23/12/2025
It’s been 2 weeks since I released Herd.
Being primarily a physical game, the responses have been slow - the Americans have only started to get the packages now - but there have already been some confirmed any% finishes and even 100% finishes (something I thought would be impossible to do so fast).
It’s weird, because I thought no one would get Herd. Apart from a few brave, kind souls who playtested the game using photo editing tools or actual physical builds I sent through mail, there was almost no feedback to the game, even though it sat as prototype files on Itch.io for more than a year.
I invested so much into it and released it almost out of spite, because I loved the system and wanted to hold the finished product in my hand, no matter if others wouldn’t understand it. But now players are seeing and pointing out to me all the little details I put into the game and I’m confused.
And it’s dawning to me that I just had to see it through, for the game to actually become this physical object, available for play. As opposed to my puzzle books, which can be played and checked out in any drawing app, I had to trust my instincts about it and design it almost blindly.
Big shout out to Vojta Karen, the modeller who made the figurines very early into Herd’s development. Without me being able to play the game as intended, with spray painted 3d printed minis on top of sketched out puzzles on hundreds of paper sheets, I wouldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Also, big shout out to my friend .kase who photographed Herd in such a beautiful way (all of the photos in this thread are his).
If you wish to know a bit more about the manufacturing process, you can read the first part of the design diary:
https://letibus.itch.io/herd/devlog/1154586/story-about-figurines-herd-design-diary-1
We won’t send out any Herds this year anymore, I’m going to rest and eat like a pig in the next 10 days, but you can still check the game out (and order it, to be sent from January 3rd onwards) here:
https://www.blazgracar.com/herd
