Herdling

I found myself frequently ruminating on all the cats I’ve had as pets in my life while playing Herdling. That might sound like an obvious statement, given it’s a game in which you find yourself taking care of and guiding a herd of calicorns (think an adorable combination of sheep, elk, and muppets); the game even lets you name each of your charges, and mine were, naturally, all named after all of the various cats I’ve lived with over the years. Uh, besides the one I christened Phil, because I ran out of cats to draw inspiration from near the end there. 

That may sound cute and wholesome, and I did appreciate the attempt at connecting me with the creatures I was taking care of. Admittedly, I did find myself particularly bonding with the calicorn I named after my childhood cat, Valentino, and went out of my way to pet and feed him in particular whenever I could. Largely though, I found myself thinking of my cats so much because I was frankly kind of bored for the length of my 3-4 hour playthrough, a reaction I was not expecting based on my love for Okomotive’s previous games, FAR: Lone Sails and FAR: Changing Tides. 

In those games, your main goal is to navigate the world with the help of large vessels to cover long distances (a tank-like one in Lone Sails and a ship in Changing Tides), with occasional pauses in forward momentum that amount to solving environmental puzzles to allow your cumbersome vehicle to pass through obstacles and continue on your journey. What I loved about those games was the feeling of navigating a big and lonely world, with the vehicle acting as my only friend, coupled with the satisfaction of frantically running around said vehicle, trying to manage all of the mini tasks required to keep moving forward. They’re simple but effective journeys with a compelling and unique take on atmospheric sidescrolling games, and they’re genuine favourites of mine.

With Herdling, the developers have made their first fully 3-D game, and instead of attempting to wrangle an impossibly big vehicle through the environment, you’re attempting to wrangle a bunch of calicorns (the aforementioned muppet elk) of all sizes through the environment. There’s absolutely shared DNA there between Herdling and the FAR series, and I appreciate the attempt to bring over the feeling of controlling something much bigger and weighty than you through situations that can require a touch of finesse. My issue with this formula in Herdling is that it really doesn’t feel like there’s enough variety to sustain its relatively slight playtime.

The main recurring challenge throughout the game is having to lead your herd through fields of nests that will break if touched, alerting nearby giant birds that will proceed to attack your flock. This had me tensing up a bit the first time it happened, but by the third instance of it with no variation, it felt passé. Late in the game the nest structures are replaced with cracking ice accompanied by high winds, but it largely amounted to the same thing, albeit with some visual variety.

And that’s basically it when it comes to slowing your progress through the game. There are a few instances of environmental puzzles that don’t amount to anything more than having your calicorns move a rock to make a path forward or lift you up to a ledge too high to climb on your own, besides one brief soiree into a slightly more open section in which you regroup with your scattered calicorns after a story event. 

There are also sections that take place in essentially obstacleless areas in which it’s  encouraged to dash through with your calicorns. This is, I believe, largely meant to evoke a sense of freedom and wonder akin to brief moments of respite in games like Journey or Abzu or even, indeed, the FAR games. But Herdling is frictionless to the point where I didn’t feel much of anything during these sections (outside of appreciation for the consistently excellent, triumphantly soaring soundtrack). Not that I was looking for anything overly taxing while playing something like this, but any kind of stakes would have gone a long way towards making me feel a closeness towards my animal companions, a concept the game seems like it wants to address but never puts its full weight into. 

Near the end of the game, you find yourself and your buddies having to navigate a pretty ferocious snowstorm while climbing a mountain. I found myself getting emotional during this section, though I quickly realised it wasn’t because of the sights and sounds I was experiencing while playing Herdling but down to reliving an experience my wife and I had recently in which we had to take our cat, Cookie, to the vet in the middle of a downpour. The poor little dude was already quaking in pain, and then we had to stuff him into a pet carrier and drape a towel over the front of it in an attempt to keep the rain out of his face as we walked the quarter mile to the vet’s office. All I could think of the entire time was how scared and miserable he must have been, having to suffer through all of that without knowing how concerned we were and how much we love him. 

Cookie is thankfully fine, by the way, and my wife and I have each talked to each other about how much closer we feel to him after going through that scare and hardship together; at the very least, he definitely sleeps in the bed with us more often than he used to. Finally returning to my point, though: I came into Herdling wanting to have that experience with the calicorns, wanting to feel like we went through genuine struggles on our journey and came out stronger on the other side. Games are a perfect medium to pull this feeling off, and I even ended up feeling a closeness with the vessels you commandeer in the FAR games. What I feel like I got instead was a pretty tame afternoon walk through some pretty-looking environments, occasionally punctuated by some big creepy (but non-threatening) bird things. There was no real surprise here beyond how rote of an experience it all felt like to me, which is a genuine shame given the game’s pedigree.

It’s not all doom and gloom. For one, the game is a genuine looker in motion on Switch. It did have occasional issues with pop-in, with it being more noticeable at certain spots than others, as well as some framerate stutters even on Switch 2; it never bothered me, and your mileage may vary, but I was very impressed the game was looking as good as it did here, and I’d be curious to see how it holds up on PC. 

As a fan of nontraditional controls, I got a kick out of the general feel of controlling my herd of calicorns. You kind of have to visualise your herd as the centre of a dial, with you pivoting yourself around them to get in the best spot to safely send them forward. It was the perfect amount of pernickety goofiness for my liking, though again, I found myself wishing there were more instances of requiring at least a little bit of genuine precision.

Lastly, despite already mentioning it, I have to give the soundtrack, composed by Joel Schoch, one final glazing; I’m not even one that usually takes much of a liking to video game soundtracks that have a more filmic score, but I played through the entire game with headphones on and would highly recommend anyone interested to do the same, especially during the free running segments.