Extreme Herder

The Story:

In this game, you control Samrin the kacheek, a petpet shepherd with a whole bunch of petpets to look after. Unfortunately, a very hungry Balthazar has decided its snack time, so it's up to you to get those petpets to safety before he wolfs them down!

The Controls:

The basics, the arrow keys to move up, down, left, and right, and Space lets you drop the petpet you're carrying (though I've personally never used that button, so it's pretty much useless).

The Lowdown:

This game is easy and quick, so it's great for those impatient people (like me) out there, plus the NP isn't too shabby for such a fast game. The goal is to move Samrin around to grab his petpets. When he touches one, he picks it up and holds it over his head. While holding a petpet, guide Samrin to one of the gates (the striped sections) on the pen in the center of the screen to have him drop the petpet in the pen, where it will be safe from Balthazar. Then, simply repeat this process until all of your petpets are in the pen (the number of petpets you have to put away increases with each level). There are also teleporters (little gray bars) on all sides of the screen which transport you to the other side of the screen Pac-man style, which can be very useful in getting to distant petpets before the big, bad, Balthazar does. There are a few catches, though. First, Samrin can only carry one petpet at a time, so it is important to plan which one you'll be picking up next. Also, Balthazar won't eat just the petpets, he can also eat you if you touch him! So try no to do that. Finally, the biggest challenge you will face is the disappearing gates and teleporters. You start off with four gates and four teleporters, but at level 5, your northern teleporter disappears, then you southern teleporter in level 7, then western in level 8, and the eastern one in level 9 is the last one to go. The gates are next to go with your north gate disappearing in level 10, south in 11, and east in 12, leaving you with only your western gate still on the pen for levels 12 and up. Fortunately, there are power-ups you can collect during the course of the game which will keep on appearing, no matter what level you're on. They consist of a blue snowflake and an orange ball. The snowflake will freeze Balthazar for about two seconds (yes I timed it) and turn him yellow while he's frozen. The orange ball will make you much faster for around 5 or 6 seconds so you can get to the petpets before Balthazar does (maybe the orange ball is actually an orange, and the vitamin C makes you faster…). It looks complicated, but it's really simple, once you get the hang of it.

The Tips and Tricks:

• Power-ups will continue to appear as long as two or more petpets are still walking around (not in Samrin's arms). Remember that a snowflake won't pop up to help you get that last petpet!
• While Balthazar is frozen, he is not dangerous to the petpets or to you. That means you can safely touch and even walk right over his frozen self, but remember it only lasts for a few seconds!
• It is generally a good idea to run/teleport to the left side of the screen where Balthazar starts from when you put that last petpet in, since the petpets are generally placed in the area farthest from you. That means they'll be in the area closest to Balthazar if you're on the right side...Bad.
• Balthazar will only chase petpets that are on the field, so if there is one petpet left, if you simply pick it up (but don't put it away) Balthazar will slink off to his starting corner and sit there until you either put away the petpet and start the next level, or you drop the petpet.
• There is a cheat code, freeze, which can help you out a whole lot in the later levels since it acts as a portable snowflake and freezes Balthazar when you enter it, however it can only be used once, sadly. There is a trick to using it, though. Most Neopets games are programmed to activate an action once the last letter of a command has been entered (in 200m dash, try hitting left, right, left, right, and then waiting until the puppyblew is right in front of the log before hitting the up key) and the cheat codes work that way as well. If you type in freez and then just keep your finger on (but don't press) the "e" key, you can freeze Balthazar as soon as you want with only one key! The best time to enter the "freeze" code is in the first level. Put away two petpets in the and just pick up the third one. When Balthazar turns to leave, you have all the time in the world to enter the first part of the code, and then just put that last petpet away and keep your finger on the "e" key and you're ready to go!
• If Balthazar is heading for a crowd of petpets and there is absolutely NO WAY you can save them, the best thing to do is jump into his mouth. If he eats a petpet, he'll just stay in the same place and eat any more next to him, possibly costing you all three of you lives. If you get eaten however, Balthazar is sent back to his starting corner, giving you a chance to save the petpets and lose only one life. This is, of course, a last resort and should not be used if you only have one life left (that's common sense).

The Closure:

Easy game. Easy NP. You're gonna have fun with this one, I know I do (I play it almost every day! :P).