Summary
- Atmospheric adventure about the shepherds of mysterious creatures through fantastic mountains.
- Create and adapt your herd.
- Encounter and overcome obstacles to epic adventure.
In our game HoardYou leave the city to start an adventure through the mountains. But you won't be alone. Always with you: your herd of fantastic mountain creatures.
Your task is to guide and shield these creatures, which are called “Calicorns”. Together they travel through autumn forests and huge mountains with treacherous paths, on mysterious discoveries and breathtaking views. You have to learn how the Calicorns behave, how they lead them responsibly and explore everything they are able to do.
The herd of the Calicorns is the core of the game. The player as a protagonist, who is called via Via, has to deal with and around the Calicorns to lead them in the right direction and to help them deal with obstacles and dangers. This careful navigation in dangerous environments alternates with wide levels that enable the herd to disturb Stampede – a mighty, intoxicating movement that can also absorb the calicorns, otherwise slippery slopes if they are used strategically.
Every now and then you will find a place to rest where you can take care of your calicorns and connect to them. You can take care of your wounds, clean your fur, play with you and sit in a cozy campfire to make yourself well earned. During your adventures you will find various ornaments and souvenirs to decorate your herd.
From the point of view of a developer, the herd leader was the first thing we started and we only stopped improving them at the end of the development. Our main goal was to make the guide intuitive and natural and to make the Calicorns alive enough to take care of them. In many cases, these two goals can be very opposing, so it was all about the right balance.
In order to create a flowing and fun gameplay, we wanted to avoid the feeling of an escort mission or an obstacle course. The motivation of the player should be the pleasure of pressing forward and not avoiding any obstacles. To achieve this, there are different types of flowers on the ground that give the Calicorns the opportunity to interfere or interact with certain environmental parts. The stampede can then be used in situation to move faster and charge obstacles such as stable bushes, deep snow or steep slopes.
In order to make the herd credible, it was important to choose the right size of the herd: too many calicorns would make the individual animals unimportant. Too little and it would not feel like a powerful herd.
In order to create a bond with the Calicorns, everyone had to be distinguishable in any way. So they have different fur colors and patterns, horn shapes, body sizes and behave differently in some situations. We also wanted to give them a custom name to each calicorn if they tame them in order to further strengthen this bond and the feeling of individuality. Later in the game you will have a mighty herd of Calicorns, each have a different look, names and decorations … and experiences that were made together during the trip.
Now, at the end of the development, we are very proud of our Calicorn herds and everything we have been through in recent years. Every time we play the game – what we do a lot – we look forward to making an adventure with a new herd and running with them over mountainouses. And we hope you will do it too if Hoard Publications this summer 2025. Wish list today.
Hoard
panic
Herdling is a brand new adventure of Okomotive, creator of the atmospheric and recognized widespread games and panic, publishers of Firewatch. Go to a large alpine expedition with a herd of lovable beasts, while climbing a mountain path, encountering uncanny dangers and surprising obstacles and making your way to the secret on the summit.
