Sheep Dreams Are Made of This

Have you ever wondered what happens to the sheeps that you count when you can’t sleep? What if they’re the same sheep everyone thinks of and uses in those cases? Have you thought about how stressful that can be to them? Me neither, but here’s an abstract game that might as well touch on the subject. It’s called Sheep Dreams Are Made of This.

The first thing you notice and take a while to think about is the protagonist. It’s a sheep with human-like hands and feet that has a very tragic expression on its face. It’s odd, plain weird, and if you’re not the kind to take lightly to these kinds of unnatural fusions, it can be disturbing. However, the latter is shear exaggeration. Get it? Shear, sheep-like protagonist? Heh.

I can appreciate the visual style of the game. It’s unique and it works well with the way the game plays out. It’s a mixture of various hand drawn elements that float around in a world that’s undefined.

The first thought that came to mind was the one I mentioned above. What if this is an abstract for the sheep we count before we dream, and this is an example of one that lots its mind. How could we not become a nightmare to do the same thing over and over again.

On the other hand, it could be a subtle reference to us as the sheep. A sheep in a capitalist world that’s forever chasing products. Or, maybe it’s just a strange game, and that’s it. Why not assume it was built to be an unusual platformer in which you are trapped in limbo, forever trying to figure out what’s going on.

If you fall off of a platform you don’t die, you just end up at the start of a new sequence of platforms, and that keeps happening until you find a door. However, that door will lead to new platforms and after a while, they keep repeating over and over again.

A nice touch to the game is that the orientation of the world changes. It flips on it’s head, it rotates, it even appears doubled as if there are multiple versions of the sheep going through the same tragic ordeal. The goal of the game, or so it would seem, is to collect all the cubes that float around, a task that’s easier said than done. I have no idea what happens when you complete the task, but I bet it’s strange.

There are two likely reasons for which you would try this game. Number one, it’s strange, difficult, and interesting enough for it to be appealing. Secondly, if you want people to shut up when you play games. There’s a good chance that they’ll be baffled enough to hold in any comment.