Flock is a new “Creature-Tamer” game – a relatively well-trodden genre at this point, but don’t let that put you off. This is a bit of a masterclass in showing great imagination, tight design and is frankly, a joy to play.
You are a Bird Rider, but before you take to the skies, you do get to create your character. You’ll start of by customising your general appearance, apparel and importantly, the plumage of your giant bird.
There’s a surprisingly limited amount of customisation on offer, at least at first, but more on that later. I gave myself some larger ears, a full head of spiky hair and a cape. For my giant bird, I settled for something resembling a Toucan, at least colour-wise. There’s a goofiness to the character designs, with their larger-than-life eyes and playdoh noses and ears, but it did make me grin.
First Flight
Now to take flight, and again, the developers have they got the vibe of Flock just right. We soar over a vast and misty landscape, thinking it’s the ground at first, before realising the truth. This is an enormous, fluffy and constantly moving cloud layer. As we set forth, a pull on the right trigger initiates a burst of speed and puffs of vapor on our birds wings.
There are no height adjustments, obstacle avoidance concerns or other complex flying mechanics to worry about here – the game takes care of your altitude automatically, allowing you to concentrate on the fun stuff. Strewn around the environment are sort of in-game ‘funnels’ that provide a speed-boost, and occasionally you might trigger one when chasing down a creature that you didn’t intend, which can be a bit frustrating.
It seems as if the cloud layer is a relatively new problem judging by some brief exposition from our character as we start our journey, and the characters we meet refer to it as a ‘cloudsurge‘ – something that hasn’t happened in this land for decades.
Family Friends
The characters we first meet are Aunt Jane, a very work-focused Zoology Professor who’s requested our assistance, and the amusing Uncle Reg. He’s a comedic character, a shepherd with a sincere admiration for his sheep and who definitely has the best naming suggestions for the creatures we will come to discover.
Aunt Jane is creating an ‘Official Uplands Creature Guide’ and it’s simply impossible to do without a bird rider like us, especially as her research team – characters you’ll find throughout the various locales – have been swallowed up by the cloudsurge. There’s also a clothing merchant, who will provide us with some sweet new threads – if we’ve got the wool to pay for it.
We’re treated to a brief tutorial on exactly how to catalogue and document these wonderful creatures, and they have all sorts of brilliant names. Bewls, Cosmets, Thrips and Gleebs, the animals in this fantastical place are varied and imaginative, but they all have something in common.
Every animal in Flock can fly; a soaring, colourful menagerie of various shapes, sizes and adorable chirping noises, every one of them charmed to follow your every move.
Burgling Bewls
In order to get these cute little beasties to follow us around though, we’ll need to learn how to charm. This is accomplished by using a variety of different whistles, handed down by Aunt Jane’s grandmother.
Disaster strikes! The settlement is raided by a flock of bothersome burgling Bewls, (with accompanying prison-stripe patterns) and they swipe everything in sight. The whistles, the feedbag – even the knitting manuals for new clothes are all gone.
Thankfully, burgling Bewls like to hide in fairly easy to spot rounded-mounds of pure green meadow grass, and Uncle Reg knows a thing or two about sheep and their grazing habits.
With the help of our woolly heroes (we’ll find and name new sheep along the way), we can retrieve our missing items – these range from whistles, knitting guides for new clothes, and shiny bangles that allow us to have an even larger flock to fly with.
Thus begins the meat of the game – journey around the world, cataloguing creatures, growing our flock and befriending stray sheep to help find the items that remain wedged in the beaks of those pesky burgling Bewls. With no threats or combat whatsoever, it is wonderfully meditative and quite calming indeed.
Creature Feature
This isn’t really a Pokémon like, and honestly, I feel like game has more in common with something like Viva Pináta than anything else. The games ‘Creature Guide’ is a dopamine-delivering machine, gleefully filling in the details of new creatures as we discover and correctly identify them with a bit of help from Aunt Jane. There’s no punishment for getting anything wrong, and I genuinely became addicted in discovering every animal I could.
Charming them requires a particular whistle associated with the relevant species, and then it’s as simple as getting the right distance between you and the animal and whistling away with the A button. Some creatures require more accurate charming than others – mistime or misjudge the distance, and you’ll spook the creature completely.
Hunting for tricker beasties requires some focus via a pull on the left trigger, and you can either perch on a nearby tree or zoom in while on your birds back. The former is certainly more powerful, as you can zoom in and out and you’re not flying around while attempting to keep your reticule trained where you want it.
What’s particularly lovely about Flock is it doesn’t rush you at all, and it really leans into the strengths of its cloudy, colourful world. The locales are all beautiful to just exist in, and the creatures all have their own particular way about them. Some may only come out at night, or sunset. Others may hide themselves as rocks, or piles of mud on the riverbank. Even the fruit on the trees may be a Sprug in disguise.
Occasionally, Flock with throw a surprise quest or two your way, with some tweaked mechanics to master or larger mysteries to solve. They usually revolve around larger, completely undiscovered creatures that seem to have an affect on the cloudsurge, revealing new areas like the boggy wetlands, the dark mushroom forests and more once you’ve tracked them down and charmed them accordingly.
The Joy of Discovery
Identifying a new chirp or buzz within the world around you is an engrossing experience, and when combined with the sheer joy of soaring around the world…it all becomes very ‘zen’. My kids in particular were absolutely smitten with the game, and I really liked how it taught them – through gameplay – how to identify different species – it’s really lovely stuff.
If there’s one criticism I have – and there are very few for Flock – it’s of the games abrupt and completely unnecessary end-credits roll. It appeared – at least to my eyes – completely out of the blue, and for a moment I feared the game was over, when I still had ten or more creatures left to find! What gives?
Thankfully, the game allows you to continue from where you left off, and carry on filling in that creature guide, or exploring the land to your hearts content with another new mechanic to utilise. Regardless, it felt like a very peculiar design choice that came about all too soon; a jarring moment that was completely at odds with the calming, wholesome vibe of the game.
Flocking with Friends
While I played the majority of my time in Flock as a solo bird rider, this can be, if you so choose, a multiplayer affair, with room for up to 4-players in co-operative play. I managed to get a bit of time in with Jesse, and it all worked well enough.
I can see a case being made for both ways to play, but having spent so much time out in the wilderness, just me and my giant bird? I wouldn’t change the experience one bit, but I can definitely see my kids and their cousins having a lot of fun working together on this one.
In the end, I rolled credits around 4 hours into the game, and I still had ten or so creatures to find, tame and collect. There are bonus achievements for becoming an expert in each species, and some of the later animals are very tricky to find indeed, so I think both for folks looking to solve this on their own, and for achievement hunters, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be had here.
A Creature Comfort
What a refreshing delight Flock is.
Bright, bold and absolutely bursting with vibrant colour and the kind of charming quirkiness that constantly teases a smile; this is truly a world of creature comforts. It doesn’t do a lot ‘new’, but what it does do, it does brilliantly. If you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, you should absolutely add this one to your download queue.
Code was provided for review by the Publisher.
Flock
Played on
PC
PROS
- Bright, colourful visuals
- Imaginative creature designs
- Incredibly chilled out
- Addictive to play! Gotta catch'em all, right?
CONS
- End-Credits roll happens way too early.
- Speed boost funnels are trigged a little too easily during chase sequences
