Ralph Wolf is truly hungry for sheep.
"Now, the aim of our game is simple: to steal sheep!"
— Daffy Duck
Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf, also known as Sheep Raider, is a mixture of a Puzzle Platformer and a Stealth-Based Game, based on a relatively obscure Looney Tunes cartoon series Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. It was released on the original PlayStation and on PC.
After another day of unsuccessfully trying to steal sheep from Sam Sheepdog, Ralph Wolf comes back home and decides to relax by watching some TV. Suddenly, Daffy Duck bursts into his house, declares him a new contestant in his show called "Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf", throws him into his fancy limousine, and from there, Ralph's task becomes stealing all of Sam's sheep - this time successfully and on camera.
Throughout the game, you'll be using all sorts of wacky items and methods of acquiring sheep from Sam, all in the unmistakable Looney Tunes style. Hiding in a bush and moving while Sam isn't looking? Check. Flying with a rocket attached to your back? Check. Using an elastic rope to spring yourself across a bottomless pit? Check. The list goes on.
Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: The entire game, as revealed during the ending.
- The Artifact: As noted in Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress, if you run off a cliff, you can keep running and you won't fall if you reach stable ground in time. This feature isn't put to any practical use anywhere outside the tutorial. It does, however, act as an Anti-Frustration Feature by allowing you to run quickly through the level without having to worry too much about accidentally falling down a cliff.
- Ash Face: What happens to characters blown up. Also when Ralph falls into lava or gets electrocuted.
- Ax-Crazy: Get anywhere close to Yosemite Sam and you're dead, because he's on a warpath and will kill Ralph upon spotting him.
- Bag of Spilling: You always start levels with an empty inventory. Justified in that it's a TV game show and that it might be another of its rules. Not to mention that it's all a dream anyways.
- Balloon Belly: A variation; the piranhas noticeably get bigger after they eat Ralph.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Neither Ralph nor a sheep seem to have any problems breathing in outer space.
- Berserk Button: For Yosemite Sam, it's getting near his ship.
- Big Entrance: Daffy Duck has one during the intro.
- Book Ends
- At the end of the game, Ralph is exactly back where he started. He's not happy about it.
- The tutorial and the final traditional level, Level 14, both take place in a desert and both feature appearances by Road Runner.
- Bottomless Pits: Present in many stages.
- Bowdlerise: The strange "Black Sheep Productions" logo that appears at boot-up, which shows a crudely-drawn black sheep shoot a bird from the sky; this is cut in the NTSC version, cutting to the "A Black Sheep Production" screen.
- Brick Joke: On Level 13, you shoot a sheep into outer space with a cannon. After Level 14, Marvin the Martian arrives to complain that a flying sheep broke his water tank.
- Bull Seeing Red: In order to get past the bull guarding the goal in Level 8, you must lure Gossamer from the past to the present with the time machine and then lure him again to the bull, who will chase him due to his red fur.
- But Thou Must!: In the tutorial level, you'll be asked "Do you want to play this game?". Try to choose "No" and see what happens. note The best part is that you can do this as many times as you want.
- The Cameo
- Road Runner appears briefly in the tutorial level as well as Level 14, in which Ralph can chase after him.
- Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd only appear for a single level each, and only play a small part in it.
- K-9 appears for a very brief moment during the cutscene with Marvin the Martian and does not appear later in the game.
- Taz makes a brief appearance in the ending credits, despite never being encountered in the game.
- The audience in the Hub Level consists entirely out of cardboard cut-outs of various Looney Tunes characters: Sylvester, Tweety, Hector, Granny, Speedy Gonzales, Crusher, Foghorn Leghorn, Petunia Pig, Witch Hazel, Rocky, She-Devil and Giovanni Jones. The PC version adds Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Gossamer and Marc Anthony to the audience.
- Granny, Sylvester and Tweety can be found in a hot air balloon in the sky above Sam's area in Level 3.
- Bugs Bunny appears on a sign in Level 9 indicating that it's "Wabbit Season" and in a painting in Level 10. Ralph also wears a Bugs Bunny costume as a disguise.
- Cel Shading: The PC version, although mostly just for the characters and some of the objects. In a way, it functions as a gameplay feature: only characters and objects that you can interact with are cel shaded. It is also a reference to the original cartoons: only objects that would be moving would have outlines; the rest would be background elements and thus have no outlines.
- Circling Birdies: Ralph gets stars circling over his head when running into a wall. And in one instance, Daffy Duck gets them too.
- Collection Sidequest: There is a punch clock on each level. All of them are hidden, and using one gives you bonus points.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- The icon showing Sam's status. Green: you're not in his area, so he won't see you. Orange: you are in his area, so keep quiet and don't let him see you. Red: he's about to punch you in the face!
- Also, we get some Rainbow Speak in the form of red colour being used for various important words during dialogue.
- Composite Character: Ralph is the main character, but he also chases the Road Runner through a desert early on like Wile E. Coyote, a completely separate but visually-identical character. He is also silent just like him, save for some noises.
- Confused Question Mark: The bees in Level 10 do that after you shoot their hive with a cannon. They do a "!!" after you shoot them the second time.
- Conspicuously Selective Perception: Sam has loads of it. Most notable examples include not noticing when sheep wander away, when one is obviously missing, when a jar of honey lands right in front of him, or when Ralph should obviously be visible to him, but somehow isn't. On the flip side, Sam will not notice you when you're hiding inside a bush or pressed against some very specific rocks, but will have no trouble seeing you through walls. He'll also not see anything suspicious about a bush changing its position every time he looks away, but that's just a case of Looney Tunes' flavor of Rule of Funny.
- Convection, Schmonvection: There are a few levels with lava in them, and the characters don't seem to be fazed by this. This IS Looney Tunes, after all...
- Convenient Weakness Placement: The boss (Gossamer, whom you met earlier) from Level 10. He's afraid of light, and he just so happens to stay in a castle with giant spotlights activated through Hamster-Wheel Power.
- Cool Car: Daffy Duck arrives in a limousine during the intro.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Just when both you and Ralph think he's won and finally got himself a sheep, not only did it turn out that it was actually Sam disguised as a sheep, preparing to punch Ralph once more, but the entire adventure also all turns out to be just a dream, and he has to return to the routine of unsuccessfully trying to steal sheep from Sam. He's visibly unhappy about it.
- Curious as a Monkey: Sam's sheep just cannot resist stepping on a button when they see one, just to see what happens.
- Cute Machines: The remote controlled robot from Level 9.
- Cutscenes: In-engine.
- A Day in the Limelight: The cartoons this game is based on are among the lesser-known Looney Tunes, and the fact that Ralph gets the starring role over Sam is definitely a surprise.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: There are unlimited lives, and upon death you will be brought to the closest safe spot with all of your already collected items still intact. There a few annoyances though, like some objects returning to their starting positions or the game not registering certain things until you go to the next checkpoint (and since you aren't aware at all where the checkpoints are...).
- Developer's Foresight: In level 13, though very difficult, it is technically possible to get past the mine field without the use of the metal detector. Since the metal detector is needed for obtaining the gold coins to lure Yosemite Sam into the jail later on in the level, there is a second metal detector in the jail.
- Downer Ending: The events of the game were All Just a Dream, and Ralph has to return to his old routine.
- Dual-World Gameplay: Level 8 and the second secret level have a time-travel gimmick. Using a special watch item will teleport you back to an ancient version of the mountain forest, where you can plant seeds that grow into climbable trees or move boulders that become rocks you can hide behind once you return to the present. Just look out for the lava and dragons.
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Used as a puzzle in Level 9, where Ralph has to wear a disguise that makes him look like Bugs Bunny. Unfortunately, Daffy mistakes him for the real deal and declares that it's rabbit season, which causes Elmer Fudd to appear and start hunting. You can change what season it is by flipping a nearby sign around, but Daffy will just flip it back to rabbit season. You solve this by leaving an explosive in front of the sign, which will knock Daffy out until you finish the level.
- Failure Is the Only Option: On level 5, you receive a magic flute and just like on the previous level, you're supposed to hypnotize Sam. However, as soon as you try it, you discover that he got himself some earplugs. After that, he punches you all the way back to the starting location, sets up some mines, and starts walking around as opposed to standing in a fixed spot. Even if you already know about this, you still have to do it to be able to advance through the level.
- Fission Mailed: Go ahead, cross that line at the start of the training level. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Ralph gets hit by an anvil, then gets run over by a car, and THEN gets hit by a piano, culminating in a Game Over screen. But Daffy is quick to step in and reveal that this is just a fakeout. He then begins the actual tutorial.
- Fixed Camera: Occurs a few times during some levels, notably Level 10 and Level 12, where you suddenly get an overhead camera during the cannon and maze sections. Being close to the area with the overhead camera causes it to frantically switch back and forth between two camera modes until you either actually enter or leave the area entirely.
- Flight: The ghosts in level 12 can all fly.
- Forced Tutorial: No, there's no way to skip that tutorial at the beginning, because capturing the sheep in the tutorial level is also necessary to complete the game.
- Free Rotating Camera: You are able to rotate the camera in every area except the main hub.
- Funny Animal: Hard to expect anything else from Looney Tunes.
- Gotta Catch Them All: The point of the game is to steal all of Sam's sheep, one per level.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In a typical Looney Tunes fashion, you can keep running after running off a cliff - no points for guessing what happens if you stay in the air for too long. However, you can avoid this if you manage to reach stable ground in time.
- Gravity Screw: During the last level, there are some very specific areas where gravity is making you float away from the ground.
- Greed: Yosemite Sam as usual. It proves to be his fatal flaw in level 13.
- Guide Dang It!: There are a few cases where you just wouldn't know that something is going to happen unless you'll just go ahead and try it, with no indication that it will actually work.
- There's a good chance that if you got bored at some point during the earlier levels, you might have tried blowing up Daffy Duck with explosives or mines. The reaction is pretty much exactly what you would expect from Looney Tunes; his body turning black, and him being none too happy, proceeding to give us a lecture about the act. Therefore, by the time you are halfway through the game, you are probably completely certain that using explosives on Daffy only results in a brief moment of hilarity that has no bearing on the level. Cue Level 9, where you actually have to use the explosives on him to advance through the level, and he actually gets knocked out from the explosion for the rest of the level. Absolutely nothing in the game informs you that this will happen. Since Daffy foils your plan to use a rabbit disguise each and every time you try it by turning the Duck Season into Rabbit Season and thus causing Elmer Fudd to shoot you, the game pretty much expects that you will eventually get fed up with Daffy and try to blow him up out of vengeance.
- Level 14 features a reappearance of the sheep disguise. The disguise allows you to bleat, causing nearby sheep to follow you. Since this is the last level and Sam is left with just a single sheep, attempting to do the same will immediately cause him to see through your disguise and kick you right on the spot. So what can you actually use it for? Turns out, you can bleat while being close to Sam to make HIM follow you. Absolutely nothing previously established in the game suggests that this will happen.
- In Level 10, you have to face down Gossamer. Part of beating him is keeping a button pressed down - but neither you nor your sheep can actually do that and hope to make it out un-squashed. The game hints to you that the boss gets dizzy easily - but nowhere does it say that you can induce that dizziness by running circles around him. Worse still, this seems to only work if you're running in a specific direction - running in the opposite one might fail to accomplish anything.
- Hammerspace: Ralph keeps his items in what appears to be a hammerspace inventory over his head.
- Hedge Maze: On Level 12. Filled with ghosts.
- Heroic Mime: Although more of a anti-heroic mime, Ralph fits this: he never says a word during the game, even though he does in some of his original cartoon shorts. The only thing you ever get from him are occasional grunts and heavy breathing.
- Hub Level: The "Sheep Dog 'n' Wolf" studio.
- Human Cannon Ball: During Level 13, you have to shoot a sheep out of a big cannon.
- Idle Animation: Ralph tends to scratch his head quite often.
- Instant Home Delivery: Punch a mailbox, and a plane will instantly drop a delivery box somewhere on the level.
- Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: Falling into water during Slippy-Slidey Ice World levels results in this. Includes Harmless Freezing, where the characters only shiver for a moment after getting out of ice.
- Interface Screw: During the last level, you can use special pods to shrink yourself. While being tiny, if you try to get anything from your inventory, the object will crush Ralph.
- It Only Works Once: For both Ralph and Sam.
- On level 4, you get a magic flute. This flute allows you to hypnotize Sam, lure him under a falling rock, and steal a sheep before he can react. On level 5, you also get a magic flute. However, when you try to use it on Sam again, you discover that Sam learned from the previous incident and got himself some earplugs. Cue you getting beaten up. After that, the flute does not appear anymore in the game.
- There are a number of strategies Sam attempts to use to prevent you from stealing sheep, and which are never used again once you manage to steal a sheep anyway. For instance, on level 9, Sam boobytraps a patch of lettuce - if anyone takes it, it will catch them and ring an alarm, prompting Sam to arrive and beat them up. While patches of lettuce make a reappearance at least once in subsequent levels, the trap itself does not. The same goes for Sam's strategy from Level 6 to immediately take back to the flock any sheep he sees moving away.
- Jerkass: Yosemite Sam very rudely yells at you to stay away from his boat and will kill you if you step on it.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": Regular mines have a regularly appearing explosion radius that stretches outwards before disappearing, and will explode instantly if anybody touches it; Ralph can come to a mine and try to disarm it while the radius is absent. There are also special mines that have a constantly visible radius and cannot be disarmed, but one can stand in their radius without it immediately exploding, showing a timer instead.
- Large Ham: Daffy Duck, as always. He is a game show host, after all, so it's part of the job.
- Lethal Lava Land: The prehistoric past encountered with the time machine seems to be this.
- Losing Horns: Type B happens every time you run into a wall.
- Magical Flutist: In level 4, Daffy teaches you about the magic flute, which you use to hypnotize Sam and lure him to a trap to stun him long enough for you to steal a sheep. In level 5, you get another magic flute at the start and appear to be expected to use it to get past Sam's area before you can get to work on stealing a sheep. When you go to use it though, Sam is revealed to have earplugs to protect himself, and he removes them before uppercutting you back to the start of the level. While this causes him to start patrolling the area instead of remaining in a fixed spot, your flute disappears and never shows up in any future levels.
- Metal Detector Puzzle: It's mostly about avoiding walking into mines, but you also need to find some coins at one point.
- Mickey Mousing: Happens every time you start sneaking.
- Mini-Game: Disarming mines, and dancing with ghosts.
- Mobile Shrubbery: Whenever Ralph hides in a bush and tries to sneak past Sam.
- Money Sink: You get bonus points from finding a clock on each level. You can spend these points to buy bonus content like concept art, behind the scenes photos, etc.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: A few of the later levels features an alligator that will chase the player and eat them in one bite if it catches them. It can be knocked out by the cannon or catapult, allowing the player can use their bellies to bounce to high places.
- Non-Fatal Explosions: It's Looney Tunes, what did you expect?
- Offscreen Teleportation: Daffy Duck seems to use this during the tutorial, mainly when teaching you how to use the camera.
- Oh, Crap!: Ralph has this whenever he realizes that he's standing over a bottomless pit, in a typical Looney Tunes fashion. He also has this when he falls into piranha-infested waters and is greeted by one of the carnivorous fish with its gigantic jaws.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two Sams - Sam Sheepdog and Yosemite Sam.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The presence of ghosts in Level 12 is never explained. When we meet them, they either roam a maze or have fun at what appears to be a regular party.
- Palate Propping: Ralph will do this with his own body when he gets snapped up by a shark or an alligator, not that it saves him from being eaten.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In a game based on Looney Tunes, this is only to be expected. For Ralph alone, we have ghost, sheep and rabbit disguises, all leaving his face rather obviously visible. And then there's Daffy's Robin Hood suit which somehow manages to throw Elmer Fudd off during the Duck Season.
- Piranha Problem: Some levels have water infested with piranhas that will swallow the player in one gulp the instant they fall in.
- Pressure Plate: These are used frequently to hold gates open.
- Primal Chest-Pound: Gossamer in Level 10 will do this if he squishes you flat.
- Punch-Clock Hero: Literally, as shown in the intro. Sam is about to punch his Punch-Clock Villain counterpart Ralph, but a clock signals the end of their shift, at which point Sam lets Ralph go, and then they punch out the clock, shake their hands, and go home. It stays true to the original cartoon.
- Puzzle Boss: Gossamer. You first meet him on Level 8 and bring him from the past with a time machine, only to let a bull chase him. You meet him again on Level 10 inside a castle, and need to use Hamster-Wheel Power spotlights to scare him into falling off an edge.
- Puzzle Pan: Each level starts with the camera panning over the area before coming back to Ralph; for some levels, the camera shows that way the reverse order of how you're supposed to walk through them.
- Puzzle Platformer: On top of the stealth mechanics, you must utilize different gadgets and strategies to solve puzzles and progress through each level. Even getting the sheep to the goal requires a bit of puzzle-solving from time to time.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Sam's sheep. They're mindless, bouncy, and cute, and your job is to steal one per level.
- Remote Body: On Level 9, you get access to a remote controlled robot. It effectively replaces Ralph while it's on, and allows for performing certain tasks that Ralph couldn't do or for taking care of something while Ralph does something else. It makes a reappearance during levels 11 and 12.
- Rhythm Game: Dancing with ghosts in Level 12. The silly thing here is that the sequence features no music at all, just repetitive "dun dun dun dun" that's supposed to come from a ghost playing on drums.
- Rule of Funny: Level 4 has two sharks. In a lake. With no other sea life to eat. It's a cartoon, don't question it.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: In order to get the sheep in Level 10, you have to make the bees attack Sam.
- Schmuck Bait: During the tutorial, Daffy Duck suggests to take a flying leap with the jump button. While standing next to a Bottomless Pit.
- Secret Level: Two of them, both cleverly hidden in the studio. One at the end of a passage in wall that looks like a completely ordinary wall, and the other accessed by entering one of the doors from the other side.
- Sequence Breaking: If you can remember the safe path across the mine-filled area in Level 6, then nothing stops you from going after sheep immediately without ever bothering to get the metal detector from the caves.
- Show Within a Show: The entire game seems to be set in a game show. Which may or may not be just a part of Ralph's dream.
- Shout-Out: Level 12 contains a hedge maze filled with ghosts. The camera is overhead. You collect batteries scattered around the level, which look like dots from this perspective. Collecting five powers up your gun, at which point ghosts turn blue and you can suck them in. Anything comes to mind?
- Shrink Ray: There are some shrinking pods during the last level.
- Silent Antagonist: Sam is your antagonist for the most of the game, and he never says a word, just like Ralph.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Some of the levels are like this.
- Space Base: This is what the last level appears to be.
- Stealth-Based Game: When it comes to avoiding Sam, stealth is the key. Whether you're tiptoeing like a thief, hiding behind rocks, or disguising yourself as a bush Snake-style, you must always tread lightly when entering Sam's area, avoiding his gaze as he constantly scans the place.
- Subtitles Are Superfluous: For the most part, the game features subtitles for all of the spoken dialogue, but there are two notable exceptions: the intro and the arrival of Marvin the Martian.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Ralph can stay underwater for as long as he wants - unless the water is filled with piranhas, of course. The sheep, on the other hand, seem to fit the bill for Super Drowning Skills, because they go down as soon as they fall into water.
- Swallowed Whole: Piranhas, sharks, and alligators kill you this way.
- Threatening Shark: Level four has a lake with two sharks in it that can eat you.
- Time Machine: You get one on Level 8 and on the second secret level. It's a small clock used to alternate between present and the prehistoric past, which, incidentally, look exactly alike except for water being lava and the surroundings being more volcano-like.
- Title Drop: The show Ralph participates in has the same name as the game. That's not the case for the North American release though, which is called "Sheep Raider".
- Trampoline Tummy: After blasting the alligator, Ralph can bounce on its tummy to reach a higher platform.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: You encounter these during the last level. They start sucking you in as soon as you get close and you can die if you let them actually suck you in, but you can easily get away from them by just air-swimming in an opposite direction. They are actually necessary to get back to the ground in the Gravity Screw section.
- Unskippable Cutscene: The cutscene before the final stage (where you fly to the Planet X with Marvin the Martian) is this. Most other dialogues and cutscenes are skippable, fortunately.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Marvin the Martian's Planet X.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- You can troll the hell out of Sam by using the rocket to fly over him, causing him to chase you in circles with no hope of catching you.
- You can also blow up various NPCs (as long as they're not a sheep) just for kicks. Level 9 actually requires you to do this; you must use the mine to knock out Daffy so he won't change the sign from Duck Season to Rabbit Season, prompting Elmer to shoot you while you are dressed up in the rabbit costume.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
- If you blow up Daffy whether by dynamite or mine or cannon, he will give you a 1-minute time-out as punishment. The only exception is in Level 9, where he'll pass out when blown up by a mine.
- After stealing the sheep that is standing behind Sam in Level 1, you have the opportunity to play a nasty trick on him by planting a stack of dynamite behind him, but it will go off before you can get out of his hearing range, giving him the chance to beat you up in retaliation if you don't make a break for it in time.
- Visible Odor: In Level 2, Ralph has to use a bottle of Lady Sheep — the perfume for lady sheep that no male sheep can resist™ — by the means of using a fan to propel its pink cloud of odor in order to entice a sheep.
- Volumetric Mouth: The piranhas in this game may be small, but they can open their mouths so wide that they'll eat Ralph in one bite.
- Weakened by the Light: The monster (Gossamer) during Level 10, who runs away from the light created by spotlights. Curiously enough, he doesn't seem to have a problem with sunlight during Level 8.
- What the Hell, Player?: Daffy and Porky will call you out if you blow them up with dynamite.
- Widely-Spaced Jail Bars:
- The cage in level 12 has spaces wide enough for Ralph to go through. It may be the reason why it is hoisted far off the floor, but he still requires the robot to get the key and unlock it.
- The jail cell in level 13 is a gate with holes that should be wide enough for Yosemite Sam to crawl through.
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Ralph becomes this whenever he puts on a sheep disguise. Just like in the cartoons, Sam starts to catch onto it once he starts losing sheep, and attempting this trick when Sam's only got one real sheep left will not work.
