Herdling Review
Atmospheric adventures and platformers are similar to a house of cards. Everything revolves around building the atmosphere, which is at the very top. This is the one element can’t be crafted on its own, but is instead the sum of its parts. Storytelling, art direction, environment, soundtrack, characters, gameplay mechanics, and even technical performance play a pivotal role in creating atmosphere.
Some genres have the benefit of being able to hide deficiencies in certain areas, but in atmospheric adventures, when the immersion gets broken, the atmosphere fades away and in this particular analogy, the house of cards collapses. In the case of Herdling, although there were some highs throughout the journey, there were too many elements that robbed the game of the necessary immersion required for the proper atmosphere. As a result, the experience lacked emotional impact that the best in the genre have.
WHAT IS HERDLING?
Okomotive, the studio behind Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides are back with another reflective and thought provoking title, only this time in 3D. The camera pans down from the top of the concrete jungle until we reach the bottom, where we find ourselves under an overpass lying on an old mattress. It’s unclear why we are there, but we are alone, literally and figuratively. There is nothing on the screen, no signs to tell you where to go, only the flicker of light at the end of the tunnel that catches your attention. Your only option is to begin your journey with one foot after the other.
You soon find yourself in between many large buildings devoid of human life. Looking around you see cars flipped and fences destroyed. There is nothing, no one in sight, and nothing to hear, except for the sound of your feet. You soon see a large, fluffy animal struggling in the distance with a bucket on its head. You help remove the bucket, the music slowly fades in and the journey begins. You put your hand out to tame your first Calicorn, who has found trust and companionship within you. The music fades back out after you name your new pet and try to find your way out of the urban decay.
Intuitively, you realize that your job is to collect as many Calicorns as you can and navigate them out of the city, through the forests and over the snowy mountains. The closer you get to the edge of the city, the louder the music becomes, which is one of the highlights of the game as it captures the lighthearted nature of the animals, but the harsh reality of the situation.
At first it’s a little awkward to corral the herd, which is likely by design. Managing your herd is never easy and you always need to work at it, but you eventually get into a rhythm and by the end, it becomes second nature . Herding the Calicorns feels unique. Herdling also never tells you a single thing outside of a handful of small commands for how to control the Calicorns. That’s it, everything else is either instinctual or learned along the way through trial and error, which I think is the message they were trying to deliver. Which way to go, which things to avoid, and how to stay out of trouble needs to be lessons you learn on the road.
To find new Calicorns and get to the next area, you will usually need to solve some very light puzzle mechanics, which are much less about figuring out what needs to be done and more about finding whats needed. The bigger it gets, the heavier the burden is on you and harder it becomes to make sure everyone gets there safely.
HERDLING PROBLEMS
When you find new Calicorns, you get to name them, feed them, guide them and even dress them up slightly, but they lacked personality. This is the first major issue with Herdling. When I lost a Calicorn due to the harsh nature of the world, I didn’t feel the emotion that the developers likely wanted me to. All of the Calicorns behave identically, look very similar and lack any type of distinguishable personality. Some are big, some are small, and there are a few different colors of fur, but that’s about it.
Okomotive is a small studio of slightly over a dozen developers, but I wish that Herdling made a bolder choice regarding art direction. Either trying to achieve a more realistic environment, which I don’t think is feasible given the studio size or something unique and ultra stylized, but instead they find themselves in a weird middle ground lacking identity and likely being a cause of performance issues as well.
I played Herdling on both a 50 Series PC and on Steam Deck, where Herdling is verified and on Steam Deck, it has trouble maintaining a solid 30 FPS as it frequently dips below, and on PC, it doesn’t look nearly as good as it should. There are also plenty of technical issues such as invisible walls, clipping and when a large part of the atmosphere hinges on visuals and performance to relay emotions and tell the narrative through the environment, these issues were immersion breaking at times.
IS HERDLING WORTH IT?
Herdling is more of a journey and less of a game, as gameplay mechanics are extremely light and mostly just serve as a respite between the long stretches of walking your herd. The meaning of Herdling will be drastically different to each person that experiences this journey depending on your perspective.
As the saying goes “it’s about the journey and not the destination”, which rings true in the case of Herdling. There are some interesting parts of the journey, the concept was unique, the journey was succinct and the score was phenomenal, but there were too many elements that broke immersion and disrupted the atmosphere, which led to the overall experience failing to resonate deeply.