Shepherd — free browser game

Your goal is to herd the sheep roaming freely in the pasture with your dog and drive them in through the open gateway on the left edge of the wooden pen on the right. You steer the dog with the arrow keys or WASD; the sheep panic and flee in the opposite direction when they see the dog, so instead of chasing them head-on you have to push them FROM BEHIND: if the pen is to the right, keep the dog to the left of the sheep so they move to the right. A faint red 'scare zone' ring appears around the dog — the moment a sheep enters this zone its speed doubles and it bolts away in panic; sheep that stay outside the zone slowly keep grazing and form a small flock with the others. To push several sheep at once, first bunch them together and position yourself behind them, otherwise they scatter in different directions and you waste extra time gathering them back. There's a small green gap centred in the pen's left wall — the sheep only go in through this gate; the other three walls bounce them back, so be careful not to wedge a sheep against a wall by pushing from the wrong side. The moment a sheep enters the pen it becomes 'penned' and starts wandering calmly inside; when all the sheep are in, the level is complete and you move to the next one by pressing a key. Each level adds more sheep (starting at 4 and rising to 12) and shortens the time (dropping from 60 seconds to 25); if you can't gather the whole flock before time runs out the game ends, and the highest level you reached is saved automatically. Strategy tip: first place the sheep near the edges one by one by drawing them toward the pen in a zigzag, then push the big flock in the middle all at once by drawing a single wide arc; keeping the angle between dog and sheep narrow prevents them from scattering in panic. To keep the mouth of the pen wide, every now and then slip past the sheep blocking the gate and 'peel' them inside, otherwise they create a bottleneck for the others.