Too tired..
Instead, I've been working on Sheep Goes Left DS, which is proving 17,000,000,000% more popular than it's iOS rival.
Quite why, I don't know, but the fact that it's being mentioned quite a bit is a good sign.

-=-=-

Since I'm being sheepish, I decided to hunt the net for Sheepy stuff, and once again stumbled onto this post.

The first time I spotted it, I read it, sighed a bit, and eventually went "Ok, whatever".
But now I'm doing daily blogs..
ooooh!

Rant Time

-=-=-

Right off the bat, there's an argument about whether my Sheep Goes Left, and SpikeDislike PC games are infact just Demos.

It's quite a bit like SpikeDislike, which could also be classed a demo, since there's a more developed 'iOS' version out in the masses already.

Too true.
SpikeDislike was made before the iOS one, so that's definitely a demo! It had online scoreboards months before the iOS one, so that's DEFINITELY a demo. It has a gun, which the iOS one still doesn't, so it's REALLY DEFINITELY a demo. And the PC one flows through it's themes, in a sort of "Keep it going, to see it all method", whereas the iOS one is lazy and just lets you pick them. .. Yup, definitely a demo!!

As for the Sheep demo, yeah, I'll accept that.
.. But if you hit E on the menu, you get an editor.



Sheep Goes Left is by Jayenkai, one of my favourite developers. And one of the more quicker ones as well, one game after the other being churned out each week.
I like that paragraph!
Sidenote/rant : There's over 200 games that're free, having a couple of demos won't kill you..

Now, onto the game itself. Instead of looking for any instructions, I just used the left cursor key to control the sheep.
Just the way I like 'em. If I can avoid instructions, then that's great.

I'm sure he [the developer] didn't want it to become some sort of horror game.
Indeed. I was also contemplating having the sheep go "SPLLAAAAT!!!!", and be skewered and spun by the spikes, sending buttloads of evil blood splatters all over the screen..
Then I thought about having to age-rate the game, and kinda decided against it.
.. *shrugs*

I can only suppose that movement to the right was removed purposely to kick the difficulty up.
Yup. That's what it is..
200 games later, you tend to play with the rules a bit!

I noticed immediately that a control for the jump seemed to be removed (Which I'm sure is visible in the iOS version). So I guess it goes down into the category, 'dumbed down demo'.
The lack of Jump is remedied at World 5.
The first 4 worlds are a kind of Inverse Tutorial.
It's easy because there's only 1 button.
It's harder because there's not the other one!

The lack of anything other than a left button does two things.
1. Makes it blindingly obvious WTF the player's meant to do.
2. Makes the game's title that much more relevant.

If it helps, the entire game was originally going to be jumpless. I was, instead, going to do a run button..

Come world 5, where you NEED to jump over the one spike in the middle, the game will finally let you do that. The spike is, again, purposely there to teach you the need for a jump button.
It all works out.

The next world introduces Ice, and Sheep slides across the floor..
You're meant to remember that you now have a jump button, and figure out that whilst Sheep's in the air, he doesn't skid.
I wonder how many people did..!?

All the spikes worked as they should in the 3 sets of spikes that I passed by.
That's why you didn't get your jump button

Additional note : the iOS edition lets you keep your jump button once you've earned it, so you can hop back to the first few worlds, and get yourself some extra points. o/yeayo/
The PC edition... well...

Score seemed to break for no apparent reason around the third set, and I'm certain that spiking the score counter wasn't going to make it work again.

The scoring is more evident on the iOS one, with it's mid-world score counter, but basically, you only get your bonus points if you get to the other side, and you score more for each life remaining.
This isn't a broken feature, it's just a bit quirky when you can't really see what it's doing!
You may happily add these two parts down to your "Demo" reasonings, but honestly, they're more of a "Didn't get to it" issue.

What I don't particularly like about this demo is that losing all of their lives means that you have to start from the very beginning. All over again.
You have to restart 5 minutes of gameplay because you managed to lose all your lives?!
OMG! NO!!!!!!

... Don't lose your lives, then!
That's why the lives are in there in the first place!!!!

If you lost all your lives, and then started at exactly the same place, that's not lives, that's not gameplay, and that's entirely not the point.

... Each screen should take no more than 90 seconds, even if you go really show, and stop halfway through a screen.
They've actually been built around a 34 second timer (that'd be the bonus thing, and the music I had before I changed it all) so are all nice and fast.
Given the 34 second per-level rule, and a random death on EVERY level, and a world containing 5 levels, (so, 10*34) that's no more than 340 seconds per world.
That's just over 5 minutes.
Your game is saved after each world, so (although a little iOS version specific) it's a FANTASTIC game to be playing between events.
It's what I like to call "Kettle Gaming", and I try make it work with most of my iOS games.

Pop on the kettle, whip out iPhing, play a complete world, kettle boiled, put iPhing away.

Somehow, I enjoyed SpikeDislike better... But that's me.

Given the crappy sales, it's not just you