Thanks for all the love you’ve shown Flocking Hell since launch! I'm excited by all the new players who have joined our flock. Remember that you can find us on Bluesky and Discord, links are below.

I’m committed to regular updates and listening closely to your feedback. Patch #2 focuses on making city-based strategies more powerful, flexible, and fun. Below, I’ll walk you through the thinking behind the latest changes. The full change log is right after my notes.


Flocking Hell offers two main ways to fight the demons: collecting crystals for the Crystal Blast, or growing your cities. Both are supported by the map (mines for crystals, roads for city growth) and amplified by cards and guides.

Crystals are straightforward: 30 crystals = +30 damage. City Size, however, is less direct. The demon legion gains +0.5 Strength for every city it razes, which makes early cities near the Hell Gate more valuable than distant ones. That means city-based strategies are more sensitive to when and where you find the Hell Gate.

Since launch, several players have voiced frustration with city builds. After reviewing the numbers, I agree: city Size cards were tuned around finding the Hell Gate early and playing them close to it. But in practice, that’s not always possible, especially when you also need to gather sheep and build roads.

Therefore, I buffed all city Size cards. Finding the Hell Gate early is still helpful, but now city strategies should feel more viable even if you get a slower start.


On that note, I buffed Witching Hour to reveal the Cottage instead of marking it. While Witching Hour is easy to trigger, there’s no guarantee that candidate cities will be near the Hell Gate. The card gains a free turn with this buff, so I hope it will entice players to pick it more often despite its positional limitation.


At its core, Flocking Hell was always designed to revolve around cities. Cards open up alternative strategies, like stacking crystals or building one enormous city, but I feel that the foundational gameplay of connecting cities hasn’t gotten enough love with cards and guides. So, this patch buffs several mechanics that encourage you to go wide.

First, I want to highlight Strength as a way to power up cities. Cities with higher Strength are more effective against the demons, even when they’re far from the Hell Gate. As a starting point, Population Boom now grants Strength instead of Size, and Heavy Walls gives a larger one-time Strength boost. If players find this impactful and fun, future patches may explore more Strength-based tools.

I’ve also buffed a few key “go-wide” enablers: Common Roots is now 1 sheep cheaper, and both Innkeeper and Surveyor gain 20 Size instead of 15. Together, these changes should make wide strategies more tempting AND more powerful!


Lastly, I’ve made tweaks to three islands:

The Butcher’s Wake and The Feast now have clearer text to better explain their mechanics. This is especially important since they appear in the tutorial and have been confusing newcomers.

For Embers of Defiance, I reduced the number of BBQs from 5 to 3. Losing 25 sheep felt too punishing. Three BBQs should preserve the core dilemma of the island while reducing frustration.

Thank you for reading! Now ... go play 🐑😈


Cards

• Advance Warning [3] (common), now gains +35 [SIZE] (previously +30 [SIZE]
  
• Common Roots (common), cost reduced to 4 (previously 5)
  
• Expedition Log [3] (common), now gains +20 [SIZE] (previously +15 [SIZE])
  
• Heavy Walls [5] (common), new ability: “If this is the first time you play Heavy Walls on this city, it gains +1 [STRENGTH].” (previously “This city gains +0.5 [STRENGTH].”)
  
• Greener Pastures [3] (common), now gains +35 [SIZE] (previously +30 [SIZE])
  
• Kindle the Wrath [3] (special), now gains +35 [SIZE] (previously +30 [SIZE])
  
• Neighborly Aid [3] (common), now gains +5 [SIZE] per connected city (previously +4 [SIZE])
  
• Population Boom [3] (common), now gains +1 [STRENGTH] (previously +30 [SIZE])
  
• Structural Archive [3] (common), now gains +5 [SIZE] per card in your deck or discard (previously +4 [SIZE])
  
• Vanguard [3] (common), now gains +20 [SIZE] (previously +15 [SIZE])
  
• Witching Hour [3] (common), now gains +35 [SIZE] (previously +30 [SIZE]) and reveals the Cottage instead of marking it

Guides

• Innkeeper (common), now gains +20 [SIZE] (previously +15 [SIZE])
  
• Surveyor (rare), now gains +20 [SIZE] (previously +15 [SIZE])

Islands

• The description for The Butcher’s Wake and The Feast has been revised to better explain the island mechanics
  
• Embers of Defiance (late-game), the island will now have 3 BBQs (previously 5 BBQs)

What an incredible first week! I’m beyond grateful to everyone who picked up Flocking Hell, joined the Discord, shared your reviews & kind words, and ... reported bugs. Your excitement and feedback have meant the world, and helped us push out our first patch that much faster. Thank you for being part of the flock!

I would like to especially thank Olexa, a leading indie YouTuber, for introducing Flocking Hell to his viewers! You can find the full video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VjnExgb7So

Olexa kindly summarized his review with "[[i]Flocking Hell[/i] is] a fascinating little game that is fun to pick up and play. I like it a lot, easy to play, difficult to master, filled with a bunch of content."


The official Flocking Hell soundtrack is now available for purchase on Steam! Huge thanks to the incredibly talented Simon Daoud, who composed the entire OST and brought so much atmosphere to the game. All proceeds from the soundtrack go directly to Simon: support the music, support the composer!


I'm especially excited to announce our first patch! For this release, we addressed several bugs that were reported by players over the past week, made a couple of small balance changes, and introduced a pop-up whenever you unlock a new island. We have big plans for Flocking Hell, and hope to announce regular content updates in the coming weeks.

• All bell requirements have been reduced. Unlocking new content is now faster.
  
• When a new island is unlocked, a pop-up screen will appear during the main menu.

Quality of Life

• Islands in the codex “Islands” tab will now show their unlock bell requirement.

Gameplay

• The starting deck will always include either Map to Riches or Map to the Cities.

Cards

• Pioneers [3] (starter), will no longer reveal pastures adjacent to the city where you played the card.
  
• Vast Meadows [3] (common), now has reminder text with the number of turns the charm will be gained for.
  
• Verdant Force [3] (common), rewritten as “All hidden adjacent pastures become small farms.” (while this is a minor nerf, it is similar functionality in most cases and simpler for newcomers).

Islands

• Tiny Towns (late-game), starting city SIZE is now reduced by 10% (previously 25%).

Bug Fixes

• Sheep will no longer walk all over the codex when opening it during a level.
  
• Tutorial: The tutorial now correctly indicates that the “View Deck” button is in the top right.
  
• Corrupted Cacophony: The island will now correctly start with start-of-level effects, such as Cartographer and Foreman.
  
• Fluffocalypse: The island description should no longer overflow.
  
• The “No Mutton for You” achievement should now trigger correctly on both The Feast and Buffer of Horrors.

Lastly, the demo has been updated to the latest version of the game, including all bug fixes and interface updates (locked content is still locked, though!)