Your Friendly Guide to Extreme Herding

One of the first mistakes people make when trying to play games for NP is to start at the top of the game list and work their way down the list. Now this is fine for someone who has six or more hours on their hands to waste, but for the Average Joe Neopian who, even if they spend that much time on Neopets, wouldn’t use all their time playing games, this is not at all appealing. If you are one of those people who can’t afford to waste all your precious time on Neopets then you will need to be selective in the NP making games you play. One smart game to play is Extreme Herder. Extreme Herder is a fast paced game where you play the role of Samrin, a Kacheek who is bent on saving his petpet flock from the evil Balthazar who has taken a break from capturing faeries to stalk some petpets.

The basic things you need to know in the game are these:

1.) Paddock- This is the square container in the middle of the scene. To put petpets in it you just walk up to any of the four (goes down to one after you complete level 10) ramps with a petpet in hand and the petpet will be safe from Balthazar for the current level.

2.) Balthazar- As you already know, Balthazar is the bad guy in this game. He will prowl the game board and it is your job to keep the petpets and yourself away from his quite large set of choppers. A few patterns you will notice with a little bit of observance are as follows. (a) Once the last petpet is in the possession of Samrin, Balthazar will return to the entrance where he first entered at the beginning of the game, (b) Balthazar follows a path through the center of the accessible walking area; he only goes off path if a petpet is out of the way and is near him, and (c) If you pick up a Snowflake right after you drop the last petpet in the paddock (yes, it is possible) Balthazar will not come out of his entrance until a second or two after the level starts, giving you a little head start!

3.) Samrin- The petpet shepherd that you control in the game Extreme Herder.

4.) Petpets (Babaa, Angelpuss, Doglefox and Blue Noil)- The object of the game is to get these petpets into the paddock.

5.) Star Petpet- Each level, there will be one of the petpets that has a yellow star on its head. The petpet with this star will give you a bonus when saved, but don’t go straight for the petpet with this first. You only go for the petpet with the star first if it’s close by when the game starts or if you think you’re about to lose your last life; otherwise save the closest to Balthazar and to Samrin first.

When you start on the first level, there will be four transporter strips: one in the center East, one in the center West, one in the center North, and one in the center South. There will also be four ramps to deposit your petpets you pick up, one on the center of each side of the paddock. As the game progresses, these will slowly diminish until there is only one ramp and no transporter strips left.

Usually what I will do for the first ten levels is just glide through. There is really no difficulty to getting through all ten without Balthazar eating a single one of your petpets or yourself. The reason being is that there are two or more ramps so as long as you keep moving it is simple to get all the petpets in without Balthazar getting to them. This changes on the eleventh level; on this level you only have one ramp and it is the one closest to Balthazar’s starting place.

When you get to the eleventh level you may start to freak out, but don’t fret! As long as you keep a level head and focus on your goal you should be able to clear quite a few levels with only one ramp and possibly end up with a High Score that will get you a spiffy trophy!

The first thing you should do on each level from here on out is to get the ones closest to the one remaining ramp. These petpets are the most vulnerable and most likely to get eaten first. After the petpets in the immediate vicinity have been saved, then it’s time to juggle. No, I don’t mean put on a big red nose and throw bowling pins around. I mean you need to go back and forth with the petpets you save. Whenever Balthazar goes for a petpet your job is to grab the petpet on the side that he is heading for and save it. Then if there are more petpets on the other side of the screen than there are on the side that you just saved the petpet from then he should head in the opposite direction towards the other side of the screen. If this happens, all you have to do is get a petpet from the side that he is heading to and hopefully he will reverse direction again. Keep doing this until you have rescued all the petpets for the level. If you find that Balthazar is getting too close to one of your petpets then don’t be afraid to drop the petpet you are holding (you can do this by pressing the space bar) and go to the other petpet’s rescue. This strategy admittedly is not a guarantee to get through every level without losing a single life but it will get you quite far. Another thing to remember, if Samrin is eaten then it resets the level with Balthazar at the entrance and all the petpets reset to different places. This fact can save you from certain loss of all your lives. If there are two or more pets about to be eaten by Balthazar then don’t be afraid to sacrifice Samrin to prevent losing more lives than absolutely necessary.

If you need to, you can take a break after you complete a level. All you would have to do is pick up the last petpet without depositing it in the paddock and then go do whatever you want to do on your break and when you come back Balthazar will be in his starting corner and will not have harmed you or your petpet in the slightest.

I know that this guide may not cover all your questions you might have but hopefully it gave you a little insight into what to do in Extreme Herder. If you have any questions concerning this article, please feel free to neomail me with them. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have, assuming I know the answer myself.