App Of The Week: Color Sheep
If fairy tales are to be believed , wolves are evil and we should fear them… and if Twilight is to be believed despite their hulking masses, werewolves are super boring and should be avoided at all costs. Thankfully there’s an app for that and a little sheep has come to our rescue to defend us from these surprisingly well colour coordinated beasts.
Sir Woolson is our guy/sheep and he’s here to protect us from the forces of evil through brightly coloured laser beams in this high energy ‘Simon Says’ themed action game. The game’s story tells us that packs of furry beasts have emerged to destroy us all and while they’re at it, take all the colour from the world. Only this somewhat nervous looking woolly creature can protect us.
The games premise is simple enough with the wolves’ coming in from the right of the screen and it is up to you to change the colour of the beams that come out of Woolson’s mouth to match their colours and destroy them.
The first few levels act as tutorials which allow you to figure out the colour combinations that can be used and for these rounds it is simple enough to vanquish them… or so it seems. Once you set foot or paw (hoof?) out of the training levels, those safety wheels are truly gone and the difficulty gets seriously upped!
Once the size of the packs start to grow and the variety of the colours increase it can get a bit more tricky but if you’re fast and lucky you will soon find yourself falling into a rhythm.
Initially I found myself pretty frustrated with the game. You need to think really quickly on your feet; having to think of all the combinations as the levels get trickier and the combinations get crazier. At release the game was slightly unresponsive but to their credit, the developers at Trinket Studios rolled out an update since then that has improved also allowing players to choose their difficulty level. Junior difficulty allows you to find more magic items and provides helpful hints on the colours to mix in the middle of battle. The ‘Insane’ level on the other hand, lands you into literally the most difficult level of combat in a new setting and shows you no tips.
The charming soundtrack of classical music adds character to an already pretty mad plot and makes it even more enjoyable if not a little comical. The sound effects make it retro with the graphics being upbeat and happy. There are also no in–app purchases required which is a nice bonus as I always find it a slight cop out when you have purchased a game and to get further in any way you have to fork out more money.
Overall Color Sheep is a charming little game full of charming art and animation. The wolves strut across the screen with cartoonish mischief. Woolson’s winning smug little smile at the end of each round and the skulls of the defeated wolves adds to the charm of this game. The cartoon like lack of gore further cements the sheer absurdity of this game.
On an iPad or a larger device the sharpness is pretty decent with the smaller devices being a bit harder to play with and slow enough to render. I’d like to see more updates of the game including a save feature which allows you to skip the constant hints when you breeze through the first few levels of the game.
Color Sheep has a fun premise, an excellent concept and it gives you a decent challenge but it can be a bit frustrating for younger players.
The game is available on Android and iOS at 99c
Color Sheep certainly stands out from the flock!
