Recently I’ve been enjoying many a game of The Sheep, a darkly comic cooperative survival game designed by Luke Schwanger, Jeremy Stark and Kyle Talbert of Zero Strategy Games. Note, I said enjoying, not necessarily winning; this is a tough game despite the whimsy of supernatural sheep.
I was very pleased when Luke and Kyle agreed to have a chat with me about the game and beyond.
I stumbled across The Sheep as a result of a mention in a gaming blog, and the theme immediately captured my attention. How did the game come about and how (or why) did you settle on sheep as the bad guys? How did you get from initial inspiration to final design?
Luke: It was certainly a process. The bones for what became The Sheep comes from way back when I was interning for our now owner of ZSG, Seth Ring. It was originally just supposed to be a game based on a book series he was writing, but after we started the company, the team felt the game needed wider appeal. We pivoted to a general barnyard horror theme at first. There were mutant dogs, cows, pigs, and all that. But as we were looking for artists, there was a particular art piece we stumbled across that had a bunch of sheep standing on a railroad track at night with their eyes glowing. When Seth first saw it, he said something along the lines of, “Wait guys, I got it, what if we do just sheep?” I think most of us just laughed it off at the time, but that was the seed for what the game would eventually become. Jeremy was also a big advocate for the game becoming sheep centric. He’s a huge fan of an indie horror flick called Black Sheep, if you’ve heard of it. I remember him and Seth discussing how much they thought pivoting to “The Sheep” was the right call during Origins 2024. I was the stick-in-the-mud they had to convince—well—they didn’t have to as it was their call to make but I’m glad they both gave me a voice in it and also got me to change my mind!
What were the trickiest things to get right?
Luke: The general game balance for sure. Cooperative games feel really tricky to design so they’re challenging but not too punishing that players quit before ever winning a game. We also made it harder on ourselves by adding so many unique cards. Even now I think we could have done better with our wording for some abilities.
Kyle: The map was definitely tricky to nail down... As it works, the map and the pathways are the timer to the game and also impose a difficulty level since the sheep spawn near them too. It took a decent while to change the roads and spawn locations to make the map feel “good” in the final design.
Were there ideas for The Sheep that you rejected, and why? Is it likely that any of those could reappear as expansions for the game, or even entirely new games?
Kyle: Speaking more about the map difficulty, there was a time when we designed the map to have the town as the center in a square board. The caravans came from the outside roads and you had to split up your team and make your way out of the town. It was an interesting concept but not what we really wanted for the game. We also had 2 more player characters who can definitely come back in the future and who knows, maybe a last-ditch effort to protect the town could come too, you never know.
Despite the comedy element in the game, The Sheep is surprisingly tough (which translates as: I haven’t won many games yet). How do you go about tuning the difficulty level of your games?
Luke: A whole lot of playtesting! In a co-op game like this, we first focus on getting the mechanics we want in the game and then see where that leaves us in terms of balance. After that it’s all about playing the game over and over, polishing and tweaking individual mechanics until the win rate is about where you want it. We were aiming for around fifty percent, knowing that we would include a way to make the game both harder or easier depending on the players’ preference. We also tried to make sure each character had their sort of “niche” in terms of how they fit into your team’s strategy for beating the game. There’s always some risk of other players trying to tell you what to do, but we wanted to emphasize in the rules that you are still your own person. If you don’t want to use a card or spend a token, that’s your call to make.
Looking at crowdfunding from the consumer side, I often see people complaining about prices (especially shipping), and anxiety about delivery delays. I did like the way you were posting frequent updates about shipping towards the end of the campaign for The Sheep, reassuring backers all the way. Is there anything you can say about why these perceived difficulties arise, and how backers should think about the crowdfunding process?
Luke: Hmm, yeah this is a complicated one. It’s really tough because there’s so much going on behind the scenes. I’ve been a consumer for crowdfunded games myself, but I’m sure my viewpoint on it is not the same as a lot of other people’s because I have some of the industry knowledge. When the game is going through so many hands, from the manufacturer to the boats, then the fulfillment centers to the package carriers, oftentimes the most we can do is to keep the backers informed. It gets even more complicated when you have add-ons being made by other teams outside your manufacturer like we did for The Sheep. If any part of that chain of supply has a hiccup, it can create a ripple effect for shipping times or costs. We leave room for these issues in our timeline, but it isn’t always enough. I understand why many people prefer to wait for games to show up on shelves, but as a small team our games would likely never make it there if it wasn’t for our crowdfunding backers. If I could say anything to those anxious about backing, at least our games, is that we just want to have a job where we get to make fun games for people to enjoy. There’s always risk in crowdfunding, but I really do care about each of our backers. We took the time and effort to make the game, now we want to see that game enjoyed by the people we made it for.
Even if you have little control, keeping folk informed is truly appreciated, and I wish more crowdfunding managers did the same.
I see you’ve got a new game in the pipeline, The Unheist of Hearthburn House. Can you tell readers something about this game and its campaign?
Luke: Sure! The Unheist of Hearthburn House, or just Unheist if you’d prefer, is a whimsical little game where you’re returning stuff you stole from a dragon to its home before it wakes up. You get to play as these teams of little kobolds which were designed by our awesome artist, Caitlyn Kurlich. We want to be a variety board game developer, so we tried to make this title lighter and snappier. There’s a spinning board and chunky wooden pieces I love messing with. It was originally going to be a fully competitive game, but it ended up as semi-cooperative! It’s crowdfunding on BackerKit right now. Hopefully our players enjoy it, even if it’s a bit of a shift from our previous titles.
Can we expect to see more new games in the not-too-distant future or are you having a well-deserved break after this campaign?
Kyle: Absolutely! We’re always working on the next project and cooking up new ideas for the future. I’m currently working on a project that I can’t really talk about... but it is well past the initial stages and already having artwork being made.
What board games does the ZSG team play, and what do you particularly like about them?
Kyle: I’m a big fan of TTRPGs and am running a campaign with friends every Friday. I love the almost unlimited possibilities that can come from role-playing games and making a fun story and world for people to dive into and get excited about. There’s comedy, strategy, hope, tragedy, and every strong emotion you can think of wrapped into one experience and it keeps be coming back every week.
Luke: I wish we had more chances to play games as a team, but for myself, I love trying most anything. I play the hits like Everdell, Ticket to Ride, Scythe, Pandemic, Betrayal at House on the Hill, etc. But I also enjoy finding games I’ve never heard of before. Mostly I like discovering new mechanics or playing silky smooth game loops. After all, designing games is also about playing what’s already out there.
What else can you tell us about life beyond the game industry? What do you do in your spare time, if such a thing exists?
Kyle: I think it’s true for all of us, but I spend a good bit of my free time playing video games. I jump around a few different ones but I mostly like anything that has a good progression system, even if it can be a bit “grindy” for most people. I also love anything co-op that I can hang out with a few good friends and have some laughs while we keep failing the same quest or boss over and over again.
Luke: I love to travel when I can afford to. When you’re cooped up in an office setting so much, there’s something really refreshing about just feeling fresh air! Though if I can, I always love to go much farther than my front door. I was very lucky to make it to Iceland this year. Seeing their landscape and experiencing a little of their culture was so inspiring. I love meeting people from other countries and learning about their day to day. I’m doing my best to disprove the ignorant American stereotype, ha!
Thank you, Luke and Kyle of Zero Strategy Games. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.
About the author
Current favourite boardgames are Ark Nova and The Sheep, with a side of Dune: Imperium - Uprising and Paleo. When not playing games or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside over 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). In any time left over after all that, L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
