How to play Flock

Every day there's one hand-built map. A flock of birbs drops out of the hatch, one at a time, and walks straight ahead. Your job: get enough of them to the nest before time runs out.

The goal

• The goal line reads like "Save 6 of 8". Get that many birbs home before the clock runs out and you've solved the day.
• Extra birbs home are a bonus. They don't change whether you solved it, but they do make your result better.
• Birbs can't be steered. They keep walking the way they face, hop up small ledges, turn around at walls, and tumble off edges.

Skills

• 🛑 Blocker: plants itself and turns every other walker around. A blocker keeps guard until you let it go: right-click it (on a phone, press and hold it) and it walks on, the way it faces. A left-click never releases, so a misclick is safe. Releasing is free, but the blocker isn't refunded.
• ⛏️ Digger: digs straight down, five cells wide, until it breaks through or hits steel. Birbs that walk into the hole fall in after it.
• 🔨 Basher: pecks a tunnel straight ahead through dirt. It stops when the dirt runs out, or at steel.
• 🧱 Builder: lays a staircase, one step up for every two across, ten steps in all. It stops early if it bonks into a ceiling or wall. Birbs behind it can climb the stairs. Anyone who overtakes the builder walks off the unfinished end.
• 🪂 Glider: a leaf-parachute for one birb. It floats down slowly and survives any fall. It's the only skill you can give to a birb that's already falling.

• All five skills are on every map, with a count on each button. Some maps limit certain skills.
• A greyed-out skill is unavailable on that map.
• The right skill in the right place is the puzzle. A wrong pick can cost you a birb.

Controls

• Click a skill, or press 1–5, then click or tap a birb. On a phone, tap a skill and then tap a birb: touch gets a generous tap target.
• Pause to think, ×1 / ×2 / ×4 to change the speed.
• Right-click a standing 🛑 blocker to release it, with or without a skill picked (on a phone: press and hold it for about half a second). Hover one to see the cue.
• Restart replays the map from the start with fresh skill counts. End round finishes with whoever's already home.

Dangers and terrain

• Long falls are fatal. A birb that drops a long way without a glider splats. Short hops and steps are fine.
• Water drowns any birb that touches it. A builder's staircase makes a bridge across.
• Steel (blue-grey) is indestructible: it can't be dug or bashed.
• Dirt (brown with a green top) can be dug, bashed and built on.
• Walking off the edge of the map is the end of that birb, too.

Three tries a day

• You get 3 tries on each day's map, shown as Try 1 of 3.
• A try is used up the moment the first birb hatches. Restarting before that is free.
• After that, Restart and End round both use up the try. A restart scores that try as 0 birbs home, and asks first. Reloading mid-round counts too.
• Your best try counts: most birbs home first, then fewer skills used, then the earlier try.
• Solved it early? You can use the tries you have left to beat your best, or just stop.
• The last try can't be restarted. Once all 3 are used you can still play for fun: Practice again (not counted). Practice rounds are never saved, never change your best, and never touch your stats or Share. A new map arrives tomorrow.

Sharing

When you finish you can copy a spoiler-free result: birbs saved, skills spent, which try it came from (like try 2/3), and a row of 🐤 (home) and 🪦 (lost). It never gives the solution away, and Share always copies your best result for the day you're viewing.

Every day

• A new map appears every day at midnight Pacific time, the same for everyone in the world (whatever your own time zone), and they get trickier as the week goes on.
• Missed one? The archive has every past map.
• Your stats and streaks are stored on your device only. No account needed. Come back tomorrow!