As soon as I lay eyes on a quirky little beast that I can befriend in a game, I'm locked in. And, as someone who loved games like Ooblets and Moonstone Island, Flock had my interest piqued from the second I saw its cast of creatures. Silly little fellas that you can take in and add to your team. What's not to love? But, there was more that intrigued me rather than how many animals I could capture and call my own. One of the things that drove me to want to play is the giant bird you sit on top of. I was desperate to know why this was the chosen mount for the game, and whether or not it was more than just a way to move around quickly.
Luckily I didn't have to wait too long for an answer. Your songbird companion is much more than a mount. Your bird is your gateway to mimicking sounds used to tame creatures, so it's an essential part of creature collecting. At the start of the game, a collection of the whistles used to tame beasties are stolen and you have to go and find them. When you track one down, your bird will learn the sound. Sing that tune to the corresponding species, and you'll add them to your flock. Which I think is a pretty neat way to make your mount more essential to the experience.
With that said, traversal in Flock is also fun in a way I think a mammalian mount—your basic horse, for instance—just wouldn't achieve. You need to be able to fly high and low since every creature dwells differently. While some are lurking below surface level like the Sprung Baffin, others like the Frogmouth Gleeb tend to float much higher than you'd be able to reach if you were locked to the ground. With a bird, I felt like there were no limits to my exploration and I think I spent more time flying around for the sake of it rather than specifically hunting for critters.
The joy I felt every time I found a new creature was a level of elation I hadn't experienced in a creature collector for a while. Mostly, because of my sheer delight in admiring their quirky designs. Some of the creatures I came across made me audibly chuckle while playing, which led to me needing to add them to my flock and wanting to share them with others. Luckily, you don't have to keep this glee to yourself and you can go about collecting with your friends.
But although Flock does market itself as a co-op game, what I loved most was not having to go at the same pace as whoever you're playing with. Even though you're sharing the experience, you don't have to progress simultaneously to make the most of the game. You can find creatures and unlock areas independently without leaving the person you're playing with in the dust, and vice versa. This helps to strip away any feelings of pressure, since a lot of the time I find myself getting wrapped up in trying to catch up when playing anything multiplayer. But, Flock really helps you to slow down since you might find something that your co-op partner missed.
However, if you do want to have a more communal experience, then you have that opportunity too. By perching on a tree, you can link with a partner and fly together around the map to find beasties. Having two pairs of eyes scanning the map for any critters tucked away in long grass or darting around does make it easier, so it's worth playing with a friend if you want something more relaxing than your typical co-op experience.
The diary of creatures I've collected is verging on full, but I don't want my time with Flock to come to an end any time soon. I've adored pouring hours into flying around the map and exploring the highs of the grasslands to the lows of the mushroom forest and picking up new additions to my group along the way. Although I'm still finding a lot of joy in flying around for the sake of it, I would love to see more areas and more pages of the creature guide added at a later date. It feels like you're only touching the surface of what could be an epic, stress-free creature collector in Flock, and I hope it continues to develop so I can keep coming back.
Disclosure: Former PC Gamer editor Philippa Warr was involved in the development of Flock. She has no personal relationship with the writer of this article.
