Track your sheeping patterns
Sheepy Time is a 1-4 players push-your-luck game in which you play as dream-world sheep that jump over a fence to get their dreamer asleep while dodging the looming threat of a Nightmare. The game is available on pre-order from the AEG website.
The game consists of three major components; the game board, which is a circular track with a fence at the end, around which the sheep meeple of the player moves; the sheep and nightmare card decks that the player draws from (sheep cards allow the player to interact with the board, while nightmare cards instantly trigger negative effects); and the Dream Tiles, that get added to specific spaces of the board and attach specific abilities to these spaces.
In the solo mode, you try to achieve the highest possible score. You first pick which Nightmare to play, which comes with its own Nightmare cards. You then remove the Dream Tiles that involve player interactions, and set the deck of sheep and nightmare cards as in a 2 player game.
The game is played in two phases, Race and Resting. You start by drawing your hand of two cards; if they are Nightmare cards, they are instantly resolved and you draw another card to replace them. The race can then begin. On your turn, you first play one of your two cards. These cards allow you to move around the track, and also to place tokens on the Dream Tiles around the board. If you land on a space with a Dream Tile attached, and you have one of your tokens on the Dream Tile, you may spend this token and activate the tile’s power. Then, if you have crossed the fence, you instantly gain 5 points and must decide whether to quit (and be safe from the Nightmare) or to go for another turn around the track. If you do so, you then flip a card from the deck and, if it is a Nightmare card, you resolve it. Finally, you draw cards until you refill your hand to two, instantly resolving Nightmare cards whenever you draw some.
The Nightmare cards usually make the Nightmare move around the track. When the Nightmare passes through or lands on the space on which your sheep meeple stands, the sheep gets afraid, and you lay it down. If the Nightmare meets you again, your dreamer awakes! You lose all your points and immediately end the Race Phase and go to the Resting phase.
When you decide to quit after crossing the fence, you compare your current score to your score goal. The basic score goal is 40 points. If you meet or exceed that goal, you win the game and can total up your final score! Otherwise, you lose all of your points, reduce your score goal by as many times as you got 5 points during the race, and the Resting phase can begin.
In the Resting phase, you decide either to pick up a new dream tile to attach to one free space of the board, or to place two of your tokens on existing dream tiles. Then, you also add an additional random dream tile on the lowest numbered free space. To calculate your final score, add the points you gained during the final round, two points per number of points you managed to reduce your scoring value, and subtract five points per round elapsed. If you have more than 30 points, you achieve the highest tier!