These big guys love get in your face when you pet them.
Herdling is the newest game from Swedish studio Okomotive that feels like a successor to their previous games in Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides. All of them feature a silent protagonist making their way through a linear game as a young person goes on a long and exciting journey, though Herdling is in 3D instead of the 2D journeys that were the Far games. They’re journeys that don’t slow you down with tutorial pop-ups, dialog of any kind, and they don’t ask for very much of your time beyond a handful of hours. Having greatly enjoyed my time with both Far titles, I was excited to see how much of what made those two games so good would be in Herdling and I was not disappointed.
You begin as an unhoused kid who seems to be living in a tunnel in this city that ventures out for a bit before finding your first calicorn. These creatures are very much the derpiest goobers I’ve seen in a game in a long time, as they look like a mutt of a creature that is part fuzzy sheepdog, part yak, and part guinea pig. They look weird at first, especially when the first one is a large creature that looks as if Shaq had a big furry coat on and big horns on his head with the way it walks around. That changes as you find a few more calicorns to join your herd as you make your way out of the city into the larger world beyond as your adventure begins.
That’s the good stuff.
Once you get out into open fields and areas, the herding gameplay makes a lot more sense as you’re holding the right trigger to guide the calicorns in the direction ahead and you move around the group from behind them as a means to influence the way they’ll move. You can just tap the trigger to nudge them along, but I never really saw much reason to not hold it down to have continuous control of the herd. You can press circle to slow them down and double tap it to have them stop immediately with a whistle, which is useful because the game has herding skill checks every other chapter, with traffic cones and vehicles in the city, to more dangerous obstacles and traps later in the game. I found it best to keep the herd moving all of the time and whistle to stop in those dangerous areas to properly reset where I’m sending the calicorns so I can avoid the stuff I don’t want them to hit.
Unfortunately, if you do get them into harm’s way, you either need to pull them away from ledges or feed them the blue fruit to get rid of the red fur after getting attacked. Luckily that part of the game is not a constant issue, but it is a thing to watch out for if you wish to get to the end without losing a calicorn like I accomplished in my playthrough. The only knock I have for the herding is that some areas feature lighter terrain and the cursor for where you’ll send your calicorns can easily get lost in the terrain with only the floral growth it spawns ahead of your herd to know where you’re headed, which seems like an accessibility option I’d like to see since there are very few options in this game.
After those parts of the game, you get to a good rest area that are the best parts of the game. When you can find some wood for the fire, your calicorns get a chance to relax as you can feed them some blue fruit and get to give your little guys and gals the pets they most deserve. If you’re not into their look early on, it’s the petting that really got me to see how cute and cuddly they are. The three sizes of calicorns I had in my crew by the end had different reactions to it, as the little guys looked like dogs with their tongues hanging out of their mouths as you pet them, the medium dudes enjoyed some good scratches and scritches, and the big guys just enjoyed face rubs. The other great part of this experience is that you’ll find little bits of flair to hang on their horns and occasional harnesses that wrap around their horns that each of them love the honor you’re bestowing upon them so they can look so good.
Look at this little diva with her tongue out.
That’s enough about the calicorns that I love so much, so let’s move on to the adventure itself without spoiling anything about it. This is a linear game that occasionally features some large fields you can explore that are largely diamond-shaped and other forked paths that always lead to the same places no matter which path you pick, so you’ll never really miss anything of substance. In those open fields, you can really move as you can use the stampede ability by double tapping the right trigger to get a good speed boost for a bit that can be continually used to keep it going. The only limit is that you have one boost for each calicorn in your herd, so you get more freedom to speed up in those open spaces as you go. You refill your boost with blue flowers that are often in those same fields along with red flowers that can give you a free speed boost for a bit, so you often know when it’s time to get moving when you see a bunch of flowers in the distance. That same boost meter will show a red icon on it when one or more of them are injured, so make sure to stop for fruit when you can to heal them up.
This adventure only takes about four or five hours to reach the end and it’s very reminiscent of not only Okomotive’s previous games, but I had similar vibes with this experience as other indie darlings I’ve loved like Journey that were also the masters of presenting a great story without having to slow you down with lore or long cutscenes. If you want to slow down, you just take your time leading your herd around these areas and take in the scenery as much as you want while giving those goobers the pets they definitely deserve. Definitely take note that none of the screenshots in this review feature anything but my favorite goobers getting some good pets.
Look at this little fuzzball enjoying some scritches.
That said, this spiritual journey that you’re on has you leading your herd across beautiful and sometimes treacherous landscapes as you deal with occasional predators and traps that’s well worth the money and time it takes to complete. I really don’t want to spoil anything else about the game, so just go check it out. I don’t even have anything negative to say about the game, as I loved every minute of it and will happily replay it for the remaining trophies I missed for being a clumsy guide for my calicorns in certain areas. It’s just the perfect kind of indie game that I needed right now and I’m glad that Okomotive has continued to see enough success to keep making games in these terrible times.
Herdling is the newest game from Swedish studio Okomotive that feels like a successor to their previous games in Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides. All of them feature a silent protagonist making their way through a linear game…
These big guys love get in your face when you pet them.
Herdling is the newest game from Swedish studio Okomotive that feels like a successor to their previous games in Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides. All of them feature a silent protagonist making their way through a linear game as a young person goes on a long and exciting journey, though Herdling is in 3D instead of the 2D journeys that were the Far games. They’re journeys that don’t slow you down with tutorial pop-ups, dialog of any kind, and they don’t ask for very much of your time beyond a handful of hours. Having greatly enjoyed my time with both Far titles, I was excited to see how much of what made those two games so good would be in Herdling and I was not disappointed.
You begin as an unhoused kid who seems to be living in a tunnel in this city that ventures out for a bit before finding your first calicorn. These creatures are very much the derpiest goobers I’ve seen in a game in a long time, as they look like a mutt of a creature that is part fuzzy sheepdog, part yak, and part guinea pig. They look weird at first, especially when the first one is a large creature that looks as if Shaq had a big furry coat on and big horns on his head with the way it walks around. That changes as you find a few more calicorns to join your herd as you make your way out of the city into the larger world beyond as your adventure begins.
That’s the good stuff.
Once you get out into open fields and areas, the herding gameplay makes a lot more sense as you’re holding the right trigger to guide the calicorns in the direction ahead and you move around the group from behind them as a means to influence the way they’ll move. You can just tap the trigger to nudge them along, but I never really saw much reason to not hold it down to have continuous control of the herd. You can press circle to slow them down and double tap it to have them stop immediately with a whistle, which is useful because the game has herding skill checks every other chapter, with traffic cones and vehicles in the city, to more dangerous obstacles and traps later in the game. I found it best to keep the herd moving all of the time and whistle to stop in those dangerous areas to properly reset where I’m sending the calicorns so I can avoid the stuff I don’t want them to hit.
Unfortunately, if you do get them into harm’s way, you either need to pull them away from ledges or feed them the blue fruit to get rid of the red fur after getting attacked. Luckily that part of the game is not a constant issue, but it is a thing to watch out for if you wish to get to the end without losing a calicorn like I accomplished in my playthrough. The only knock I have for the herding is that some areas feature lighter terrain and the cursor for where you’ll send your calicorns can easily get lost in the terrain with only the floral growth it spawns ahead of your herd to know where you’re headed, which seems like an accessibility option I’d like to see since there are very few options in this game.
After those parts of the game, you get to a good rest area that are the best parts of the game. When you can find some wood for the fire, your calicorns get a chance to relax as you can feed them some blue fruit and get to give your little guys and gals the pets they most deserve. If you’re not into their look early on, it’s the petting that really got me to see how cute and cuddly they are. The three sizes of calicorns I had in my crew by the end had different reactions to it, as the little guys looked like dogs with their tongues hanging out of their mouths as you pet them, the medium dudes enjoyed some good scratches and scritches, and the big guys just enjoyed face rubs. The other great part of this experience is that you’ll find little bits of flair to hang on their horns and occasional harnesses that wrap around their horns that each of them love the honor you’re bestowing upon them so they can look so good.
Look at this little diva with her tongue out.
That’s enough about the calicorns that I love so much, so let’s move on to the adventure itself without spoiling anything about it. This is a linear game that occasionally features some large fields you can explore that are largely diamond-shaped and other forked paths that always lead to the same places no matter which path you pick, so you’ll never really miss anything of substance. In those open fields, you can really move as you can use the stampede ability by double tapping the right trigger to get a good speed boost for a bit that can be continually used to keep it going. The only limit is that you have one boost for each calicorn in your herd, so you get more freedom to speed up in those open spaces as you go. You refill your boost with blue flowers that are often in those same fields along with red flowers that can give you a free speed boost for a bit, so you often know when it’s time to get moving when you see a bunch of flowers in the distance. That same boost meter will show a red icon on it when one or more of them are injured, so make sure to stop for fruit when you can to heal them up.
This adventure only takes about four or five hours to reach the end and it’s very reminiscent of not only Okomotive’s previous games, but I had similar vibes with this experience as other indie darlings I’ve loved like Journey that were also the masters of presenting a great story without having to slow you down with lore or long cutscenes. If you want to slow down, you just take your time leading your herd around these areas and take in the scenery as much as you want while giving those goobers the pets they definitely deserve. Definitely take note that none of the screenshots in this review feature anything but my favorite goobers getting some good pets.
Look at this little fuzzball enjoying some scritches.
That said, this spiritual journey that you’re on has you leading your herd across beautiful and sometimes treacherous landscapes as you deal with occasional predators and traps that’s well worth the money and time it takes to complete. I really don’t want to spoil anything else about the game, so just go check it out. I don’t even have anything negative to say about the game, as I loved every minute of it and will happily replay it for the remaining trophies I missed for being a clumsy guide for my calicorns in certain areas. It’s just the perfect kind of indie game that I needed right now and I’m glad that Okomotive has continued to see enough success to keep making games in these terrible times.
by Chris Selogy
