SheepShift

Using animals to control other animals is a pretty old tradition, especially when it comes to herding livestock. Dogs have been used to keep the herd in line for thousands of years, and some breeds have been specifically engineered to do the task as well as possible. On the other hand, it’s also a blast to get some fun out of the whole thing, which is the purpose of sheep herding competitions.

SheepShift is a LudumDare game in which you have to use a dog in order to direct a herd of sheep and arrange it in a specific shape. It may sound pretty boring and easy in theory, but it’s anything but that once you start playing. As you may suspect, the sheep are not exactly welcoming this forced rearrangement, which is why they tend to wander off and ignore your signs.

To begin with, there are multiple shapes and categories to choose from, depending on whether you are just starting out or you already have an understanding of how the game works. As such, the basic shapes are just semicircles and things like that, and you usually have to move the herd from one side of the screen to the other, which is not very complicated.

However, the difficult thing is doing all this in a decent amount of time, which is why there’s a stopwatch on the screen at all times to tell you how you’re doing. Obviously, the experience is not that stressful, but it’s nice to know that you are getting better and better with every try. Even so, the more difficult shapes waiting for you later on might be quite the challenge, regardless of how fast you are.

As for the technical side of things, the game is designed in Unity, but it’s pretty basic. While the artwork is pretty smooth and decent-looking, you shouldn’t expect too much variety in the backgrounds or the sheep, which are all white. The interface overlaps onto the playable area and makes it difficult to see any sheep that might be hiding there.

In the end, SheepShift is certainly a neat idea, but it’s not the type of game that keeps you coming back for more and more every day. Hence, the experience gets pretty dull after a few minutes of gameplay.