Dream Sheep, you are needed! The people are trying to drift peacefully off the dreamland, but the ever-haunting nightmares threaten these sensational sleepers with an awful awakening. You’ll need to catch some Zzzs and jump over the fence to help keep these dozing dreamers fast asleep!

What Is It?

A push-your-luck game where players first play a racing phase each round. During the race, they will play cards to move around the board, earning winks in order to reach their pillow, which starts at the end of the 40 point scoreboard, but will move throughout the game. They will also be catching Zzzs, which will let them put tokens on dream tiles to give them unique abilities as they continue to move. If a player draws a nightmare card, they must play it immediately and move the nightmare accordingly, which may cause sheep to get scared. If a sheep is already scared and would be scared again, they will be forced to wake up and be removed from that racing phase. Players can choose to safely leave a racing phase by “calling it a night” any time they hop over the fence. At the end of the racing phase, the players will have a resting phase and move their pillows backwards on the scoreboard according to how many winks they earned, or if they woke up. The sheep, nightmare, and score tokens then reset for another race phase and play continues until someone reaches their pillow, winning the game!

Who Is It For?

  • Families
  • Ages 10+
  • Fans of push your luck (won’t back out of a round too quickly)
  • 1-4 Players

Components / Quality

The cardboard components (board, dream tiles, tokens) are average quality, all very clean and nice looking. The dream tiles slot around the board easily.

The wooden tokens (sheep, fence, nightmare, winks) are super cute and very nice quality.

Cards are pretty standard quality, well labeled for 2/3/4 players. I felt like the nightmare cards might have been cut slightly differently than the sheep cards though, because they seemed to clump together while shuffling. Sleeves may help with that.

The rules are pretty good, but a little vague on some things, and I don’t like when essential game info is in little blurbs on the side instead of in the main rule paragraphs (I missed a rule about revealing extra cards because of that). Box is a nice size for what’s inside, with a nice insert. I also think the artwork across the board is pretty adorable.

Variants

Solo – You can play alone and you have as many rounds as you need to reach your pillow. Once you do, you calculate your score based on the winks you earned, how much you moved your pillow, and how many rounds you played. It was an okay solo experience, a decent way to learn the game before teaching it to others, but I thought it felt a little repetitive, and the randomness of the deck felt more evident since you’re constantly discarding extra cards, making it frustrating at time. Wouldn’t be my go-to solo game personally, and I’d recommend 2-4 players for this game.

PROS

  • Aesthetically adorable
  • Smooth gameplay
  • Simple mechanics but added strategy in knowing when to leave the race
  • Lots of variety in dream tiles, so every game’s a little different

CONS

  • Randomness of card draws; sometimes left with not many options
  • Player exit/elimination from game; if you get out too early, you could be waiting a bit until the next round

Final Thoughts

Overall, a very cute game with a fun and unique theme. It looks a bit like a children’s game on the surface, but there’s definitely enough going on in here for adults/families who like casual games. It’s a simple concept at the core, but there are a bunch of moving parts to pay attention to between movement, points, which dream tiles to try and use, and when to leave the round. The nightmare is unpredictable, so players need to be careful about how much they are willing to push their luck, but the dream tiles can allow for some fun combos to get around the board quickly if you set it up correctly.

My Final Ratings:
Overall Game – 6.5/10
Aesthetics – 6/10
Replay Value – 5/10
Difficulty – 3/10

Additional Information:
Designer – Neil Kimball
Artist – Zoé Plane
Publisher – Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

If you like what I do, consider Supporting Me.

If you like what I do, consider Supporting Me.