and
Rescue-type cards prevent or reduce the
effect of certain actions, while an Affec-
tion card converts 1 enemy point to your
side. Action cards allow you to prevent
a player from having a turn, draw extra
cards, and so on.
There are fox versions of each kind of
sheepdog card, and therein lies one of
the weaknesses of Sheeping Around.
Rather than create a tactically asymmet-
rical game in which the sheepdog and
the fox battle in different ways or with
different types of cards, the game just
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This seems like a missed opportunity.
Furthermore, the game does not offer
solo or pass and play options. You have
to play against a human. The matching
works very well and the game moves sofast that it’s unlikely to experience a lot of
people quitting, but playing against AI is
a basic feature that needs to be added.
Sheeping Around is simple and fun, but
games fall into a pattern pretty quickly.
It may not hold your interest in the long
haul, but it’s entertaining while it lasts. QGOOD CHOICE FOR FANS OF: LOOTING LONDON RATINGB
TRADING
ISTANBUL
ACRAM DIGITAL
ANDROID/IOS: $7
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAY TIME: 20–30 MINUTES
PLAYERS: 1–5
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6
üdiger Dorn’s Spiel des Jahres
winner Istanbul has made a
beautiful leap to digital thanks
to the folks at Acram, who previously
gave us strong ports of Steam: Rails
to Riches and Eight-Minute Empire.
They’ve really outdone themselves this
time, capturing much of the feel of the
vibrant, tactile original.
You play as a merchant navigating a
bazaar in Istanbul. The tangled streets
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opponents.
Each stall in the bazaar is represented
by a tile laid out in a 4×4 grid. There are
various preset formations in the app,
or you can randomize tiles for a new
experience each time. Tile positions
are an important part of the game.
The gameplay unfolds as you travel
among them; choosing the properpath and order can be an important
part of winning.
Your merchant is represented by a
marker atop a pile of four assistants.
On a regular turn, you can move one or
two tiles away from the starting point,
a distance that can be increased with
special cards or upgrades. Once on the
target tile, you perform the action there
and leave the assistant behind. After
all four assistants are used, you have
to either return to the Fountain square
to collect them all at once or pick up
each individually.
At various tiles, you can expand the
capacity of your wheelbarrow, collect
or sell four different kinds of goods,
and perform other actions. Mosque
squares allow you add to permanent
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tant. There’s a black market, a tearoom
where you can roll dice for the chance
at a better yield in goods or coin, and
even a prison where you can spring
a relative to act as an extra helper or
jail an opponent’s relative for some
quick gold.
Rubies are collected in various
ways—either bought with coin froma merchant, given as a reward for
a delivery to the sultan’s palace, or
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all the upgrades offered on a particular
square.
There’s a bit of a learning curve, but
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grasp the concept of moving in a pat-
tern among the various tiles. The con-
version is great, with plenty of features,
multiple levels of AI, robust multiplayer
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face that makes the complex tracking
almost invisible.QGOOD CHOICE FOR FANS OF: STONE AGE RATINGA