Starting from 2005 Fragor release Sheer Panic down to Agricola sheep seems to be of great interest for game designers. Many small publishers but also big publishers like LEGO and Fantasy Flight Games released sheep themed games: Shave a Sheep, published in 2010 and Reiner Knizia’s Black Sheep, published in 2008.

Cranio Creations have used us to fairly unusual games with something “partish” from their first hit Horse Fever down to last year superbus Dungeon Fighter. So, what will be in Sheepland box painted with the usual mastery of Giulia Ghigini ?

Sheepland is actually a really good, solid and classical Euro games for 2-4 player that can be easily played in 30-45 minutes and, as far as I can say after my first 4 sessions, a good replaybility.

The designers, Simone Luciani and Danliele Tascini, are gamers deeply absorbed in the Italian gamers world and are also responsible for one of Czech Games Edition‘s new Essen games, Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar (formerly known as Mayan Ages), that seems to have caught the attention of several gamers so far.

While inexplicably working in the same field, two to four shepherds try to move sheep into the right areas to score points. Players don’t own specific area on the map but, during the game, will buy terrain tiles (something really close to company shares) that will score according to the number of sheep ending in that terrain. That means that if you want to score with the forests you have to try to buy as much forests tiles as possible and move as many sheep as possible on forest: one point for tile for each sheep on the right terrain. Six different terrain types are available, with five tiles of each type with increasing costs (from 0 to 4 dinars) on those tiles. 18 regions on the map: 3 for each of the 6 terrain type.

During a turn, you must take three actions, chosen from these possibilities:

• Move your shepherd
• Move one sheep
• Buy one terrain tile

Read the full review on Opinionatedgamers.com