Nestled among the plethora of curious creatures that players can collect in Flock is one particular resident that will feel immediately familiar: the humble sheep. When they're not rounding up a cloud of floating familiars, players will need to tend to a herd of wooly sausages that are worth their weight in gold. That's because, in Flock's effervescent world, wool is the hottest of commodities.
It can be traded for cosmetic items like hats and scarves that will turn your bird-riding shepherd into a fashion icon. These are, as you can imagine, absolutely essential. To collect wool, you'll need to find grazing spots where your hungry herd can munch the days away—and perhaps even reveal a few secrets.
During a recent chat with creative director Ricky Haggett and programmer Mike Robinson, we learned that although sheep were always envisioned as part of the game, the mechanic morphed a lot during development. The pull of wool Initially, sheep were pitched as weird creatures called "ongles, gongles, and bongles." They were strange pink oddities that could be sheared for different resources, but it was a pitch that immediately felt too complex.
At that stage, different variants of those sheep-like creatures would produce unique resources such as feathers or wool. Players could use those to craft different items, but it felt a lot like busywork. "There was more breadth [at that stage]," says Haggett, who concedes there was also more "guff.
" For a long time, players also had to keep.
