Last updated on December 7th, 2025 at 11:14 pm
Sheepshead, the App – Card Game Review
Sheepshead, the App is a Card/Entertainment game from Ryan Lardinois, first launched in 1st February 2018.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 2,376+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Sheepshead, the App Stand Out
Play your favorite trick-taking card game where ever you go with Sheepshead the App, available for free on both iPhone and iPad.
Come play with and against computer A.I. players (disguised as friendly animals) that have been meticulously tuned and tested to ensure top notch competitive performance. No longer will you be scratching your head wondering if your partner is truly a farm animal based on his last play.
Choose from a variety of game modes and settings, including three, four, or five handed; regular or tournament; jack or ace partner; and leasters or doublers.
This Card game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Sheepshead, the App is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 17th February 2024
Recent improvements include:
Smarter animals! The computer players now use fancy neural networks in order to better guess who the partner is and make better decisions accordingly.
Download & Availability
Sheepshead, the App is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Sheepshead, the App on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Ive been playing this for years. Very authentic. Lots of play options.
Best game but the goat needs some help and at times so does the moose. Geez! Live would be big fun with age groups and nationalities.
Recently- Ive seen our team when we arent the picker act dumb and sacrifice points when later the have trump in had. For example; Comp picker sets hearts as partner. We win a round and choose hearts to show the partner. One comp player who has the 10 of diamonds plays the 10 of clubs effectively giving the picker an extra 10 points. When they could have played 10 of trump(which they played later in their hand that still went to the computer picker. And, they choose when they dont even have a single queen in their hand. And loose catastrophically. But if they pass we could have a regular win. Or a close one. Which make the game fun. Its not fun when Im playing with.. Computer that are distracted. They arent doing a good job of giving p you points when you will obviously take the half and the partner has been revealed.
Good app, exempt many times the dummy hand throws off when it has trump, on the called suit Ace. Ryan please fix this basic play. Very annoying.
Ive been playing sheepshead our whole life. This app is fun but it seems that the splits are unevenly, rarely get a picking hand and quite often get nothing but fail. Seems geared toward favoring bots. We would love n app that lets us play with love players.
While Ive certain had live stretches of horrible cards, the AI of this game is just not good. Who doesnt take the called (partner) suit when they can?? Who doesnt shmear points when their team has the trick won as the last one to play? These players.
If youve never played before this app is a good start to figure out how the game is played. If you know strategy of the game you will probably get frustrated with how the computers play.
Why cant we blitz reds or blitz blacks to make the hand worth more points.
The structure of the game is here but the plays the computer makes is completely infuriating. Holding on to trump and screwing your partnersjust ugh.
Needs some tweaking. Many times partner leads the called suite in call an ace right in front of the picker after the called suite was just played. Fairly often when a partner is able to take the called ace trick they dont and often even throws points on it. This makes no sense.
Just had a hand where the second player picked, called hearts. Partner was the first player, and lead the Ace of hearts. Another player couldve trumped it, but didnt. And situations like this are unfortunately pretty common.
We gave this two stars because it is not a bad app for learning the mechanics of the game and for developing strategies to take more tricks. However, we have had hands where five queens were played, or a player didnt play trump when trump was led and they had it in their hand (because it is played by them in the next trick), Ive seen cards show up twice in a game. It HAS made us a better player, and as long as we know its going to appear to cheat, we dont get to cranked up about the weird mistakes it makes.
Cards dealt seem biased to one or two players. And the AI makes dumb mistakes, like often leading trump on the first trick if not the partner or picker. And the indicator of who picked shows on one player always and another that actually picked, making it unclear which player picked (the stuck one seems to change when restarting the app). Adding call an ace would be a nice improvement. Also other variants like fewer players, first two queens, etc. Thank you for making this game as there are almost no other offline options, but a few refinements would help a lot.
Black Queens are supposed to be partners. Its odd that we are the highest looser. Too many coincidences that another player has a higher card.
AI gameplay needs major improvements. Things Ive noticed: 1. Partners will often not trump called suit trick. 2. Partners will often not smear where appropriate and in known smear situations. 3. VERY consistently poor hands. 4. Almost always lose when partner. 5. Ridiculous picks by the AI. 6. EVERY time we get back close to 0, the game makes sure we lose about 10x times in a row. 7. Had a situation where AI players went alone 5 times in a row, all producing 0 trick hands. Its sheepshead in name only. Gameplay itself is reasonable about 20% of the time. We did notice a bug though where if you pick and click the discard pile the game crashes. That seems to temporarily reset the horrid play.
Being from Wisconsin, Sheephead is part of who we are. Really enjoy the 4-handed.
Gameplay is solid! The players are tough; this feels more like the first round of tournament sheepshead at Germanfest, less like social drinking sheepshead night. If the implementation allows for it, maybe the developer could create less worthy NPCs having personalities to allow for a beginner PC difficulty ramp.
Has some basic strategy flaws. Example: leading trump when not the partner & sometimes from the first position, hence bleeding partners from trump. Also when picker is in last position.
First of all, thank you for creating an app which you know going in will not have a large user base! There are a few small tweaks which would improve the app – 1) fix the bug which causes it to show 2 pickers sometimes; 2) have the option to review the called suit after the first trick is picked up. If we have to stop in the middle of a hand, we often forget what the called suit is. As far as play, as others have said, it is fairly rare to get the opportunity to pick. Also, it seems rare to us that we are called as partner (Ace rule). This results in far more hands where you are playing against the picker which can be a drag over time. This makes us wonder if it was easier to program the AI in that situation. Bottom line is that it is enjoyable enough to pick it up and play. If you like the game, its worth the download.
PLEASE fix the bug that puts cards above more than one players head!! When we get distracted, we dont know who picked.
We enjoy playing Sheepshead and this app is entertaining to play. But. There are some issues with the logic the bots use. Also, would be nice to indicate the partner (when known) and list the called suit by the picker. Would also be nice if the game moved faster.
Love the secret cheat for restarting a tournament! We would iron out the setting options. Pretty good app, keep up the good work.
Game is ok, though sometimes the bots play really stupid. Our main complaint is the number of sleazy ads. Maybe the app owner has no control but we dont see all the same sleazy ads on any other app.
The game is fun, but could use some tweaking. The called ace, usually walks. The application owner, seldom gets to pick, which also means, usually getting a low amount of trump. After the called ace is determined, we would like to see who that animal is on the screen. YesI can try and remember it too.but just show who the partners are then.
As pointed out in other reviews, trump is lead way too often by the team against the picker. Why would you want to consistently run your partners out of trump? Please fix this logic error.
This is a fun game. We wish it had a couple options, one to look at the previous hands, and a notification showing what the partner card is, as it flashes up briefly on the screen and if you arent looking you dont know. The help also has some blank graphics, so the scoring values dont show up on our phone. It is also pretty slow graphically with unnecessary spinning cards. It would also be nice if a player has the rest of the tricks that it would just lay the cards down and end the hand.
This game must have been created by someone doesnt play the game. Like, when the called suit is played the picker cant trump it!! Also, picker always leads with trump! Go back and fix these obvious errors.
We used to live this game, but then started noticing how ridiculously it cheats. Tell us how 93% of the time, yes 93%, because we kept track over hundreds of hands that the pickers partner has covered the pickers fail, unless of course we pick, then its about 9%. Why is it that we get less than 2 trump almost 88% of the time, and when we do get a decent picking hand the AI picks in front of us with absolutely nothing for them to pick on. Dont get us started on the AI picker leading low fail when Im in the partner, theres no reason a picker should lead if a game with the 8 of clubs when he has a handful of trump. But again, it only seems to be when Im partner. We dont know what happened to this game, but its pretty much unplayable at this point.
Not sure who programmed the computer play on here but this has got to be the most idiotic card playing Ive seen.
Garbage site, only reality is the playing of the game. Unrealistic and math defying hands for such extended times makes us wonder why anyone would play this site.
II really want to like this game. It has good graphics and a nice clean play. However it is so frustrating. How can you get dealt hand after hand after hand of fail? You can only play the losing hands you are repeatedly dealt. Just became boring after a while. Is it an AI dealing issue.
We love the game but we would change one thing if someone picks and doesnt get a trick we would penalize the picker only.
They did a great job here. We wish we could play against other live players. Any way to make this happen? Also, it often shows two different pickers during the game and we have to remember who actually picked. Also the picker always bury Aces and then often leads out fail even if they have a decent hand. Should keep an Ace and trump people out and later play Ace and it walks… Otherwise great game.
In the three handed game the AI almost always buries aces. That should never be don unless youre trump heavy or have most of that suit. Also, non-pickers shouldnt lead trump so often into the picker. Otherwise, its a very good game.
After they expose themselves, of course.
We grew up playing Sheepshead while living in Wisconsin and for eight years in the Navy. Every time we played the rule was that you could not lead trump until they are played on a trick or trump is the only suit you hold. That rule is not factored into this game. It is amazing how it changes the play. We loose all the time, partially because we still think that way.
Best sheepshead on iPhone but PLEASE add an optional setting to identify partner once partner is revealed. Annoying to pick up where you left off and forget whos who.
Overall good. Biggest complaints are the AI picking for no reason often times in front of us. Second complaint is there is not an Alone button if you pick and dont have the Jack of Diamonds. Cant tell you how many times our tournaments would have changed or we could have gone alone. Trump tight with 5 of the top 8 cards and dont have the jack of diamonds and am bringing an AI along for a free ride and sharing points. Its also always the one thats in the points lead. Otherwise, no other real issues.
This is a fun game to learn. However, it would be more fun if the human player received more trump. Ive been playing daily for weeks and have rarely gotten enough trump to be able to pick the blinds. We usually get from 1-3 trump and they usually are not high trump. It gets to be sort of boring after awhile. Id like to win once in awhile like the computer players do. We might have to search for another sheepshead game.
The good: It keeps you on your toes and helps learn good defensive play. The user interface is decent The bad: Like a few other folks, we seldom get a hand that is worth picking up the blind. The other players nearly always get the better hand. We almost never get a solo hand. Sometimes the other players play is horrible. The app sometimes thinks were playing called 10 even when we specified called Ace. we count trump, and Id almost swear the app sometimes comes up with an extra queen.
Close to real play but quite a few goofs. Opponent will lead back trump, wont smear and other errors. Doesnt show partner or suit chosen. Guess a three star was a little generous.
We play the three-handed version. The randomly selected computer generated opponents do not play intelligently, leading bare 10s or leading trump when not picking. Im not a smart player, but even we know better than doing that.
The player decision making on this app is pretty bad. The pickers sometimes have no real chance of winning and while that is fine for a player. A computer should not be doing this to others. Plus it seems the picker and partner, seem to have an unfair card advantage. Then today. We were partner, we had the first 4 tricks. We had the trick, picker on the end and he took the trick and came back with fail.
Game play is alright, but order of play is not what Im used to. Example? We were partner, and first game required us to play A as first card.
This has a pretty good screen view, better than the others. Fairly easy to see who picks the blind, scoring is seamless. Our issue is that the dealing seems skewed to the game. We mostly play in the tournament mode. After we were hooked by winning a tourney or two, we played over 100 without even breaking the top two players. Very frustrating also to have the game pick the blind with a crap hand then call you for partner. Not as fun as Id like it to be.
Really want to like this games simplicity. We tend to enjoy 4 and 5-handed the most, and the non-pickers all too often lead trump early in hands. Just really poor strategy to bleed your partners out of trump.
Many frustrating issues with this game! PLayers frequently lead trump when they are not the partner! Also, when playing call an ace, often players dont lead the called suit when they can. They also frequently throw off fail instead of putting a trump on in front of the picker and save their queens to the end rather than take a trick earlier when they should.
We binge played and found several systematic programming errors. The basic mechanics are ok, but the playmaking has errors. Plus, you seldom get to pick… Seldom. Often called ace does not get trumpted by a non partner even when that player has numerous trump. Almost always when called ace is trumpted, the trick taker leads trump next when there is no sane reason to do that. Often a non partner will smear to called suit trick when the next and last player is the ace partner and is for certain to take the trick. On a loaner, often the first lead from an opponent will be a trump card with no sane reason to do so. These are not strategic guess plays that do not work, they are systematic logic errors because the results are nearly always bad and the play nonsense. And again… You seldom get to pick even if you are willing to pick with a thin hand. We kept track on a rainy day and picked 4 times out of 100 hands and 2 of those were thin hands.
The app needs updating as non-partners are frequently leading trump when they shouldnt. Additionally non-partners are not taking early tricks and coming back with called suit until after trump has been run out by picker and partner. Frustrating.
Computer play is bad. Good hands are hard to come by for the player.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.2.0
- Size: 25.91 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Ryan Lardinois
Last updated: 17th February 2024 | Genre: Card, Entertainment | Developer: Ryan Lardinois