The Shepherd (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
56The Shepherd was released in 1993 by Dutch coder Obbe Vermeij. It is a habitat simulator, where we plant down food for animals, and compete against the enemy for survival. This is a rare Shareware title with bags of charm, so lets see if we can figure it out??
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Production Notes:
Captured: 23rd May 2023 - 29 May 2023
Narrated: 24th May (and 8 June 2023 for that chunk in the middle)
Final Render: 17th August 2023 (V2b)
This is one of those games that I'd noticed on the Lemon Database before, and thought it looked a bit like Powermonger. But starting it up felt like a vertical difficulty curve, as only registered users ever got a manual (the author no longer has any manuals, I asked him; and he cant remember much about the game either). It was only after Predseda, the co-Admin on Lemon Amiga, wrote a review of the game on the website that I was keenly motivated to play it for this series of guides. This was one of the final games to be recorded for this series (replacing Worms: The Directors Cut, which was on the list but not recorded).
I practised level 1 three times, and on the third attempt I started the recorder to get this footage (to show how I discovered how to play it, live). By then I had spent a few hours with it, figuring out the basics, like how to move animals, and how to select markers buried under hills. I tried everything to kill the enemy turtles, EVERYTHING!, but they did not die until I eventually worked up enough mana to get the virus, and this key to the game was then used on the third try. The next day, after beating level 1, I recorded the end of level 2 and the start of level 3, and did the narration on the whole thing.
The review was finished and edited, but having played the game for a few more weeks, I realised I'd only scratched the surface. So I recorded me playing some later levels (perhaps level 20 something?), and added another chunk of voice-over for the bit after the 30mins mark. I was now using a brand new computer, so that's why mic sounds different. I wanted to insert something into the guide which was more interesting than the first level, and so I cut out 20mins of footage in order to put in 20mins of new footage. The result is still only a basic overview. A few weeks later on 16th of August, I searched for the author for an interview on Lemon. That interview has been delayed due to the web site issues.
After the interview, I added some more bits (which Obbe has not seen) including images and notes he sent to me. This is a quiet video, but some parts are a bit louder when I start to rant about turtles.
Danscore:
Daunting. Mysterious. Voluminous and Deep are just some of the words which could be used to describe this habitat on a disk. The realm of open-world 3D had not yet entered global vocabulary in 1993, but that didn't stop one man from making such a game. Each pixel in the game changes, and does something. Each animal has a mind of it's own. Planting in different seasons affects yield. This is basically a voyeurs ecology sim, where the player spends 99% of their time watching, waiting, and looking for opportunities to move animals about. A new animal and approach is introduced per level, up until the half way point of the 50(?) levels. After that, it only gets harder, and even masters might need to re-start the same level over and over. Luckily there is no score, only progress, so entering passwords never feels like cheating.
It feels deep enough to engage the player, even though towards the end of the game, I found it a bit samey and maybe a bit too difficult by a certain point. Handily, the game spices things up with some Jurassic levels, and some Tank and helicopter levels occasionally. Some levels can be completed very quickly if you know the tricks - adding to the feeling of worthwhile progress. I spent many weeks with it, and this is for those who like playing sim games for hours. I know it has limited appeal, but strategy lovers might find something very charming about taking care of piggies and duckies and little animals, and I think this masterpiece needs needs the highest recognition. As a full price game I'd give it 7.5, as there is a lot to get into - just like the authors inspiration, Dune 2. There are a few annoyances, and definitely an 030 is needed for later levels with 100s of animals all wandering round. But this squeezes onto just one disk, and the only place to get that disk is from the ADFs online, or from Aminet. I give it 8/10.