Dreamcast: Have You Herd the Good News about Cool Herders?

[Nz17]

No, that's not a typo, and no, I'm not trying to be sheepish. I am trying to be a punny man, though.

Cool Herders is now available for preorder for the Dreamcast. To some, that sentence must seem odd: a Cool Herders tech demo was released forever and a day ago. However the GOAT Store managed to fanagle one of the creators to flesh it out into a full game, and the modern Cool Herder was born.

Cool Herders is an addictive 2D multiplayer game that pits you against up to three friends in a game that can only be described as "Cool." Your goal is to collect the most sheep in a round, either by herding them yourself or by bashing your opponent and stealing his or her sheep! On top of the multiplayer fun, story mode will put you in the shoes of Zeus as he makes his way through level after level of challenges to get his herd back from the evil clutches of Iskur. The going won't be easy – Zeus will have to travel far away from his homeland of New Zealand to complete challenges and compete against herders in various locations before taking on Iskur himself in a battle to restore peace in the pasture! Will you and Zeus with the day, or will Iskur horde the herd for himself?

The game is due out "sometime before Christmas." As a stoic supporter of the Dreamcast, I most certainly will be collecting this title soon.

Preorder Page:
http://www.goatstore.com/info.php?id=810012
Official Game Site:
http://play.harmlesslion.com/products/cool.htm
GOAT Store Publishing:
http://www.goatstore.com/publishing/

[jdc]

And to think that the silly general public actually fell for the rumour that the Dreamcast was dead! Fools!

I play mine everyday. In fact, It's just after 5am and I'm firing up Phantasy Star Online while the kettle boils.

[JJNova]

I could of sworn that I burned Cool Herers the game last month. Yes, yes, there it is.

The Dreamcast may be dead, but the homebrew scene isn't. As for a release, it does surprise me. Will it be online orders only? And what is this downloaded Cool Herders that I have from DCHomebrew?

[Nz17]

The Dreamcast may be dead, but the homebrew scene isn't. As for a release, it does surprise me. Will it be online orders only? And what is this downloaded Cool Herders that I have from DCHomebrew?

Online orders only, though through a number of online places.

The Cool Herders that you have is a tech demo that was released years ago as an example of what Dreamcast homebrew can do. The new Cool Herders is a complete game with dozens of new stages, characters, graphics, themes, etc. Basically, a "full and realized" version of the first release's potential.

[kainemaxwell]

What's the single player game like?

[le geek]

Cool, I may pick this up as the demo had lots of potential

[goatdan]

I just noticed this thread... I have been waiting to actually start promoting the game too much because the freshly opened GOAT Store Publishing section is still being revised on basically a daily basis, and I'm still awaiting a final date the discs will be returned to us from the factory.

Cool Herders is a professionally created game, on professionally pressed discs. It will be available from the GOAT Store, LLC, Lik-Sang and through Joe's store so far, with more to come.

It can be preordered through our site now. If you pre-order with the GOAT Store, there will be a special thing included with your order. We're working on finishing it up and announcing it, but the only way to get it will be by pre-ordering the game.

And yes, the Dreamcast is far from dead. The biggest thing about putting together the new Publishing site is that we can start previewing games before they are released. We have at least four games that will begin to benefit from this within the next few months, so do bookmark the page.

As for an actual description of the game, it is some sort of cross between Bomberman and... I don't know what else. You're trying to herd the most sheep possible. Single player mode takes you through a story with various challenges, one unique one per level such as "collect X number of sheep" or "avoid the other herders for X seconds" and one multiplayer level. There are two different story modes, with two different stories.

There are also unlockable levels, characters and more. Zach Meston will be doing a preview of the game at some point soon, and he will go into a lot more detail about what it all includes. From my own personal playtime with it, it is so unique that it has become one of my favorite games to play.

And compared to that original version of the game that was a tech demo? This is MUCH, MUCH more advanced in every way. In fact, it has already received some serious attention from a large publisher about the possibility of them publishing it for a modern portable console.

[Nz17]

As for an actual description of the game, it is some sort of cross between Bomberman and... I don't know what else.

Chu Chu Rocket.

[Griking]

Does the game come with a jewelcase and inserts?

[Perkar]

Does the game come with a jewelcase and inserts?

if it's anything like the previous 3 goatstore releases, the answer is yes. very professionally done.

anyway, i just pre-ordered mine

always happy to support the dc homebrew scene, and excited to see what's next...

[goatdan]

As for an actual description of the game, it is some sort of cross between Bomberman and... I don't know what else.

Chu Chu Rocket.

Actually, that's probably about as close as it could get, although the game mechanics aren't very similiar at all...

[CYRiX]

I just wanna know if these are GD-Roms or CD's because I don't want to mess up my Dreamcast's laser.

[goatdan]

I just wanna know if these are GD-Roms or CD's because I don't want to mess up my Dreamcast's laser.

All of the current releases are pressed on CDs. This does absolutely no damage to your Dreamcast laser. That was a fabrication by Sega to try to curtail piracy. If CDs damaged the laser, the Dreamcast wouldn't have been made to play music CDs either. It was. In fact, the MIL-CD backdoor that was left in the system that allowed the piracy that eventually killed the system was left in because Sega wanted developers to be able to burn a CD and have any user stick it in their machine without having to send out much more expensive dev units.

The MIL-CD inclusion was a "feature" that greatly backfired on Sega, but allows the continued legal professional production of games without their direct involvement.

We actually have had the option of turning these into direct GD-Rom games, but it is EXTREMELY cost prohibitive, as there is only one GD-rom pressing place still in existance, and there is no difference in results.

Finally, as I've stated before, this is a professional game production. The games are not burned like what you would do with a new game, but they are instead sent to a manufacturing plant, pressed, and then sold. It is the same process that has been done for every disc system produced. We have sold well over 3000 games worldwide already, and we haven't yet heard of one problem with them, either from a Dreamcast not being compatible with their system or anything else.

Sorry for the long-winded response, but I've gone into this discussion before and I always try to clear the air on it. Getting one of our games will in no way hurt your system. Burning a new underground title to check out will in no way hurt your system. And (sadly, although it is true) pirating titles won't hurt your systems. Sega created and propegated this rumor because they wanted to curb the rampant piracy that eventually helped lead to the Dreamcast's downfall.

[Griking]

In fact, the MIL-CD backdoor that was left in the system that allowed the piracy that eventually killed the system was left in because Sega wanted developers to be able to burn a CD and have any user stick it in their machine without having to send out much more expensive dev units.

I still don't buy the fact that it was piracy that killed the console. If Sega had invested even a little money into advertising and promoting the console it would have gone along way.

[kainemaxwell]

Single-player game worth playing if you don't have many changes for multiplayer mode with friends, etc?

[goatdan]

I still don't buy the fact that it was piracy that killed the console. If Sega had invested even a little money into advertising and promoting the console it would have gone along way.

You don't have to buy it, but there was a lot of stuff that went on behind the scenes that were never fully revealed with that system, and a lot seem completely unbelievable. I have very solid reasons to believe that piracy was ultimately behind the death of the Dreamcast, but I can't go into details as to why without breaking trust with some of the parties that have explained things to me.

The lack of advertising near the end definitely didn't help matters.

Single-player game worth playing if you don't have many changes for multiplayer mode with friends, etc?

I have been playing the game a hell of a lot lately, probably having logged more than 25 times through story mode, and once it gets pressed I want to play through it again. There are technically three story modes.

The first is normal mode, which is pretty easy to beat once you get the hang of everything. I now can beat it usually without having to continue my game.

The second is hard. This mode is definitely harder to beat. This is a sort of old-school challenge for the gamers that really want to prove they are good. I've beaten every level in it, but it takes a LOT of time and practice to get it right. You also have to really devise strategies, which only halfway comes into play for normal mode.

Last is Omake mode, which if I remember right is the hardest game setting where you try to play through one of each level with no continues and no real story. I've beaten level 1 in this, but that's as far as I have gotten, and I think that I'm a pretty decent player.

Besides that, you can play multiplayer against the computer. It isn't quite as good as playing against three friends, but it is decent.

Like I said, I've played the game a lot recently and I think that when it comes to an arcade style gameplay, it definitely has enough to keep one player busy as well as multiple players. We're hoping to get some previews up that are more in depth from third party sources over the weekend. I hope that helped though.

As I've mentioned before, if you preorder we will be sending out a special thing with those packages. We will be announcing this soon, and I'll make sure to post on here too.

Thanks for all the support everyone! Cool Herders is already shaping up to be the fastest selling Dreamcast game's we've produced so far!

[goatdan]

I'm giving this a little bit of a bump because we have figured out what the pre-order goodie will be exactly, although we're putting the final touches on it before publicly announcing it. Here is what our first version looks like:



It will be on 8.5 by 11 inch high-gloss poster paper in full color on the front (black and white back) and shipped unfolded to everyone that preorders, and they will be marked as a special poster. After preorders, we will never offer these posters again. We will use a different design for promotional material.

We're looking for input though on what people want for the second picture -- do you want it to be the character select screen (as shown in the mock up above) or do you want it to be of an in-game screenshot? More screenshots of the game can be found here: Screenies

As was noted in the most recent issue of the DP Wire, the game is scheduled for release on 12/13. I will actually find out if that will be the final date later today, but I fully expect it will be. Thanks to everyone who has supported the release by preordering already!

[goatdan]

Oh, one final note -- the preorder poster is only good through the GOAT Store. There are other vendors who are selling the game online, and we are only able to provide enough posters to people who preorder through us.

[tylerwillis]

Pre-order placed. Good luck with the release, Dan.

[Jive3D]

Wow! This looks pretty cool.

It's Bomberman, meets Chu Chu Rocket, meets Sheep!

...Yeah, there was a GBA game called "Sheep!" Published by Capcom, I loved it back in the day, check it out, worth a play.

Considering that I just dusted off the DC when I bought a complete Seaman last week for 5 bucks in Harlem, I'll totally be getting this!

I keep saying it over and over, and I hope I never stop saying it: Long live Dreamcast sucka!