Hitsuji Yaai

Released by Hudson in August 1983, this action game casts the player as a shepherd tasked with efficiently herding runaway sheep back into their pen. The gameplay features a charming and straightforward concept—timing the opening and closing of gates to corral the sheep—which delighted PC-8801 users of the era. As one of the titles from a pioneering era of personal computing, it represents a significant step in the development of accessible home gaming. Its simple mechanics serve as a historical record of the rapid evolution of early Japanese microcomputer games.

As a shepherd on a ranch, your goal is to use your wits and timing to quickly guide sheep that have escaped into the vast pasture back into their enclosure. Obstacles like wolves, which prey on the sheep, lurk in the fields, forcing you to carefully observe the sheep's movements to bring them home safely. It is an action game of managing a ranch that is both pastoral and tense, as you calculate the timing of the pens to guide the sheep in one by one.