Herdling is a pack movement videogame that puts me in the role of a novice shepherd who leads a herd of strange creatures on a mystical journey to a remote, unknown location. The player character’s quest begins a far cry from the shepherdic lifestyle they adopt: Curled up on a filthy mattress underneath a crumbling overpass in a dilapidated city, apparently homeless. After helping three of the creatures, called Calicorns, find their way into the neighboring countryside, the player character sticks with his new companions. Guided by an apparition of a tall shepherd wearing a skull-like mask, they guide the Calicorns through multiple environments, adding strays to their growing flock, solving simple puzzles, and navigating treacherous terrain, following a linear but multidimensional path to a new home.

The stars of Herdling are the Calicorns. The player character encounters the first of these creatures minutes after the videogame begins. They are drawn to the noises it creates in a dying city’s abandoned lot, bumping into cars and trash heaps, blinded by a bucket stuck to its head. Using an old stick that becomes their shepherd’s crook, the player character pries off the bucket. This act of kindness forges an instant bond between creature and player character, who treats the human with gentle trust for the rest of their time together.

At a glance, Calicorns appear to be typical bovines, though obviously fictional. They have broad faces supporting curving horns that grow more elaborate as they mature. The largest and oldest have horns so elaborate they are like bony crowns. Most of their head and body is obscured by a thick, coarse coat in shades of brown and grey, making them look similar to a musk ox. Their mood causes this coat to take on new, sometimes vivid colors. The coats of excited Calicorns become splotched with blue, red, and white, as though paint was carelessly spilled on their backs. When experiencing pain, their coats turn an alarming shade of crimson, as though they are bleeding from wounds all over their body.

The player character and their herd take occasional breaks during their journey. These moments of rest provide another perspective on the Calicorn’s physicality. Their eyes are huge and round, giving their long and pointed faces a rabbit-like appearance. It’s difficult to discern their true form beneath their coats, but fully grown Calicorns clearly have long limbs and limber bodies. They sit on their haunches like cats when immobile, and when something in the environment catches their attention, they dart and crane their upper bodies like a curious bird. When the herd is at rest, young Calicorns will sometimes discover a discarded ball and ask the player character to play fetch, chasing and returning the ball multiple times with the happy energy of a dog. Every aspect of a Calicorn is grounded in an animal I recognize from our own world, but combined in unusual ways to feel distinct and alien.

Every Calicorn the player character potentially adds to their herd has a unique appearance; it can be twelve strong by the ending and there isn’t a repeated design among any of them. Their dense coats have different combinations of their shared brown and grey coloring. Some of their horns twist up, others twist down, while others grow in neat spirals. These differences may come down to their sexes, which Herdling does not trouble me with monitoring, or just simple genetic variations. It gives each member of the flock a unique presence, prompting me to recognize them as individuals instead of a shapeless, interchangeable whole. The player character can further personalize the Calicorns under their care by giving them a name when they join the herd and adorning their horns with baubles and bridles found dangling from trees, rocks, and idols along their path.

The main activity in Herdling is steering the growing herd of Calicorns to their destination. I must do this through the conduit of the player character, as the Calicorns move in response to their gestures, not to any direct commands from my gamepad. This requires me to constantly consider not only how I am moving the player character, but how the herd will respond to their movements. Herdling thoughtfully eases me into this layered control scheme with tutorials based on two broad scenarios that recur across the four hour playtime.

The player character and myself first learn to steer the herd in the cramped space of a ruined city. It begins slow, with only a single Calicorn to manage. Button inputs are simple. One button directs the player character to wave their crook above their head, commanding the Calicorn to move forward to a point a few dozen feet ahead; the exact point is marked by a white beacon, but it is often obscured behind Calicorns and beneath rough terrain. Holding down the same button keeps the crook raised, commanding the Calicorn to keep moving forward indefinitely. Another button moves the crook low, commanding the Calicorn to move slowly. Pressing this same button twice makes it stop entirely. When I use the joystick to move the player character to the Calicorn’s left, it moves to the right, and vice-versa.  Whether through animal intuition, psychic connection, or outright magic, the Calicorn senses the player character’s gesture even when they cannot see it.

As I acclimate to these controls while moving out of the city, the herd grows from a single Calicorn to three. The commands remain the same, but the herd’s movement becomes more difficult to maintain. The two new Calicorn transform the herd’s movement into a wide column and they will occasionally become detached from the group. There is no way to single out a Calicorn to correct their movement. When a single Calicorn is separated from the group, it will take the shortest path to reunite with the group, even if it must pass through a hazard to reach them. I must keep a wary eye for these occasional stragglers to prevent them from becoming injured, or worse.

The city tutorial effectively teaches me how to micromanage the herd’s movements by sending them down multiple streets lined with traffic cones. There is no in-game incentive to avoid the cones, though I can earn an achievement by doing so. The form of the lesson is still clear: Herdling teaches me how to manage the herd in tight or hazardous environments using an absurd reimagining of a driver’s ed course.

When the herd leaves the city, I learn how to move them quickly and freely through the wide open space of a dry countryside. With few impediments to their path, the herd is much more effective at staying together. If they pass through blue flower patches, their coats glisten with energy and the herd may be directed to stampede forward, trampling the heavy brush that would otherwise slow their momentum or the slick, flat stone surfaces their hooves cannot grip. The herd’s journey to their new home is punctuated by several of these countryside sequences where they are encouraged to move without caution or care, a triumphant musical score driven by snappy drums and clapping hands underlining an exhilarating atmosphere. After the focus and care some of the narrow areas require, moments where the herd is able to cut loose and stampede are welcome breaks.

Reaching the Calicorn’s distant final destination takes them through multiple environments, each possessing unique obstacles. A few are simple locked door puzzles where the player character is required to leave their herd for a moment, often with a helpful boost from a Calicorn to a tall platform, to find a way to remove the current obstacle. Whether it’s opening cargo doors in an abandoned trainyard or activating a disused ferry, these brief departures from the herd never last more than a few minutes and never stress the limits of rudimentary videogame puzzle solving.

The obstacles the player character must steer their growing herd through present far more variety. Early in their journey, they pass through a dense forest protected by owl-like beasts with long, grasping fingers capable of seizing a fullgrown Calicorn like an unruly child would a sad ragdoll. The owl-beasts sleep as the herd passes through their territory, awakening only if the wicker traps beneath their perches are trampled. Sneaking by requires slow progress with constant, minute adjustments to the herd’s path. That silly driver’s test activity from the city suddenly feels deadly relevant when passing through this area.

The owl-beasts are the only predators the Calicorns encounter. Their remaining obstacles arise from the terrain the herd trundles across. Sharp spines protect the surfaces of some trees. While crossing a glacier, the ice beneath the herd’s feet cracks and collapses, potentially taking a Calicorn down into a crevasse. As their journey brings them to a high mountain, the herd must be directed to huddle down and protect themselves from periodic bursts of strong, frigid winds. All of these obstacles are only dangerous to quick and impatient shepherds. A patient and methodical path will see the herd across any part of the terrain with little difficulty.

Most of the areas the herd crosses are devoid of any kind of discernible obstacle. There are long stretches between major set pieces where the only activity is to point the herd to the end of an area. While there are often multiple paths through every space, they are all linear and interchangeable, the only obstacle being thick undergrowth that will slow the herd down and fill their coats with nettles. It is nearly impossible to get lost or not know where to go next.

As I progress through Herdling’s campaign, I begin to feel that it lacks peril. While the herd creeps along a narrow rock crag above a sheer cliff, I steer them carefully until I notice they seem to veer away from the cliff edge under their own power; realistic behavior from an animal, but a missed opportunity for another challenge to be overcome by a videogame player. The few times a Calicorn does nearly fall off a cliff, it is a scripted moment that will occur in the same place for every player. The owl-beasts are the only truly menacing obstacles the herd encounters. They only appear on a few parts of the path to the herd’s final destination. Calicorns are not invulnerable to the hardships of their journey, and if one dies then it stays dead for the remainder of the narrative, but moments where I feel true concern for the herd’s wellbeing are few.

The gods, and videogame designers, mock humanity for its hubris, and so just when I get done writing “not feeling a lot of peril” in my notes, Herdling plunges its protagonists into its most exciting setpiece: A frantic stampede down a mountain valley while multiple owl-beasts swoop at the herd, requiring frequent hard veers and careful collection of those empowering blue flowers to ensure Calicorn and player character escape to safety. The tension is amplified in how this chase is immediately preceded by Herdling’s most painstaking precision-movement obstacle. Here I learn that Herdling is not without peril. It is a largely serene and atmospheric experience, but just when I become too relaxed, it upsets the status quo. The sense of pacing is remarkable and expertly crafted. I delete my note.

Herdling is an enjoyable romp through an ethereal and atmospheric world. Its Calicorn centerpieces are appealing creatures with distinct characteristics culled from multiple real world animals, gummed together into a goofy pastiche that commands my affection. I do find myself wishing their journey was more dangerous. While there are moments where a careless gesture or brief distraction can endanger a Calicorn, most places the herd travels through are harmless, the only activity to cross from one point to another through a few nominally different but fundamentally interchangeable paths. Yet just when I become complacent, Herdling surprises me with moments of genuine wonder, suspense, and sadness. It’s a satisfying journey that is a great way to fill an evening of videogaming.