No good deed goes unpunished, and no patch comes without a few unexpected bugs!

While developing Competitive², I tested an alternative crystal modifier where all crystal gain (including from cards) was reduced by 25%. Playtesters agreed this felt too harsh, so I removed it. However, in the process, I accidentally doubled crystal production for all difficulty levels. That’s now been fixed, and I hope y'all enjoyed the turbo-charged crystals while they lasted 😅

I also fixed a bug that could cause crashes on some Observatory levels.

• Fixed a bug where [CRYSTAL] production was doubled.
  
• Fixed a bug where the game would rarely crash when starting an island with observatories.

Thank you all for continuing to play, share, and enjoy Flocking Hell! It’s been amazing to see so many of you take the mantle of the Bellwether and lead the flock against the demons. Patch #4 brings some major updates to keep things fresh and challenging. Snarebunnies are back and sneakier than ever with the brand new Hare Trigger island. To celebrate the occasion, our composer Simon Daoud wrote a new track, Meat the End! Combat now flows faster thanks to improved animations and dynamic damage stacking. Full details below, with the change log at the end of the post.

Before we begin, a HUGE shout-out to Draham, our new German community translator. Draham volunteered to review and polish the German translation of Flocking Hell, making the game more accessible in the process. Thanks Draham 💜


This patch introduces the second Snarebunny bonus level, Hare Trigger, along with its prelude, Nose for Trouble! Once again, you’ll face multiple waves of Snarebunnies, but this time their arrival depends on how you spend your turns. Every decision matters!

To celebrate, our amazing composer Simon Daoud created a brand new boss battle track: Meat the End. You’ll hear it in every boss fight from now on! Be sure to check out Simon’s Instagram[www.instagram.com] for more of his wonderful music, and remember that you can buy the OST through Steam.


Since launch, "go-wide" strategies (where you connect as many cities as possible) have lagged behind. Roads are expensive, and late connections suffer from diminishing returns. This patch gives them a major boost: reinforcements no longer reduce the size of reinforcing cities. For example, connecting 10 cities will gain a total of 225 size across all cities when the demons invade!

Two other changes also support going wide. First, demon legion size is now pre-calculated, removing a hidden penalty that punished large city networks. Second, all islands now spawn with exactly 12 cities (instead of 10–12), making cities closer together and synergy cards like Oracle easier to trigger.


Combat just got a lot snappier! First, I trimmed delays from key animations, including the "Reinforcements!" prompt, to keep things moving. Second, I added dynamic stacking to the damage multiplier. When large armies clash, up to 32 sheep attacks and demon swipes are now combined into a single animation. Battles are still fun to watch and now take about half the time.


You can now mouse over the Hell Gate to see the order in which the demon legion will attack your cities. Keep in mind that this order can change: as cities grow, demons will prefer smaller cities when distances are equal. For some bosses (like the Butchers), only the first city is guaranteed, and the rest are decided as combat unfolds.


Multiplicative effects are very popular right now. Two excellent examples are Balatro and Ballionaire, where the goal is to reach millions or billions of total points. Flocking Hell takes a different approach, focusing on small, important decisions and gradual growth.

That said, two cards (Crystalline Seed and Ritual of Growth) and the Geologist guide break this rule and can lead to runaway wins if drafted and stacked. To keep them exciting but make them less common, I’ve increased their rarities from rare to epic.


No patch is complete without fresh content! Alongside Hare Trigger, this update adds Tainted Quarry, a new island that puts small-deck strategies to the test, and two new Tradition cards that grow stronger as your campaign progresses.

Enough reading! Now go play 🐑😈

• Flocking Hell now has an updated German translation, thanks to Draham, our new community translator! If you’d like to help with any of the other languages, please email us at anna@sextantstudios.games.
  
• Check out the new boss battle music, Meat the End! Kudos to Simon Daoud, Flocking Hell’s talented composer, for creating this new track.

• Mouse over the revealed, active Hell Gate to see the current order in which the demons will attack your cities (it can change as you reveal more cities and as cities grow in size!).
  
• The combat at each city will take less swipes thanks to a new dynamic stacking damage multiplier, making combat faster
  
• Shortened several combat animations (such as the “Reinforcements!” prompt and the raze animation wait), making combat faster

• Demon legion [SIZE] is pre-calculated (previously calculated based on total starting city size). This should make Competitive and Competitive² harder!
  
• Each island will now have 12 cities (previously it was 10-12).
  
• Reinforcements now gain +5 [SIZE] for each connected city, but do not cost any [SIZE] for the reinforcing cities.
  
• Competitive and Competitive²: The first Snarebunny wave will now have 125 [DEMONSIZE] (previously 100).
  
• Competitive²: Demon legion is now larger than Competitive, and grows faster.

• Crystalline Seed [4], now epic (previously rare).
  
• Gembound Tradition [3] (rare), new card: “Gain 10 [CRYSTAL] for each time you played “Gembound Tradition” this campaign.”
  
• Hearthbound Tradition [3] (rare), new card: “This city gains +8 [SIZE] for each time you played “Hearthbound Tradition” this campaign.”
  
• Ritual of Growth [3], now epic (previously rare).

• Geologist, now epic (previously rare).

• Emberfrost Expanse (late-game), will now have 10 cities (previously 8), and they are no longer especially distant from each other.
  
• Hare Trigger (boss), new island: “The Snarebunnies attack whenever the Invasion Charm gets to 0! The charm drops by 5 whenever you assign to a mine, build a road, or play a card. (It does not tick down when you reveal a tile.) There are at most 4 waves. Until the last wave, your Crystal Blast only uses half your [CRYSTAL].”
  
• Nose for Trouble (late-game), new island: “There are 4 Hell Gates, located all over the island. One is active and the rest are dormant. Whenever you assign to a mine, build a road, or play a card, the active Hell Gate changes. Build a road on a dormant Hell Gate to close it.”
  
• Rumor Mill (late-game), playing the fourth “Fake News” card will reveal 8 random tiles (previously 10).
  
• Tainted Quarry (late-game), new island: “When you fortify a city, gain 1 [SHEEP]. Whenever your deck runs out of cards, add a Curse to your deck at the start of the next level.”

• Hopefully fixed a bug where a player would lose the campaign but still kept going despite having 0 hearts left.
  
• The Scribe Charm will now correctly say “Scribe” in the UI (instead of “Clerk”).
  
• Fixed a bug where the Cartographer guide will sometimes crash a new island.
  
• City growth pop-up font color is now using the correct shade of green