Ever have one of those dreams that you are running down a hallway and suddenly begin an endless fall? Take that image and then turn yourself into a sheep and you come close to describing the Windows Phone game Sheep Dreams Are Made of This.
You find yourself stuck inside someone's dream and have to help him escape the nightmare's grasp buy guiding a sheep across an endless supply of platforms. You have eight hours to complete your mission, waking up the man from his sleep. After that, you start the game from scratch.
Graphics are unique to say the least and reminds me of a Monty Python cartoon or maybe something out of the Beetle's Yellow Submarine. Game play is challenging, not only in the mechanics but also in figuring out what you have to do. Sheep Dreams Are Made of This may not be everyone's cup of tea and the ad-support is simply irritating. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a game that is outside the box, you will want to try this Windows Phone title.
The main menu for Sheep Dreams begins your magical adventure. Your sheep will begin running across a series of platforms that will lead him to a series of doors. These doors open up game play, send you to rate the game, make a donation to remove the ads, view more games by the developer and view the credits. You will also find instructions on how to play the game pop-up on the intro screens.
The mechanics are simple. Tap the left side of the screen for a low jump and tap the right side of the screen for a high jump. Should you miss a jump, have no fear. Your sheep will fall for a short period and eventually land on the same menu platforms.
Once you jump into game play, things get a little sketchy as far as how you reach the final objective. From the Store's description you know you are trying to help the main character escape his nightmare, but how to go about doing that is a mystery. There is a game timer (8 hours) that you are racing against and if time expires, you start the game over.
You jump your sheep from platform to platform, collecting dream cubes and passing through doors. Scattered across the platforms are, for the lack of a better term, dream cubes that must be collected. If you miss a jump, your sheep will fall for a short time and eventually land on another series of platforms. Each fall will transition you to a different color of cubes to collect.
Doors can teleport you to other platforms, pause the game for an inspirational quote and those doors with a key hole will send you to a game summary. The game summary will display your game timer and you can jump up the platform levels to see how many cubes you have collected. The summary screen will show your cube count as x/100. While there isn't a help section to outline the game's objectives, I'm pretty sure collecting 100 cubes of each color will win the game and wake the man from his dream.
While the game has a slight addictive pull, the ad-support tends to slap you in the face. Sheep Dreams Are Made of This utilizes full-screen ads that pop up at random. They can be before a transition or summary stage or in the middle of game play. I've tapped the screen to jump and instead of seeing my sheep soaring through the air, I get a Facebook ad. On the plus side, you can opt out of the ad-support for a donation of your choosing (minimum $.99).
Oh and if you want to opt out of ad-support, the easiest way to get to the donation screen is to pause the game and choose the "Remove Ads" option. I kept missing the damn jump from the main menu to get to the donation screen.
Overall Impression
Sheep Dreams Are Made of This is probably the strangest Windows Phone game I have played, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've played some terrible games over the years and while Sheep Dreams is strange, it isn't a terrible game.
Graphics are well drawn-up with a nice dream-like feel (or a pot induced dream-like feel). The mechanics are simple and while it is challenging to hit all the platforms if you miss the game is very forgiving. Just don't be shocked if you pass through a door to find your platforms are upside down or at a severe angle.
While it may take you a while to catch on to the goal of the game, the journey to get there is strangely entertaining. The game is rated at 4 Stars and while we would have liked to have seen a help section to define your gaming objectives, we can see the appeal this Windows Phone game has.
If you try Sheep Dreams Are Made of This, feel free to let us know what you think of the game in the comments below.
Download Sheep Dreams Are Made of This from the Windows Phone Store
