Lemmings was a cornerstone of my childhood, as was Team 17’s original Worms. Both are 90’s legends that deserve a place in the non-existent video game Hall of Fame. Both are similarly deranged, and task players to prevent the deaths of pixellated critters (and in Worms’ case, additionally murder enemy critters).
Imagine my joy when I discovered that Team17 had penned its own take on the Lemmings formula, seemingly injecting some modern flare and Team17’s own brand of crazy in the process.
Flockers is bound up in all sorts of fuzzy nostalgic feelings of a video game era long gone. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I’ve been examining whether it is a mere imitator, or whether its fit to stand in the shadow of Lemmings the almighty.
Graphics & Setting
Despite being a side-on puzzle game, Flockers features some reasonably impressive visuals and physics. It tasks the player with guiding sheep out of the worms’ weapons factory, who are often featured in Worms games as deadly weapons. The levels become increasingly diabolical as you progress, featuring a dizzying array of murderous contraptions that would make Pinhead wince. The steampunk inspired level design is reminiscent of Rupture Farms of Abe’s Oddysee fame, and is consistently surprising as you progress – never feeling repetitious.
The game renders nicely, but after playing the Forza Horizon 2 demo I’ve become more critical towards games with low levels of anti-aliasing. Flockers does have a lot of jaggies, and not just the spikes and death traps. Perhaps comparing Team17’s ID@Xbox efforts to the triple A budgeted first party Forza is spurious of me, but I feel its something that potential future Flockers games could improve upon. Still, it’s bloody great looking.
Although the game is about rescuing sheep, its persistently satisfying when they die. Sheep ooze ridiculous amounts of gore, explode into meaty chunks and leave persistent crimson stains on every surface as their woolly bodies explode. It might be a small thing to pick at, and might be a tad morbid of me to even think of it, but I think it would’ve been more satisfying if sheep models were 3d like the rest of the game when exploding. Sheep body parts should be subjected to the engine’s physics as a result of exploding. 95% of the game features 3d models, except dismembered exploding sheep, who turn into 2d .png’s on death. The result is kinda jarring, but like I said, I’m probably insane for even noticing.
Gameplay
Beautiful heaps of severed sheep meat aside, Flockers is at heart a puzzler. Like many similar games, the early levels are more about teaching you the mechanics of the game, providing you hints of how best make use of your exploding sheep, barriers and so on. Once these missions are over you’re thrown in at the deep end, and very much expected to figure things out on your own.
Similarly to Lemmings, you’re given abilities you can assign to your sheep. These involve being able to fly up vertical walls, exploding on command, and building ladders, etc etc. The abilities are usually finite, and require a good dose of trial and error when figuring out how to use them best. I feel that, although they’re designed to maximise the challenge of the levels, I feel that these abilities could’ve been more varied or interesting.
The level design is flawless, providing layers of challenge without the need for a difficulty slider. Reminiscent of other modern puzzle games, levels in Flockers give you a 3 star rating based on your performance. I felt as though many levels are designed to allow less patient players to progress by saving only a couple of sheep, rewarding only a one star rating in the process. Obtaining high ratings is difficult to start with, and eventually simply getting a single sheep to the end goal becomes a brain frying affair. More often than not I’ve found myself completely stumped, as Team17 erratically change tack to confound players. Initially there is simply the puzzle, but later on there is timing, abusing physics (like using explosions to propel sheep over obstacles), as well as level specific devices like teleporters and so on. Overcoming these challenges is an incredibly rewarding experience, and certainly gives me the impression that Team17 have some truly devious minds amongst their staff.
To keep things varied, Flockers also delivers flavourful bonus levels, which usually include some sort of special modifier or device. Worms make appearances in boss levels, piloting deranged contraptions which make the increasingly complex obstacle courses all the more challenging. The difficulty scaling reminds me of Trials Fusion, but instead of rewarding skill, you’re rewarded for logical thinking.
Conclusion
Flocking in at 60+ levels, Flockers is a meaty game. Flockers does what it says on the tin, and does it well, paying homage to Lemmings whilst affixing its own stamp on the genre. Believe me when I say I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, or ram this game down your throat, but I’d argue ewe would be insane to not pick this up, as this is possibly the best puzzler available for Xbox One right now. The game also has a lot of sheep puns.
Jez C is a games journalist, Executive Editor at Windows Central. They contributed 16 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: an early Jez Corden byline before he joined Future plc’s Windows Central as Executive Editor.