Happy Sheep rules - overview
Every Sunday, you and your relatives gather at your dear Aunt Dolly's place for tea and cupcakes.
Dolly is a mad-keen knitter, whipping up a cosy woollen wonder every week. It's your job to supply enough wool from her flock of Happy Sheep to keep her needles clicking; the fleece of four sheep will meet her needs.
However, she only wants wool of one colour- either black or white. And since her sheepdog Fang ran off with a Bichon Frise last year, those four sheep will need to be within arms reach for you to herd them in.
Will you be the first to gather four Happy Sheep of the same colour, thereby winning Aunt Dolly's sweetest smile – and her biggest cupcake?
Download the rules
You can download the rules in PDF format or as JPEG images.
English Rules in PDF format (2.8 MB)
Japanese Rules in PDF format (3.3 MB)
To view PDFs, you'll need Adobe's free Acrobat Reader, if you don't already have it - but many computers do.
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Rule Variants
Playing by the rules is great, but sometimes you want to tweak things to suit your particular gaming preferences, or to switch things up when you feel like a new twist. Here's a couple of house rules we sometimes use. Feel free to contact us with your ideas!
FOUR CONNECTED VARIANT
Call "Happy Sheep" when you think you know of four sheep the same colour that are connected in ANY pattern, not just a 2x2 grid. Four in a row? Fine. An 'L' shape? Great! Just be sure to point out the exact four before you turn them over- none of that "Oh, I meant this tile!" stuff!
MOBILE SHOWOFF SHEEP
When you reveal a Show-off Sheep, you still show everyone, but you can put it back wherever you like, not just in its original position.
NO RETURNS
You can choose any valid tile, EXCEPT the one that the last player chose.
FREE-FOR-ALL
You can choose ANY tile, including ones in the middle or that will split the flock, as long and you're skilfull enough to grab the tile without bumping all the others!