meursault 2017-12-04 21:38
nice game, i really like the graphics. Though it wasn't really clear what you are supposed to do.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → The Adequate Shepherd
By blubberquark
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 898 | 3.08 | 50 | |
| Fun | 1074 | 2.53 | 49 | |
| Innovation | 619 | 3.11 | 50 | |
| Theme | 502 | 3.50 | 50 | |
| Graphics | 543 | 3.55 | 50 | |
| Humor | 685 | 2.69 | 43 | |
| Mood | 784 | 3.00 | 48 |
nice game, i really like the graphics. Though it wasn't really clear what you are supposed to do.
Nice game, despite the fact that __two__ dogs are the perfect team, to herd the sheep. ;D
I do not really understand what I was supposed to do, and in which way. It lacks sounds also. Keep working on the game, it could be awesome. I like the concept.
@meursault I have added some more visual instructions on the page!
Sounds work in the flash version now!
Looks really cool, but wasn't able to run the Flash version, and the Mac version didn't work for me either. :-(
@elemel what was your problem and which version of mac OS are you on? I just did
$ lime build mac $ butler push export/mac64/neko/ blubberquark/the-adequate-shepherd:macos
without any errors from linux. Can somebody with a mac confirm?
This was a super cute game! I like the RTS part of this, and it feels really complete. Nice job!
@josefnpat almost nobody tweets their score! Only @Jupiter-Hadley and @gnihad ever press "T" How many did you save?
@blubberquark
```sh Downloads $ open shepherd.app LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Users/elemel/Downloads/shepherd.app. ```
But this works:
```sh Downloads $ cd shepherd.app/Contents/MacOS MacOS $ ./shepherd ```
I'm on macOS Sierra 10.12.6
Thank you @elemel. It seems to be a problem with .app bundle permissions and not Unix executable permissions? I have no idea how to fix that on Linux? Maybe I'm lucky and it's the fault of butler and @fasterthanlime is to blame ;) Or it's something in haxeflixel or lime. Maybe the metadata that you need can't even be represented on ext4 and needs whatever stuff Apple uses to store permissions?
I'll look into this when get my hands on a mac...
Well, I must say, I am glad I was not the only person to make a game about sheep! Good job on the game.
Brought six sheep to the goal! First tried to bring too many and failed miserably. Then brought two, and after that four. Kept one dog to guard the rest of the sheep in the fold, and brought two dogs for herding. The guard dog didn't stay put, so a few stray sheep were taken by the wolves.
The game plays fairly slowly, and (indirectly) controlling the sheep is very hard. You get a little better with practice. The atmosphere is great, and I really like the excellent art. The sound effects are mostly good. Some music would have been nice. The goal graphics and sound effect felt a bit rushed. Maybe bring the sheep to a barn instead?
Overall, a very impressive submission. Well done.
@elemel @blubberquark the default macOS unzipper is to blame here (it doesn't set the executable bit even if it's properly stored in the archive)
@fasterthanlime Aha! Thanks for the clarification.
Nice graphics and the instructions are awesome. It does play pretty slow though. And the noises are quickly annoying. I also had quite a few clicks that were lost, sometimes I had to click several times to activate a dog.
I liked the idea, but apparently I have no herding capabilities. So either I missed some important tactical step or the game could do with a bit of simplified way of making the sheep go where I want them. Maybe some could be solved with hot-swapping between dogs using tab or similar and have the active dogs just head towards the mouse cursor without clicking or anything. It would also have been nice with an indicator of where in general you should be heading.
Good idea, I believe it has potential. Perhaps adding a progression, for example, start with 5 sheep that would only need to go to the other side of the road, then add more sheep and a larger path as "new levels". Congratulations for the game.
Boa ideia, acredito que tem potencial. Talvez adicionando uma progressão, por exemplo, começar com 5 ovelhas que só precisariam ir até o outro lado da estrada, para depois ir adicionando mais ovelhas e um caminho maior como novos níveis. Parabéns pelo jogo. :flag_br:
Super cool idea for this jam, perfectly fits the theme. Overall the game is funny, it needs some work to make it a bit easier since it is not so straightforward to let the dogs co-operate. You may allow the user to set a moving rules for every dog, then pressing a key would let them move altogether. Also, sheeps should move a little faster. However, I really enjoyed it a lot, clean and simple. Good job!
Annoying and frustrating. The graphics are pretty but the controls are completely obtuse. Sheep don't respond enough to the sheepdog you have (the single, solitary sheepdog, not sheepdogs PLURAL) and there's no indication where the goal is; I'm immediately reminded of the prospect of scrubbing a floor with a toothbrush only to be told that I just finished scrubbing the floor in the wrong room.
Also, the reason no one pressed "T" is because there are no instructions anywhere. At all. If you're supposed to be able to switch between sheepdogs, I couldn't figure THAT out, either. No one's going to enjoy your game the way you intended if you don't tell them how exactly you intended them to play it.
Nice and cute graphics. I think difficulty could be reduced(I mean moving 36 sheep so far). Not sure why other people say "don't know what to do", it was all in description and self explanatory, but you could show an arrow to sheep drop point to make it simpler. Core mechanic could use some sharpening, as pushing sheep seems a bit random and slow. Overall nice base, could use balance improvements.
I know you hate your game but I think it was a good approach to the theme, you could spend some more time to balance it and it will be a fun game imo. Good effort!
It's a bit cumbersome. The dogs kind of blend in with the background, I thought I had 2 dogs until I moved close to the third one and it moved. Also, there only seem to be 24 sheep, not 36 :P
Hey, this looks really nice :) And I can definitely see where you're going with the game concept. Though I think it'd be nice with an indication of *where* the goal was, and perhaps a few fewer sheep to start... but otherwise a nice experience.
Great game, maybe i havent figured something but herding sheep is really slow.
The dog sprites are so cute!
Visual style is really good and concept can work, but now gameplay seems very slow. Dogs have small radius of barking and sheeps don't respond correctly. Clicking hitbox would be better as 1 tile instead of hitting dog sprite exactly. With some polishing it would be fun game.
really cute game and art, nice idea - just gameplay was too slow and sheep too hard to manage to make want to try complete it. Lot of effort gone in though, good work.
Well, I felt like a real shepherd! Nice Graphics and interpretation of the theme!
Nice idea, neat graphics, but the gameplay is too slow for me. But maybe I'm just too impatient, I could never heard sheep in real life as well 8->
Really nice game, Cool visual style :)
The character's bounding box feels too big for my taste. Controls are a bit slow as well. Mac OSX build crashes.
Hey @blubberquark,
ist immer noch sehr witzig und zugleich seltsam, dass wir quasi die gleiche Idee hatten. Verrückt.
Nach deinem ausführlichen Review ist es wohl nur fair, dass sich auch hier mal jemand ausspricht. :)
Von mir auch ein Komplement-Sandwich. Zuerst ein paar Kritikpunkte:
- so **schwer**, dass ich sehr stolz war, überhaupt mal 3 Schafe nach Hause gebracht zu haben! - die **Schwierigkeit** kommt glaube ich auch daher, dass man die Hunde nicht gut selektiert bekommt (transparente Pixel gehen nicht) - rennen die Hunde weg, wenn sie von zu vielen Schafen gepusht werden? Das macht es auch **nicht leichter**. - die Schafe haben echt die Ruhe weg und muessen ja quasi an ihr Ziel geschoben werden! Erfordert echt **uber micro**. - ein einfacherer Tutorial-Level wäre super gewesen - Sounds könnten mehr Variation und seltener (ja, Glashaus und so) - keine Musik :( - dachte erst, dass die Weg-Tiles Zäune waren, u.a. weil auch die Hunde durch Zäune laufen können etwas verwirrend
Und natürlich verdientes Lob:
- sehr niedliche Pixelgrafik - die minimalistischen Animationen machen viel her - es ist ein fertiges Spiel - deine itch.io-Seite ist wie immer tadellos - samt gifs! - der RTS-Ansatz ist super (wollten wir auch erst so machen ;)) - Thema sehr gut getroffen, bei dir mit den 3 Hunden wirds erst so richtig schlimm... - du hast das Dark Souls der Schafe-Hütespiele geschaffen, um @fastpath zu zitieren ;)
:sheep: :dog: :sheep: :wolf: :sheep:
@sbarrio Crashes how and on which version of OSX? Is it what @elemel described in the comments here or something else?
@blubberquark Same thing as @elemel mentioned, only works when launching the sheperd executable inside the application package from the terminal. Otherwise it gives a Segmentation fault. My OSX version is 10.13.1 (High Sierra)
Good idea, but the dogs need to have a biggest radius of fright otherwise you can just push one sheep at a time.
Our team does a weekly indie gamedev podcast called Nice Games Club, and we just did a Let's Play episode where we played thirty-six (!!) Ludum Dare 40 games, including yours!
[Check it out here!](http://nicegames.club/2017/12/nice-plays-ludum-dare-40-games-2017/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGt66ZnLME
Thematic idea and ok implementation too. Graphics are good and the few sound effects do strengthen the mood. Wolves howling and snarling in the background, when close by, would have been a good addition on that front.
Herded 14 sheep to the... helicopter landing pad? Had 20 more waiting, but did not bother doing the same thing all over again. That's the main issue here, no additional mechanics are added when saving sheep. Gets stale.
Good effort, more content needed.
Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Good (4.0)* Theme: *Great (4.5)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Humor: *Average (3.0)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)*