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, Llamalandia does have resource collection too, though the only resources that I was collecting was plants that restored health. You can given these plants to other llamas to hold and use if they get injured. I also found a hat and poncho for my llama to wear. Other resources that look like will be collectable are wood and stone, with these being necessary to build your llama town at the sanctuary.
The Llamaland demo gives a couple of places to build for your town, with the help of the the llama architect and the llama gardener. First is the town hall which acts as an information hub, showing how many llamas are in your town. You can then build the llama homes for them to live in, a watering hole for them to drink from, and crop fields to grow food so they can eat and stay at full health. The llama town has life to it in the early stages with adult and baby llamas wandering around. The game says you have to be stronger to order around the baby llamas, which really adds realism to the game since babies are notoriously bad at following instructions.
What I really like about Llamalandia is its visual design. It has bright colours that make it stand out, while the character models come across as something you would see in a cartoon. The building designs also make them easy to differentiate. The demo also gives the impression that the full release will be easy to pick up and play, while there will be some challenges, overall Llamalandia could be a really chill game to relax to.