Game Reviews

Color Sheep

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| Color Sheep
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Color Sheep
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| Color Sheep

If films like Frozen and The Grey have taught us anything, it's that wolves are deadly killers that all creatures should live in mortal fear of.

Fortunately, we have a new protector to defend us from the sharp-fanged beasts - a sheep that's able to change colour, chameleon-style, and blast them with laser beams.

Sir Woolson, as he's known, is somehow not the strangest thing in this bizarre high score-attack game, which plays like a version of Simon Says themed around lupine slaughter.

It's just a shame Color Sheep's controls can't quite keep up with the frantic, chroma-matching action, meaning that the one-note gameplay soon wears thin.

Mix and match

From the mouth of Wolfcano, the game's blurb tells us, hordes of furry carnivores have emerged to snatch life and colour from the world. Only the Knight of Light, a rather nervous-looking Sir Woolson, can stand in their way.

Packs of multi-coloured wolves stalk in from the right of the screen and it's up to you to change the shade of Woolson's fleece to match them. This then enables you to zap the wolves to oblivion.

A brief tutorial explains how combinations of colours can be selected using a red, green, and blue palette on the left and then made 'Bright' or 'Dark' by holding buttons on the right. Primary colours are simple enough to make, requiring only two buttons, but subtler shades - like cyan - require swipes between different shades to create the right mix.

For the first couple of rounds vanquishing enemies is a breeze, and it's made all the more satisfying by the charming artwork.

But you'll soon discover there's a severity to the difficulty curve that will stop all but the most determined colour-swappers from climbing the Facebook-powered leaderboards.

Howling in frustration

Once the size of the packs starts to grow and the variety of fur shades becomes more diverse, it's easy to get muddled over exactly what button combo or swipes you need to enter.

Manually having to 'fire' the laser by tapping on Sir Woolson also proves a jab too far when time is short. Occasional power-ups that slow time or clear the whole screen help a bit, but enemies seldom drop them and they're difficult to nab when they do.

We tested Color Sheep on two devices, and it's also apparent that the touch controls are occasionally unresponsive, and some crucial taps and swipes are missed - almost certainly spelling your doom.

Color Sheep has a fun premise, and there's nothing wrong with a game giving you a decent challenge, but it will probably prove too frustrating for the casual crowd or the younger players it seems to be courting.

Color Sheep

In this bright colour-matching game, sheep are pitted against wolves in a score attack experience that's cruelly let down by woolly controls and a savage difficulty curve
Score
Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
A newspaper reporter turned games journo, Paul's first ever console was an original white Game Boy (still in working order, albeit with a yellowing tinge and 30 second battery life). Now he writes about Android with a style positively dripping in Honeycomb, stuffed with Gingerbread and coated with Froyo