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Hands-on with Clouds and Sheep for Android, iPhone

Blue-sky thinking

Hands-on with Clouds and Sheep for Android, iPhone
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| Clouds & Sheep

Not every game has to be about murdering your fellow man in the most gratuitous way possible. Some don’t even feature zombies - I know, it came as a shock to me, too.

The upcoming Clouds and Sheep from HandyGames is as peaceful a game as you're likely to find, featuring a sandbox-type feel that echoes early iPhone hit Pocket God in the way you go about ruling your flock.

Half-toy, half-casual game, Clouds and Sheep is quite an unusual little title, as I discovered on my recent trip to the team’s headquarters in Germany.

Little fluffy clouds

You start with a small flock of sheep, who are milling about, making (very human-like) 'baa' noises, and generally staring gormlessly at the screen.

The idea is to meet certain challenges in each level, including feeding your sheep so that they produce happy points, getting girl and boy sheep together to create a new baby sheep, and flinging them across the field with your finger. I am a benevolent shepherd.

Clouds and Sheep has an easy, relaxed pace about it: for example, dragging rainclouds over to constantly drench a particular sheep will end up making him upset (complete with furious look to the camera as his bedraggled wool hangs from his body), but it won't effect any real punishment other than having a very upset (and wet) sheep.

They aren’t invincible, though. Should one of your flock eat a poisonous mushroom, or get struck by lightning that you may or may not have deliberately activated, they will eventually die.

Courting sheep

The elements, or rather the clouds themselves, play a big part in the game. As well as being able to drag and drop clouds around the level (and convert into a massive storm), new baby sheep are born from the clouds and dead sheep float up into the sky to form new ones.

It’s one of the oddly disarming touches of character that runs throughout Clouds and Sheep, from the way black sheep (born from lightning clouds) accidentally set themselves off at various points, to the variety of objects you can buy and interact with via your accrued happy points.

Some objects are useful to progressing through the game, like the syringe that cures any ill creatures, while others like the balloons are designed merely to annoy your fluffy servants.

Clouds and Sheep won’t sate any bloodlust you may be carrying around (although pulling their tails and pinging them across the screen is pretty vicious), but its laid-back style and humour will likely appeal to young children and those that want to wile away a minute or two here and there.

Clouds and Sheep will be out in the autumn on Android, and will be coming to iPhone later this year.

Will Wilson
Will Wilson
Will's obsession with gaming started off with sketching Laser Squad levels on pads of paper, but recently grew into violently shouting "Tango Down!" at random strangers on the street. He now directs that positive energy into his writing (due in no small part to a binding court order).