Herdling, an upcoming game by FAR developer Okomotive, released a Steam demo during today's Future Games Show. The demo features the opening of the game, where you find some big fuzzy creatures and herd them out of the city toward the wilderness.
The game calls them "Calicorns," which feels like a pretty good name: they are sort of calico-patterned, and they have big curly horns. They'll run from you or ignore you at first, but once you tame them, you can give them a name and add them to your herd. To steer them, you have to stand behind them and encourage them in the direction you want them to go. I found it a little clunky to get my head around--by continuously holding your controller trigger you can guide them toward a waypoint, but you have to move to the right to move them left, and vice versa. It works, though; the movement really feels like herding, as opposed to just having some companions who follow you around. You have to be aware of where you want the herd to go, not just where you want to go, and make sure you're not guiding them into rocks or dead ends. (I felt terrible when I did this.)
You can make your herd stop, walk slowly, or run, and they can also help you push things to progress and solve the demo's light puzzles. But mostly, you just encourage your furry guys along as the dismal city gives way to beautiful countryside and a mountain looms enticingly in the distance. You follow railroad tracks and cross streams, and your Calicorns make huffing sounds and wag their goat tails, and you can feed them fruit and pet them as all of you amble along. Even with the ability to run short distances, the demo feels slow in a lovely way; there's no real rushing your herd, and taking corners or moving them precisely requires you to scurry around them like a little human sheepdog so you can all keep heading toward those mountains.
I could imagine the pace grating a bit in the full game, but there were glimpses of a narrative, and mysterious objects I found, that make me suspect there'll be more to do than wander. The demo trailer shows your herd getting into some trouble with a giant bird; I will positively die if anything bad happens to my precious pettable children, even after spending only a half an hour with them. Herdling has a release date of this summer.
