The two rules I interacted with in this game were the water and the chicken. With the water, I felt annoyed. Not because of the rule itself, it is because I kept pressing the arrow key and accidentally pushed the sheep into the water. I felt surprised with the chicken because when I first interacted with it I had no idea what was going to happen. The dialogue mentioned that the chicken will scare the sheep back, but I didn’t quite understand what “scared back” means in the first place. When I moved Bob away, the sheep jumped back one space once it interacted with the chicken. I think it is an interesting rule, and very creative with the combination of the sound effects. The combination of the chicken pushing the sheep into the water on the last level was intriguing. I thought of this interaction when I was on level 4, then I felt satisfied once I saw the creator mentioned this interaction in the dialogue before level 5. I can imagine that there can be other uses with this interaction. For example, what if the chicken can be scared into the water, or what if the chicken can scare both the sheep and Bob once they are in a row. I think this interaction will still persist if the rules are changed. I also think the physical game mechanic is the part that makes the interaction interesting. Once the sheep are scared into the water, the entire level restarts. So it is important to keep in mind to actually avoid this interaction with the mindset of passing that last level.
Solving the final level was an interesting twist on my understanding of the mechanic introduced a level earlier, that being chickens. The objective of the level is to, as the shepherd dog, guide the sheep to the shepherd. As the dog, the sole verb at your disposal is to move in the 4 directions, and moving next to a sheep pushes it in that direction one space. This changes slightly when near a chicken, as the sheep try to avoid staying within 1 tile of a chicken, so on the next turn, if they are near a chicken they will move 1 space away from it regardless if its being pushed away by the dog. In the previous level this mechanic was moreso an obstacle, where the only path to herd the sheep to the pens was between all the water and chicken tiles (which could push the sheep into the water and restart the level). Like the final level, the semifinal level had only one route to push the sheep, through, and once this route was understood and found it was only a matter of not misclicking and herding each sheep to the pen. Though, in this final level, there were far more routes to consider taking, and after several attempts trying to guide the sheep around the chickens between the many creeks, I found the successful route at the bottom of the level. After catching on to the chicken-sheep mechanic, I figured how to use moving the sheep to particular tiles to move the sheep to where I needed it to be so that I could push it further along the path. This indirect movement of the sheep in the last level was an interesting interaction between the main verb and new rule.
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The two rules I interacted with in this game were the water and the chicken. With the water, I felt annoyed. Not because of the rule itself, it is because I kept pressing the arrow key and accidentally pushed the sheep into the water. I felt surprised with the chicken because when I first interacted with it I had no idea what was going to happen. The dialogue mentioned that the chicken will scare the sheep back, but I didn’t quite understand what “scared back” means in the first place. When I moved Bob away, the sheep jumped back one space once it interacted with the chicken. I think it is an interesting rule, and very creative with the combination of the sound effects. The combination of the chicken pushing the sheep into the water on the last level was intriguing. I thought of this interaction when I was on level 4, then I felt satisfied once I saw the creator mentioned this interaction in the dialogue before level 5. I can imagine that there can be other uses with this interaction. For example, what if the chicken can be scared into the water, or what if the chicken can scare both the sheep and Bob once they are in a row. I think this interaction will still persist if the rules are changed. I also think the physical game mechanic is the part that makes the interaction interesting. Once the sheep are scared into the water, the entire level restarts. So it is important to keep in mind to actually avoid this interaction with the mindset of passing that last level.
Prompt 4:
Solving the final level was an interesting twist on my understanding of the mechanic introduced a level earlier, that being chickens. The objective of the level is to, as the shepherd dog, guide the sheep to the shepherd. As the dog, the sole verb at your disposal is to move in the 4 directions, and moving next to a sheep pushes it in that direction one space. This changes slightly when near a chicken, as the sheep try to avoid staying within 1 tile of a chicken, so on the next turn, if they are near a chicken they will move 1 space away from it regardless if its being pushed away by the dog. In the previous level this mechanic was moreso an obstacle, where the only path to herd the sheep to the pens was between all the water and chicken tiles (which could push the sheep into the water and restart the level). Like the final level, the semifinal level had only one route to push the sheep, through, and once this route was understood and found it was only a matter of not misclicking and herding each sheep to the pen. Though, in this final level, there were far more routes to consider taking, and after several attempts trying to guide the sheep around the chickens between the many creeks, I found the successful route at the bottom of the level. After catching on to the chicken-sheep mechanic, I figured how to use moving the sheep to particular tiles to move the sheep to where I needed it to be so that I could push it further along the path. This indirect movement of the sheep in the last level was an interesting interaction between the main verb and new rule.