For the Herd!

by mascoll

co-authored: @pierre-reimertz, @failuer, @javve, @ocwal, @voxar

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.03

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.65

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.99

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.50

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.41

Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.05

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.44

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.21

![ctabanner.png](https://ocwal.itch.io/for-the-herd)

Collect your herd in a safe sleeping-spot before the day is over!

Sun is slowly rising over the horizon. Just as slowly, the herd awakens and starts to graze the plains. There to guard them is dog. Dog needs to bring every ram, sheep and little lamb to safety by the end of the day to ensure that no-one gets lost in the wild.

Round up your herd by moving close to the sheep and coax them towards the safe zone. If they don't listen, bark a little to get them moving.

Sprint and slide your way through the meadows and find every little lamb before dark.

*early concept sketches brought to life*

---

Game Development:

This game was developed by seven members of the Dubious Potions indie collective.

Special thanks to Nevyn and Milestone!

All of the aspects of the game where developed within 72 hours of Ludum Dare 58, from idea to final build.

All assets in the game were made by the team.

We had an amazingly fun time doing this! <3

Genres: strategy

Tools: Godot

Comments39

Ira Baciu5 Oct 2025, 21:56

I can't enter the game :((

cardsnapper5 Oct 2025, 22:46

Please fix the link! This looks really cool!

Mascollauthor5 Oct 2025, 22:55

@ira-baciu @cardsnapper - Link should be up now! Thank you for your interest!
Note: We're experiencing some issues with sound not looping in the web-build so I recommend the executables for now! Hopefully we can fix this during the cleaning tomorrow. :dog:

Maytch5 Oct 2025, 23:39

Takes a while to get the hang of! I managed 39 sheps before the end of the night!

There were some audio issues like my borks didn't always bork when I borked, but otherwise no other problems.

The way you display the time of day on those shadows is excellent, love the shadow effect you have going on there!

AppoxGames5 Oct 2025, 23:51

Wow this is really well done, i enjoyed it. Only feedback i have is that the little buggers should stay in the circle. Watching them run away after bringing them there made me twitch :)

Well done on this one! I see some potential in it.

D_omino6 Oct 2025, 00:14

Charming herd-collecting concept with fantastic atmosphere! The day/night cycle via shadows is brilliant, though stubborn sheep AI can be frustrating. Really captures that village vibe - great author execution!

logicalinsanity6 Oct 2025, 05:11

So great. Cozy game play and theme. Challenging and innovative. I only wish there was some more cozy chill ambient music while playing.

Mascollauthor6 Oct 2025, 13:35

@logicalinsanity the music loop in the web-build should work now!

LDJam user 2689346 Oct 2025, 21:32

There is some talent here! Like the shadow casting.
Music is super nice too. Did you do the voices yourself ( beeehhh ). They sounded (good) funny 🤣!

LiuZhiKai6 Oct 2025, 22:00

Ha ha ha, did you record this sheep bleating yourselves?

Mascollauthor7 Oct 2025, 10:05

@senso @liuzhikai - All animal noises where voice-acted by the team (and connected family)! :D
With a good sized team like us, we always strive to make all assets during the jam!

LDJam user 2689347 Oct 2025, 10:12

Nice bet you had fun doing them :)

liumeishan7 Oct 2025, 11:58

omg it's so cute!!!!great job!!!

mahc7 Oct 2025, 20:59

loved the shadows and setting sun!!

Keys Presser8 Oct 2025, 16:39

What a great game and a great idea! I also really liked the graphics, especially the cool shadows — they turned out truly magical

danicoredj8 Oct 2025, 18:32

relaxing game cool

BorodaOlen8 Oct 2025, 19:37

I really liked your game. very nice graphics, very nice art.

Martynas Dargis8 Oct 2025, 19:42

I loved your game. It's very pretty and I had lots of fun playing it. I did get all the sheep in the circle, but it said there's only 35 :c - I could not find any more sheep outside the circle (I know that there are white dots indicating where the sheep are)

kuggenhoffen8 Oct 2025, 19:53

What a fun game! Awesome work on the sounds.

Sharky31888 Oct 2025, 22:32

A great take on the theme, very much appreciate the fact that the sheep gather to the centre once they hit the circle. Great atmosphere.

naru8 Oct 2025, 23:03

I like the style! Gameplay is pretty hard but well polished

Bobap8 Oct 2025, 23:29

Art is fantastic and herding might be the best use of the theme I've seen yet. The shadows were interesting, but I'm not sure made up for the 3D overhead associated. Probably could have just gotten away with a darkening overlay. I definitely liked the art more than the 3D assets and think it could have been more cohesive with a singular style instead of some bits being outlined and others borderless. Not sure what caused it but at one point I ran 2 lambs down from up top and when they got close to the safe spot they just disappeared. At first the controls were frustrating, but quickly came to love the difficulty of them and the mastery of them. The splash art is the best I've seen yet, nicely done.

Mascollauthor8 Oct 2025, 23:38

@bobap - Thank you for your feedback! We've also noticed some bugs popping up after the jam deadlines that sadly didn't make themself known during the jam - like the lamb black hole thing and also some issues surrounding Godot and audio when out of the editor.
Note that there are no 3D assets at all in the game it's all 2D with overlays.
The splash art is all by our amazing illustrator Elli!

Bobap9 Oct 2025, 00:04

If it's all 2D then it's really well done. You did a great job with the shadow casting then. I had a stutter at one point that I thought might have been caused by loading the packed sheep in the safe zone when panning back over them, but that's definitely not the case if they're just 2D assets.

Andreadbx9 Oct 2025, 11:35

The style is amazing, love the care for details like the doggo bending when turning :D As for gameplay, it plays very smooth, but at the same time it's very unnerving having to get constanly back because the herd leaves the spot, so maybe some fences to help with that? great job!

Iriska9 Oct 2025, 18:50

The style of game is incredibly attractive💜 ⭐ 💜

Trevor Mäe9 Oct 2025, 20:25

Amazing game, just wish the sheep would stay in the circle. Otherwise loved it!

Hank Ather9 Oct 2025, 21:00

This is such a killer interpretation of the theme, so well executed. Bummer about the audio bugs, we were having trouble with that too. Godot is weird sometimes.

Really loved the feeling of zipping around the field herding the sheep. The feel of the player was really great, buttery smooth.

I couldn't find all of the sheep- best I could do was 34. Seems like some disappeared into the void somehow.

Really love the game tho, I'd be curious to see where you could take this mechanic from here.

Caer9 Oct 2025, 22:27

Such beautiful graphics! :sob: I love this spin on the collector theme--and one day, I hope to be competent enough to actually control the velocity of sheep.

Fupi10 Oct 2025, 00:51

Beautiful game very cozy visuals, but wow is it stressful! :sweat_smile: The most I got is 25, I don't understand how I'm supposed to keep herding them when they keep escaping! Maybe if the controls were normal 8-way movement or mouse based instead of tank controls it would be easier, I get the difficult controls are the point but right now it feels kinda cramped on my hand. Anyhow I think this was very charming, and I could definitely see myself trying it again sometime!

xlambein10 Oct 2025, 16:29

Finally got around to trying it out, it's fun to play a game with a similar concept to mine! I loved the graphics and general mood of the game, and the sound design made it quite fun. Definitely wish my game had this level of polish :>

dasMaichen12 Oct 2025, 10:12

Very cute game

l6ria12 Oct 2025, 13:53

Very cute and cozy. It was a little bit hard but it was very funny. Sheep's sound is so perfect.

MikroPiru12 Oct 2025, 14:07

Not only did we have the same idea, we were also a team of six. :-D I really liked the graphics, especially the menu art and the smooth animation of the gameplay, topped by those shadows. I also enjoyed the music and (somewhat funny) sounds a lot. The sheep escaping the circle was slightly annoying but I wasn't doing that good of a job anyway so can't really blame that. :-D The sheep radar on the screen edges was a nice touch! Great entry!

PieRo_PBeS_studio12 Oct 2025, 16:05

Good interpretation of the theme but not at all my kind of games because it's super hard, these sheep don't listen to anything! But the realization is cool, I really like the illustrations too.

anaticula13 Oct 2025, 02:43

Really cool idea and execution! I loved your attention to detail and that you even managed to design itch page! Great job! It was hard for me to play cause I suck at this kind of controls but I enjoyed it anyway, cause it feeled peaceful to roam among the sheeps not trying to chase them into the zone!

INGVIILD16 Oct 2025, 16:15

You've created a damn addictive game! It's atmospheric, and it gives you plenty of time to get the hang of the controls. I'm hooked :)

hunttis18 Oct 2025, 11:20

Nice work on a similar idea! I loved the cartoony graphics. Much better than what I made :laughing: Really nice atmosphere, liked the shadows, too.

I didn't get along with the controls very well, since I managed to get only a handful sheep into the ring and all the other sheep very far from each other :laughing:

stumbi18 Oct 2025, 12:38

Such a beautiful game and a greate gameplay idea! Came here from the other herding game :D While i love the art work and the idea, I was expecting a more herd-like behavior of the sheep and found it quite hard to place at least some sheep in the target area.Also I found the controls a bit wonky

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