Sheep Go (and Portland)

As you know, I’m not a big gamer, but I have something I’d like to present to you. It’s an immersive, fully interactive first-person tactical adventure I call Sheep Go. It’s not ready for wide release, but I think you’ll be impressed by the screenshots.

An opening cutscene establishes that you’ve woken up early to pack to go to Portland today. The backstory for going to Portland can be, I don’t know, whatever young people are into these days. Voting or watching music or visiting with friends or something – doesn’t matter. You’re the only one home and awake. You’ve started the generator, walked the stove, and lit a fire in the dog, and are catching up with your podcasts while eating breakfast and waiting for laundry to dry. Your camera – i.e., screenshot interface – lies nearby. The obvious soundtrack choice here is Morning from Peer Gynt, but that’s not firm.

You glance out the window and see two of your family’s three sheep strutting around the yard. End of intro – it’s all you now. On the screen appears a slowly and irregularly but exponentially increasing number: this is the number of important items you’re going to forget to take to Portland as you eat into packing time. (Actually, it’s only an estimate; you real score is made known about 48 hours later.) Make your way outside.

The sheep are standing around nibbling grass and wearing what they think are audacious expressions. This is the core gameplay experience of sheep go.

Jerks.

The game boils down to this: the world is divided into two parts, the electric fence enclosure and everywhere else. You win when all the sheep are in the fence and it’s closed. The sheep are winning the rest of the time, and they win even more if they come to harm by breaking legs, getting lost, learning to fear humans, being eaten by dogs, etc. Scattered around the world are obstacles like trees, ditches, sharp tools under grass, piles of lumber, and vital water pipes. Many of these apparently cannot be seen by sheep, while others, such as ley-lines, ghosts, especially dog-urine–heavy zones, other ghosts, places where they once heard a funny noise, and ghosts of dogs, can only only seen by sheep.

Your influence on the sheep is strong yet subtle. By moving and adjusting your posture in ways their tiny sheep-like brains arbitrarily pick up on, you exert a kind of moyo or telekinetic force which nudges them around. In their physics they are like magnets on a table: under low force, friction constrains them to move in small scoots, but if you let them build momentum they will slide right along. Conversely, they read your moyo as directional, and will extrapolate your motion liberally, so taking a tight corner can spook them. Spooking them is a terrible idea.

A spooked sheep.

After playing for about forty minutes, slow-chasing the sheep both ways around the garden and so forth, the dog which you have left inside will bark urgently. Obviously, CRM-aware and non-stupid players will leave the sheep for minute to see what she means, but let’s just pretend you’re dumb enough to call “Java, no bark” and ignore her.

The player may choose to use the plentiful apples from the orchard as lures. The sheep love apples and will do anything for them except move in the direction of the pasture.

Those apples are not for sheep!

I forgot to mention that the sheep have a great deal of muscle, mass at knee height, and ever-so-sharp hooves. Luckily, they are bred to be docile, which is a euphemism for dumb as stumps. If you open a segment of fence (because they can get tangled in fence lying on the ground) and the sheep that’s still inside comes over to stare at you, you are grateful for this.

Too stupid to just push past.

Eventually, more by chance than by your agency, the sheep end up back in the pasture. As the credits roll, you re-stake the fence as best you can (not very well at all) and hook the electricity back up.

Inside, you discover what the dog was barking about: you left a pan on the stove and the house is full of smoke. Time to pack!

You win!

I’d play.

I’ll be in Portland for a few days starting tomorrow. I’ll probably be hanging out at Tiny’s and the Black Cat a lot – get in touch.