Llamalandia Preview – Live, llama, love

thesixthaxis.com:

Who wouldn’t want to a be llama? You’d quite possibly get to live in South America, graze in the sun, spend time with your family, and just spit at things that annoy you. Let’s forget about the whole being reared for meat bit, or the odds of ending up in a UK llama farm. Llamalandia does, instead having you play as a llama, leading your llama family, and building a little llama town while going on adventures.

The demo for Llamalandia is relatively short, but it shows the basics of what to expect whenever the full game is eventually released. The opening scene shows the llamas sleeping out in the wild until a few wake up and wander off. You have to go off and find them. It’s a relatively simple set up and the opening introduces elements of platforming, command management, and puzzles.

When you find the llamas you recruit them to your side, with the options to get them following you or to wait for you. The puzzles in the demo require doors to be opened, using weight-activated switches. Some of the switches require two llamas to stand on them, so you all wander over, or you might have to split the herd to activate multiple switches. The platforming is prominent in these sections, and I would say the animation is rather stiff when jumping.

Before you get to the sanctuary there is a bit of combat as snakes and a big cat come for the llamas. Snakes can be knocked out with a single headbutt, so they are not that dangerous, but the big cat is more of a danger and can knock out your llamas, and does not go down even with multiple hits. It will instead run away and come back to attack again later. You can revive your llamas, but on the final stretch to the sanctuary I did leave a llama behind because the big cat kept attacking, so it was just easier to get to the sanctuary with the remaining llamas. Don’t worry, this is a child friendly game, and the llama that was left behind did appear in the sanctuary too, albeit bandaged up.

In addition to the platforming and combat,