THE SHEEP ESCAPED!

Grab'em, throw'em, and save'em!


Welcome to Sheep Split, a tiny, fast-paced farm frenzy arcade on the Game Boy Color!

Pick up sheep, throw them into their pens, and try not to let the chaos win. Farming has never been this wild!




Story

You’ve always dreamed of becoming a rancher and living among animals. Yesterday, you finally landed a job at a ranch near your hometown, and today is your very first day.

But disaster strikes — you slip and accidentally open both the blue and red sheep pens! Now the sheep are running wild, and if the owner finds out… you don’t even want to imagine what’ll happen.

You have until 13:00 to fix this mess before the owner gets back from town. Right now, it’s… WHAT?! 12:57!!! That’s only three minutes to round them all up!

Face the sheep stampede and herd them into their correct pens. Pick them up, throw them to the sides, and pray for your soul. And whatever you do… watch out for the disguised wolves!



Features

These are the main features already in the game jam release:

  • Two game modes with multiple difficulty options.
  • High score tables for each mode, including player name input.
  • In-game tutorial.
  • Full illustrated custom graphics.
  • Color options (Player sprite palette selection and high contrast option)

These are other features I'd love to add to the game later on:

  • Better implementation of sound effects and music.
  • Introduction scene with illustrated storytelling.
  • Refined difficulty options in Timed Mode
  • Better difficulty progression in Endless Mode.



Game Modes

Timed Mode

You have three minutes to herd as many sheep as possible into their correct pens. Choose from three difficulty levels, which affect how many sheep spawn and how fast they move.

  • Throw a sheep into its correct pen to earn +1 point.
  • Throw it into the wrong pen and you lose -1 point (-2 in hard difficulty).
  • If a sheep escapes downwards, you lose time (-1s).
  • Throw a sheep off the map, and you lose even more time (-2s).
  • If you toss a wolf into a pen, it will eat a sheep and you lose -1 life. Instead, grab and throw the wolves up or down to get extra time (+2s)!

Endless Mode

No time limit here! The game plays the same, but as you score more points, the sheep move faster and faster. Lose all three lives, and it’s game over. There's a new counter in the top right corner called mini-lives. Every -10 mini-lives you lose, you lose -1 life.

  • Throw a sheep into its correct pen to earn +1 point.
  • Throw a sheep into the wrong pen or throw it away and you lose -1 point.
  • Escaped sheep no longer cost time, but subtract -1 mini-live, so catch them before they vanish!
  • Throwing wolves inside pens still costs you one life.
  • When you throw a wolf up or down and your mini-life count is below 9, you will get +1 mini-life.
  • If you have 9 mini-lives and fewer than 3 lives, throwing a wolf up/down will restore one lost life, and your mini-life counter resets to 0. If you already have all your lives, you’ll earn +2 points instead.
  • Every so many points, you'll see how difficulty increases!



Controls

Controller / Mobile Keyboard / Desktop Assigned action
D-pad Arrows / WASD Move player / menu item
A Z / J Pick up / Confirm
B X / K Throw / Cancel
START Enter Pause game
SELECT Shift May use it when indicated

You can reset high score data to default by pushing and holding B + Down for 5 seconds in the Title Screen.



File Download

A downloadable rom with jam version of the game is provided with no charge. Feel free to donate as much as you wish, but only if you want to!

This game is designed to be played on a Game Boy Color, so an original Game Boy or a bad setting on your emulator may cause an error message while trying to play the rom file.

You may not distribute this rom by any means. If you want to share it with your friends just send them the link to this page!



Credits

Made with GB Studio v4.2 made in under 4 weeks for Game Boy Competition 2025. Every asset used was free of charge!

Plugins: Render Projectiles Above Actors by KirbyKing186 y Advanced Dialog & Menu Ver. B by Bryanrollins.

Music Tracks: 8-Bit GameBoy Songs Vol 1 y 8-Bit GameBoy Songs Vol 2 by TipTopTom.

Sound Effects: Sweet Sounds! by CoffeeBat y World Sounds Gameboy SFX (demo) by Beatscribe.

Graphics: "Made with GB Studio" Bootscreen by NeoRame y "GBCompo25" Bootscreen (modified) by sukus.

All other graphics, typefaces & also all scripting made by Luis Miguel Villoslada (aka lmk.dots, aka me).

Special thanks to my girlfriend Dali, my cousin David and also my friends Rubén, Elena, Ricardo, Pablo, Leire and Ismael. All of them tested the early versions of the game and helped me adjust the difficulty options!


StatusIn development
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.0 out of 5 stars
(1 total ratings)
Authorlmk.dots
GenreAction
Made withGB Studio
Tags8-Bit, Arcade, Casual, Game Boy, gameboy-color, Game Boy ROM, gbcompo2025, gbstudio, Retro, sheep
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Gamepad (any), Touchscreen, Wiimote, Smartphone
AccessibilityHigh-contrast

Download

Download NowName your own price

Click download now to get access to the following files:

SheepSplit_v1.0_jam.gbc 256 kB
SheepSplit_v1.0_jam.pocket 256 kB

Development log

Comments

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I really enjoyed this, very polished, and a bit tricky to start with but lots of fun.

(+1)

Glad to hear you had fun! Wouldn’t be a proper arcade classic without a bit of trickiness... hahaha

This is great! A really good use of the GBC's colour palettes, you've made something very stylish wrapped up in a neat arcade style game!

Thank you so much! Hope you had a great time playing :D

oh man does this feel like an 80s arcade game! Easy to play but hard to master. Very polished overall too. 

Thanks! Hope you had a good time and showed those sheep who's the master ;)

This game wouldn't be the same without your goat.vgm sound, so thank you again!

Great job on this! Not sure what was changed from before but runs really smoothly and the game play is fun! Only did easy so far tho! :D

Thank you so much, I hope you had a great time playing!

I don’t know when was the last time you played the game, but feel free to check the devlog to catch up on all the new additions.

Very nice and fun to play, at first I had trouble with the two possible actions, then I wondered if a single button to take and throw would not be easier.

(+1)

Glad you had a good time playing! 😄

The split between the two buttons comes from a gameplay issue that appeared when everything was tied to just one button. The player would mash button A repeatedly to catch a sheep and then accidentally throw it towards the direction they were walking in.

It was really frustrating! By separating the actions, you get a lot more control over what you’re doing, so that's the reason why!

That was a very well polished game for a game jam, especially the sprite work and menus! It was a difficult game for me at first, but I felt like I naturally got better and had more fun as I played more, and I think that's a good sign for a one-screen arcade-style game that tests your reflexes like this. Thank you for the experience!

(1 edit) (+1)

Thank you so much for your kind words, I’m really glad you enjoyed the game! 😁

It felt a little soul-empty before I added your music, so I’m very grateful you made the .mod track available for free. I’m looking forward to picking up your new pack with the .uge files when I start working on the non-jam version of the game around October.