The Object of the Game is to complete the level as fast as possible. This may seem a little vague, but since every level is different, I cant be much more specific.

The levels consist of a number of white sheep, a number of black sheep, and some obstacles, more about them later.

Key Controls for the game are very simple; up means forward, down means stop and I think you can guess what left and right mean. The dog responds to these simple commands, since teaching a computer to "Come By" would be tricky to say the least.

It does however mean that you have direct control over the dog. The dog will cruise at any speed between stationary and the sheep's maximum speed. Holding the up key will force the dog upto twice the sheep's maximum speed, which is useful for for nipping around to catch some escapees, or to scout the field for lost sheep, or the next obstacle.

The Sheep do not have a completely accurate herding instinct, because it would simply be too difficult. The sheep will natrually group into twos and threes which are very difficult to split. If you have a larger group then it will break down relatively easily. My sheep are not racist, and if you have a group of one white and one black you're going to have a tough job getting them apart.

Having said the they are not like real sheep, they can be almost as annoyingly evasive, and considering all the different ways sheep find to get on shepherds' nerves, there's probably a match somewhere.

The Obstacles and the scoring system which goes with them also differ from real sheepdog trials (I should realy have gone to watch some before writing the game shouldnt I?). In real trials the team is scored by a panel of judges, and get points for the obstacles that they complete, inside the time limit.

Here there are no judges, no points and no time limit. The obstacles must be completed in order (they are numbered). An obstacle is completed when the number of white sheep to go and the number of black sheep to go are both zero. When an obstacle is complete you will move onto the next obstacle, or complete the level if that was the last one. See below for a screenshot showing what I mean by all that.

The time is shown at the top, the number of white and black sheep to go on the bottom left, and the obstacle you're on is shown on the bottom right.

There are two types of obstacle in the game: the pen and the gate. For a pen, the number of sheep to go is the number of sheep which are needed minus the number already there. For a gate, it starts as the number needed to complete the obstacle, and every time you get a sheep through the right way, the number to go will be decreased, and every time a wooly monster gets through the wrong way the number to go will be increased.