Reviews Home » Arcade Games » Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures

Released: 16 Apr, 2010

Reviewer: Andrew Nesvadba

Version: 1.1 Size: 8.3 MB

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Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures...

$0.99

Arcade Games1.1Flightless Limited

PROS

Unique line-drawing gameplay.
Amusing 2D stylization.
Clean, informative interface.

CONS

AI can get wedged against fences or corners easily.
Only a handful of levels per difficulty.

VERDICT

No matter your age, Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures is a cute and fun line-drawing game that challenges you to master the art of animal herding.

Video Review

Full Review

The agricultural system of New Zealand is important to its country, providing most of its major exports to the world. Images such as a shepherd rounding up his sheep with the help of a sheepdog are iconic to NZ's pastoral landscape, so it's little wonder that local developers 'Flightless' have based their latest App Store game around this rural chore.

Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures puts you in the place of a shepherd calling out directions to his faithful sheepdog in order to round up the various farmyard animals that roam the land. You can control your dog by drawing a path for him to run around in, allowing him to herd up and hopefully corral all the animals that are scattered around in to their various pens. Each animal behaves uniquely and when grouped together they will behave as a flock, making it easier to move them along.

Top Dog uses a simple stylized top down view that makes it easy to keep track of where you're going. Each of the game's areas are significant in size and can have you chasing that last elusive duck for quite some time if you're not clever about your positioning. There isn't a lot of variety to the gameplay, but harder levels will require advanced maneuvering to separate flocks of differently colored sheep.

Such a simple, yet fun game is perfect for the younger audience Flightless have focused on, but each level can be truly challenging to complete at a gold-medal speed. A great game for casual and younger gamers.

App Store Info

Help Top Dog herd all the sheep to their pens, ducks to their ponds and pigs to their mud!

Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures is a beautifully designed flocking and herding game for all ages, but kids will dig it the most.

Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures is easy to play, but challenging to master. Simply draw a path to guide Top Dog around the farm. As he runs around the farm the animals scatter. It's your job to help Top Dog herd the animals to where they need to be. There are four easy challenges and four harder challenges. Earn Gold, Silver and Bronze ribbons for extra speedy herding and be on the lookout for tasty bonus bones.

For more information please visit: http://www.flightless.co.nz/topdog

FEATURES:
- top-down 2D gameplay
- path drawing game interface, just draw where you want Top Dog to run
- real-time flocking AI with unique animal behaviours
- various sheep, ducks and pigs to herd around the farm
- authentic farm and animal sounds
- one training level
- four easy challenges on a small farm
- four hard challenges on a large farm
- gold, silver and bronze ribbons (and a happy Top Dog) for speedy herding
- saved stats between games
- a grey warbler

CREDITS:
Top Dog: Farmyard Adventures
A Flightless Production
by John O'Reilly, Greg Harding, Lorin O'Reilly and Ali Teo
Copyright 2010 Flightless Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://www.flightless.co.nz/topdog
http://twitter.com/flightlessnz
topdog@flightless.co.nz

While nearly all of the game is custom-built, some bits and pieces are powered by the Oolong Engine (http://oolongengine.com) and Irrlicht (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net).
Top Dog sound is powered by CocosDenshion (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org) and Freesound (http://www.freesound.org).

Updates

Top Dog v1.1 changes; - supports multitasking on iOS4 or newer (finally!)- uses DisplayLink on iOS3 or newer (better performance)- added retina icon (but the game remains SD)- drops support for devices running iOS2 (sorry to you both)Run doggy run! :)