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[boogie]

Gameplay

Lead a herd of sheep safely through the levels. You can't control sheep directly, but you control a dog. Your job is to not let sheep die.

Idea

I want to finish this game, because i have many started, but not finished projects. I think i have couple interesting mechanics in this game. Your job is to protect something, not only yourself. You can leave sheep and go exploring to overcome some obstacles or find a best route. You can split the herd and lead only a part of it. It's my first time doing something beside programming - modeling and animations.


Gifs





Prototype




First animation



About me

I'm working alone on this in my free time. In my day job i'm a programmer. This is my first time doing 3d modeling and animation. I use Unity and Blender.

[voltaicore]

Hey man f you need any music for this project email me.

[Cranktrain]

I loved the game

as a child, so I'm really into this.

Small thing, the plural of sheep is just 'sheep', rather than 'sheeps'. Yes, the English language is strange.

[io3 creations]

@boogie
Since you were talking about herding and low poly, a similar game came to mind: Join the Pack

You can find a few videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrDvv1b7kS4WKBCPyEknu5Q
e.g. Trailer:



That games doesn't seem to have the flock mechanic though, so you can still make yours unique if you implement that.

[io3 creations]

I loved the game

as a child, so I'm really into this.

@4:00  "electric sheep" 

[boogie]

@Cranktrain thanks for pointing out the mistake! It's fixed now. Electric fence is pretty cool and I like the barking, though I am not sure how it worked, but it somehow helped herding the sheep. So many cool features in that game, kind of crazy (that's good), it will be an inspiration. Thanks for the link, I've never heard of it before. I've seen you use flocking for the crowd in your game, that's nice. The Eldritch Zookeeper looks cool, definitely following it.

@io3 creations Thanks for the link! That's exactly the look I am aiming for. I really like the first world (floating island? I don't know). And it's a great title "Join the pack", I am kind of jealous!

[boogie]

I've been modeling the sheep. I am not really happy with it, but I definitely have something acceptable quicker than with the dog. 

[io3 creations]

@io3 creations Thanks for the link! That's exactly the look I am aiming for. I really like the first world (floating island? I don't know). And it's a great title "Join the pack", I am kind of jealous!

You're welcome.

Actually, I kinda find the title somewhat misleading.  At first, I thought that you, as the dog, have to join your pack and not herd other animals.

I've been modeling the sheep. I am not really happy with it, but I definitely have something acceptable quicker than with the dog. 

It's a pretty good start.

For now, it's better to create rough/placeholder versions because once you have the engine done with graphics and shaders then certain aspects may find that some aspects will be different.  Some might work, others may need to be changed.

[boogie]

I've been working for a couple of days on ship run cycle. I know it's far from perfect, but still I enjoy the result. It definitely needs some tweeks, but I'm more concerned that it's just not a likeable sheep. I wanted to simplify the model, because you won't see the details anyway, the camera will probably be quite far from the herd.

[io3 creations]

I've been working for a couple of days on ship run cycle. I know it's far from perfect, but still I enjoy the result. It definitely needs some tweeks, but I'm more concerned that it's just not a likeable sheep. I wanted to simplify the model, because you won't see the details anyway, the camera will probably be quite far from the herd.

Do ships actually run like that?   I mean, it reminds me of a dog/wolf running but can't recall sheep lifting their legs that much.  But maybe I just haven't seen them run at that speed or in other games the legs didn't lift that much.  In either case, it would be better to see it in it's final size (i.e. camera far away) to get a better sense.  You could create a "template" where animals just around in a circle to see them from all sides.

[boogie]

My youtube is already full of movies of running sheep My girlfriend said the same about the legs. Yeah, I'm not sure either about the movement. Actually friend of mine gave me keyframes for a mufflon and I copied those

[io3 creations]

Yeah, that movement seems fine for a mufflon. 

I've been thinking about it and in the other gameplay videos posted, sheep tend to run mostly at a medium pace.  Or maybe somehow my preference is to go with a more cartoony feel where the wool coat doesn't move as much compared to the legs.  This would probably work better by having separate models for the legs and the wool coat then having only one mesh.

[boogie]

I've been working on some low poly fire for the title screen.

[boogie]

This week has been busy. I had more time to work on the game because i go earlier to my day job (and finish earlier). Also I am really tired after putting some hours into the game and working in my day job. I've made:

- models of the fence, bridge and trees
- steering using rigidbodies for the dog and sheep
- some "force fields" to help them get over the bridge and bounce off from the fence and the forest. You can see that sheep are moving by themself once they get on the bridge.

I've been thinking mostly about obstacles. The bridge is the first one. With bigger herd it wont be so easy to get them across. You will have to split the herd. I want to make falling rocks and something like a side quest when you have to leave sheep to go some other path. For example to unlock the road, so the herd can get through. Also i am closer to defining the look of the game. I know it's still lacking and especially compared to so many amazing looking games here in tigsource, but it's definitely getting better.

ps. I dont know why the gifs are so shitty. I dont know how to make them running smoother. I am recording with quicktime and then using gfycat. The video is fine. I've tried making it smaller, but it didnt help

[io3 creations]

I wonder if perhaps framerate might be an issue when converting from movie to gif.  Have you tried GIFcam?  It can record gif and doesn't even have to be installed.

[kshankin]

this looks like a fun laid-back kind of game. I like where you're taking it with letting the sheep fall into the water, that gives it a little more depth. 

[boogie]

I wonder if perhaps framerate might be an issue when converting from movie to gif.  Have you tried GIFcam?  It can record gif and doesn't even have to be installed.

thanks, but GIFcam is only for windows. I'm using old mac But thanks anyway!

this looks like a fun laid-back kind of game. I like where you're taking it with letting the sheep fall into the water, that gives it a little more depth. 

Thanks man! I really appreciate it!

[boogie]

I finally learned how to make a proper gif. I use a plugin for unity called "Moments". From what I have seen it records only one camera and doesn't record the gui, but the source code is available so maybe you can tinker with it. I almost discarded this plugin, because lower "compression quality" means better gif quality and it took me a while to realize this. Here's a link for this cool plugin:

https://github.com/Chman/Moments

I've been working on the second obstacle - falling rocks. There's not much to it yet, but i want to give it more depth and make some small monsters pushing the rocks down the hill. Because you are free to leave the herd and go exploring, you would be able to find a hidden path leading to the top of the hill. Then you could kill or scare the monsters and falling rocks would stop. Then you could pass safely with sheep. I realized that the dog and sheep can go up any hill and i don't want that. I want to have slopes that are too steep for them. It took me some time to make it work. I would like mario-style effect, when a sheep go up a hill a little bit and than slide down, but i couldn't make it exactly how i wanted it. In the end i just raycast downward and look at the terrain normal vector. If it's too steep I add some force pulling down.




I needed a death animation for the sheep. That's what i got so far.



I've been working on title screen, mostly on the composition of the scene. I want to achieve a "peaceful night by the campfire" atmosphere. Something soothing. I think that trees are too simple. They may work in the main scene, where they are smaller, but here it just doesn't work well.




I had a problem with the performance. It was the standard shader from unity. I use only vertex colors and there's no built in shader that does vertex colors and lighting, so i modified the standard shader. It was the cause of the framerate drop. Once i used the phong model + vertex colors everything runs smoothly again.

I have never actually showed you one of the basic mechanics of the herd - splitting the herd. As i can record gifs easily now, here is how you divide the herd. I would like to make it a core mechanic but actually there should be a risk with leaving part of the herd behind. I'm thinking of a hunter or a wolf wandering around. Sheep left behind could be an easy target for them.




Let me show you the bridge gif with decent fps. It's nothing new though.

[mosseljongen]

Hey man, I dig the clean elegant looks!

[boogie]

Hey man, I dig the clean elegant looks!

Thanks man!