One Sheep Wonders

I have a terrible memory. I'm always forgetting things. I've even woken up in the morning and forgotten how to speak English. Consequently, I do not look kindly on memorization games, because I SUCK at them.

One Sheep Wonders is no exception. I'm bad at this game. But I still enjoy it, and anybody who can appreciate a more casual form of gaming entertainment should, too.

Concept

One Sheep Wonders is a game populated almost entirely by sheep. (There are a few cows and pigs thrown in as well.) Each level has one or more sheep posed in a parody of a classic movie, TV or gaming scene, and after studying the picture for a few seconds you need to arrange the selected elements on the screen so they more or less line up with where they're supposed to be. For example:

After studying this Steamboat Mickey parody, you'd have to place elements of the scene like so:

You get points for rotation and placement, and if you're too far off on too many items, you'll have to try the level over again with a new set of items. Each stage is timed, too, so you have to hurry. Simple? Simple.

Controls

Drag and drop. Very little to say - it was nicely polished.

Graphics

The visuals are, for me, the deal maker in One Sheep Wonders. These games normally frustrate and bore me to tears 'cause the scenes provided are straight, dull photographs. Bleh.

One Sheep Wonders, though? Nope. The visuals are wonderful in this game, providing a lot of funny, goofy references to a variety of popular media. The artist must have had a lot of fun dreaming up ways to insert sheep into Street Fighter, Casablanca, Braveheart and plenty of other scenes. Much appreciated.

Sound

The music in One Sheep Wonders is understated, the kind of stuff you'd expect of a casual game: inoffensive and a touch wacky. There are only a couple tracks, but they don't get stale because you won't have to play the game for a really long time. In short, musically, One Sheep Wonders is like riding on an elevator.

Challenge Rating

This game's difficulty level relies almost solely on your memory. If you can memorize scenes visually, this game will be a piece of cake. If you can't, like ME, you'll have to replay levels numerous times in order to learn where everything goes.

I WILL, that said, give the programmer kudos for not concocting a vicious scoring system that harshly penalizes players. You only need to be in the ballpark to get from one level to the next, which is perfect for those players who just want to see all of the pretty pictures and then stop. There's a medal system if you're good enough at memorizing, but, well, I suck, so I scraped along the bottom to the very end.

Conclusion?

One Sheep Wonders is nifty. Not ground-breaking, not highly innovative or exciting or out of this world, just nifty. I applaud the artist for breathing life into these silly sheep, even while I curse them for forcing me to play by memory.

PLAY ONE SHEEP WONDERS