Villordsutch reviews Sheep It Up…
Take a look at the vast Game Boy catalogue of games and in amongst the many platform titles, the RPGs and the numerous Pokémon releases you will find hyper-addictive time-killers. These games are amazingly simple to learn (looking at you Tetris) but are so difficult to put down without first cursing out the Gods. It’s exactly this category in which we find Sheep It Up from Dr Ludos at Catskull Games. A game so ridiculously simple on paper but within ten minutes – through clenched teeth – you’re hissing, “One more go!”, for the twentieth time.
It’s easy! You’re a sheep and you need to continuously jump up the screen by latching yourself onto velcro pads dotted around the vertical climb above you. To make it even more simpler all you need to press is the “B” button to make your wee sheep jump, nothing more. Honestly, the game couldn’t be anymore straightforward.
You’ll soon discover that Dr Ludos over at Catskull Games has injected Sheep It Up with a huge dose of “Addictivness-MAX”, as you find yourself missing the first – rather easy – few jumps three times in a row in sheer frustration due to your last attempt at breaking your high-score failing miserably. You tumble to the ground and before you know it, you’ve pressed “B” and you’re right back in; you really want those points.
The look of Sheep it Up is pleasant with a touch of charming. There isn’t much going on around the screen except for the front end of a sheep, velcro pads and a few clouds. Here – in this game – you’ve got one thing to do and that’s to make a sheep leap from one velcro pad to the other without falling. Along with this you got the simple hum of music “thum-thumming” away in the background. It’s the addictiveness of the game that really hooks you in here, the look and music are clearly not groundbreaking, but the simplicity of it all fools you into initially believing this game is going to be a walk in the park. 
What this game does lack however is modes. I know the aim of the game here is a hugely addictive “get the sheep as high as possible” affair, but what would have been good to see (to break up the single focus a bit) is perhaps an alternate time-trial/height mode with a different surface and enemy mobs or rogue sheep, or even perhaps even a Rainbow Islands-style flood chasing addition to really turn the pressure up for those who have got the game nailed down.
Mind you, these minor wants don’t really detract from a punishingly, fun game that will help tick away those minutes and hours instead of crushing candies and flinging irate avians on your mobile telephones. Seriously if you want to challenge yourself for the next few days see if you can break your own high-scores a few times on Sheep It Up, without upsetting those on the bus around you.
Sheep It Up is available to buy as a physical cartridge from Catskull Games here, however if you want to download the Game Boy ROM you can find that here, and with that you can play it on either a GB Everdrive or a Game Boy Emulator which we’d recommend downloading the extremely easy to use Visual Boy Advance.
Originally published July 30, 2018. Updated December 4, 2022.
