Divide by Sheep | a Review
originally published on 21/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the wolf in a sheep in wolf’s clothing made a sheep in a wolf in sheep’s clothing, G.E.M.Simov, a conundrum billowing frazzler, here to teach you how to Divide by Sheep.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This is a phone game ported on the PC. It is, however, free of micro-transactions and other horrible things one can find in phone games. It is also not marred by the filth of common phone games, so that’s a very big bonus… Even if the sheer fact that it is a phone game gives me conniptions.
So, Divide by Sheep, being a phone game, works with just the mouse. The Player needs to escort sheep from platforms onto a raft, by losing as few sheep as possible. The game world is split into a bunch of platforms (islands), and these islands have up to 9 slots. Most often they have far fewer than 9 - maybe around 4 on average.
The islands, safe for the one next to the raft, feature sheep. A number of sheep. The raft can fit up to 9 sheep at a time, but it doesn’t actually do that. Instead, the raft leaves whenever a certain number of sheep is reached or exceeded. Exceeding the number of sheep means that the Player does not get a star - and the Player wants to get every single star - so they need to make use of the islands - some of which have fewer slots, while others have more - cut down the number of sheep they’re throwing on the rafts.
But what’s this sheep throwing? Well, the Player can move a stack of sheep from one island to its adjacent islands by clicking, holding while dragging onto the desired island, and releasing to have the sheep get thrown onto said island. If there are more sheep in the stack than there are slots on the island… Well, the excess falls into the water and dies.
That’s the game, but it would be too simple if it was so. Introducing obstacles - walls that block throwing sheep to one of the separated islands from the other separated island; wolves that eat a number of sheep and then take up space afterwards; different rafts, some for wolves, some for sheep, and remember - wolves can’t be thrown when they eat a sheep; there are laser walls that split the passing sheep in two (very morbid) but they still count if you duct-tape the pieces together.
There are many ways the developers have varied up the levels and have made the solutions to the puzzles* more interesting or complex. I put an apostrophe on the word puzzle, because it’s more of a funky equation than a proper puzzle… Though it could be described as a puzzle.
So, then… How many levels are there? 30 per world, and there are 5 worlds, so that’s a total of 150 whole levels. Lots of time to spend on exercising your brain, and I’ve got to say - this is the kind of game that’s almost a perfect game, because it’s like chess. It’s like chess in the sense that the gameplay is so simple it isn’t really fun, BUT the act of playing the game and the thinking you do makes it incredibly amusing. Thus, 3/3
Presentation
This game is monstrously cute. The sprites for the characters are wonderful, the backgrounds and sets are colorful and cheerful - truly lovely - and the whole feeling the visuals bring about is one of… Well, idyllic bliss, really. It’s a really pretty game.
Not only that, but the visual effects are also very nice, especially the animations. When the Player clicks a stack of sheep(or wolves), their eyes widen and tears form at their edges, as though the stack is overwhelmed with anxiety. That’s a really nice touch.
There’s a very nice visual indicator of which islands can be jumped to from a certain island, which indicator is the platforms rising up. It’s simple, but it’s incredibly effective. The sound effects are very reasonable and tame, and I especially like the sound of the wolf-raft sailing away successfully.
The music is also incredibly neat, pleasant and capable of not getting in your head irreversibly. Almost perfect as ambience.
Then, there's the way new mechanics and obstacles are introduced - via some very neat comic panels that provide about as much information as the Player may need to deal with the problems at hand.
Lastly, but definitely not least, there’s the dark humor aspect of it. It’s a bit morbid, but it is a bit funny. When a sheep gets halved, there’s ludicrous amounts of blood, there’s innards and there’s a sheep’s corpse. Then when that winds up on the raft, it just gets duct-taped back together, as if it’s nothing. It’s so spectacularly magical, I have no words!
I’ve nothing to point at and say: “bad” in relation to Divide by Sheep’s presentation! 3/3
Story
Death (or what looks like Death) is playing Chess with his companion, an octopus/some unspeakable and unknowable eldritch being. He’s not very happy, but then he gets an idea. If a lot of nice little critters die, they’ll end up with Death. So, with his octopus/cthulhu-esque buddy, Death creates a flood that washes away almost everything.
And that’s everything. This is just a simple little thing to establish why stuff is as it is, and it works quite well, though it is very simple. Too simple, almost, and that undermines the fact that it does its job very well. I suppose I want a lot more out of a story, and there was very little in this one. In fact, I thought there would be a story-related cinematic before every world, but that was not the case. Alas... 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? After giving it a big think, I’ll have to say that NO, it does not get the Legendary Point, because it’s just a time killer for yours truly. BUT for a child, a developing child - this game is going to be an amazing thing to give to said child. Don’t feed your kids Fortnite or Call of Duty, give ‘em this! 0/1
Conclusion
7/10. This is a stupendous little game, worth every penny of its price, and even more when gotten on sale. I’d recommend it to literally everybody, especially to parents with kids/responsive teenagers. It’s an amazing little gem.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. I’m almost certain it made me smarter, but I can’t count on it.