Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Flockers is a platforming puzzle game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. The game is a modern take on the Lemmings formula brought to PS4 owners by Team 17; the same developer responsible for such retro classics as Alien Breed, Superfrog and Worms, alongside the more recent retro revivals for each of the three popular and well loved games.

The gameplay sees players attempting to guide all of the sheep to safety at the end of the level by guiding the animals through various puzzles. There are a total of sixty levels with six secret levels to unlock based upon performance regarding how many stars are obtained as each level offers a set amount of stars for completing the level and how many sheep are rescued along the way. Every level has a minimum amount of sheep that must be rescued or you will fail the level, alongside a golden fleece that does not have to be saved but will benefit your score if it is, although there is a time limit on every level in which if the minimum amount of sheep have not been saved within that particular period of time, then you will also fail the level in that given scenario too.

There are various abilities that allow sheep to progress into new areas by them collecting the appropriate crates, such as a release crate to release sheep from a crate they have been placed into; a jumper crate for sheep to jump from one platform to another; an exploder crate for sheep to blast a hole to open up a path beyond an obstacle; and a super sheep crate will allow them to run up the length of a wall to reach what would have previously been unsurpassable. There is naturally a couple of abilities from the start of each level as players can pause the movements of the sheep for a strategic advantage as you can pan the camera around to view the upcoming puzzles that you will have to navigate them through, while you can fast forward the movements of the animals in order to perhaps finish the level a little faster.

The sheep collect further crates while on their journeys that provide players with particular shapes that can be inverted and stacked to fit the surrounding environment, such as a one block crate, a two block vertical crate, a two step crate and a three step crate that allows you the ability to shape the path for the sheep to acknowledge and take in their stride. There are also other gameplay elements, such as teleportation devices that will re-position the location of any of the sheep who enter it, which is quite an important gameplay mechanic as it increases the variation in levels in regards to how a teleportation device can be in closer proximity to the device than a lower platform, while asking the question of how to reach the required device to guide the sheep further into the level.

The level design consists of heavily steampunk inspired environments with each of the levels featuring unique and fiendishly difficult puzzles, which are effectively the enemies as every puzzle poses a great danger, with buzzsaws, drills, knives and spikes littered throughout the levels as well as some long drops that must be avoided unless the landing area is made of a soft material. However, there are some generally easier puzzles to solve such as how to reach a switch to raise a platform to let the rest of the sheep that do not have the super sheep ability through to progress onto the next area of the level, while the character design is really reserved for the charming and cute sheep being the stars of the show.

There is a plethora of unlockable rewards including seventeen different species of sheep and six types of blood. The seventeen species of unlockable sheep have a variety of appearances ranging from smaller and more subtle changes, such as the colour pink or a designer hat to much greater changes, such as cyber, to zombie to skeleton sheep, 8-bit sheep, punk rocker sheep and even pirate ones amongst many more, while the six types of blood change the colour of the splatter from the sheep that have unfortunate accidents. The unlockable rewards is an excellent design choice as each of the twenty-three unlockables have their own objectives attached to them that must be completed in order to unlock that particular piece of content, such as the hippy sheep being unlocked when the player has completed levels 21 through 40, the skeleton sheep being unlocked when you have earned three stars per level from thirty levels and the pirate sheep being unlocked when the player’s sheep has collected a total of 150 crates.

Flockers supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or upload a screenshot to Facebook or Twitter and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so there is still the chance to decide if the player would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between your game footage and your reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.

Flockers supports the remote play feature that allows players to participate  in almost any PS4 game on the PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on the PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. Flockers’ performance during remote play is identical to that of its PS4 counterpart as the graphics, audio and general performance remains at the same level with the only minor change being L2 and R2 on the DualShock 4 controller being swapped for the left and right of the rear touch pad, which results in slight changes to the presentation and control scheme, although they are not major enough changes to really hamper anything.

There are two control schemes with both of them proving easy to master due to being well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller. The default control scheme consists of pressing R1 to cycle through to the next ability; pressing L1 to cycle through the previous ability; pressing R2 to zoom the camera in; pressing L2 to zoom the camera out; pressing X to select an ability or crate; pressing square to increase or decrease the size of the cursor or invert the formation of a crate or multiple crates; pressing O to delete the formation of a crate or multiple crates; pressing triangle to continue; pressing up or down on the d-pad to toggle zoom; pressing left on the d-pad to pause; pressing right on the d-pad to fast forward the speed of the sheep; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move the cursor; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to pan the camera around the environment; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. Meanwhile, the alternative control scheme switches the cycling through the next or previous ability from R1 and L1 respectively over to right and left on the d-pad, while the fast forward moves from pressing right on the d-pad over to R2 and pause moves from pressing left on the d-pad over to L2.

The light bar implementation is synchronised to the particular ability or crate chosen which blinks for a second and then returns to the original darker tone of white, while the release ability produces a brighter shade of white; the jumper ability flashes purple; the super sheep ability flashes a mixture of red and pink; the exploder ability produces yellow; while a one block crate, a two block vertical crate, a two step crate and a three step crate all range from a light shade of green descending through darker tones of green. The DualShock 4 controller vibrates, while the light bar remains a dark red when any of the sheep unfortunately die before making it to safety as a result of the numerous environmental hazards, although there is no touch pad implementation, which is surprising as it could have been used to pause and fast forward or to perhaps even position crates with a gentle swipe across the touch pad to move the crates followed by a tap of the touch pad to confirm their positioning.

The graphics make great use of lighting, shadows and steam particularly in the background to authentically recreate steampunk inspired environments that combine perfectly with the machinery and hazards in the foreground to produce flawlessly realized environments for the sheep to attempt to navigate without falling victim to one of the many hazards or puzzles.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, online leaderboards, rewards menu, options menu and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. The background of the menu screens revolves around the factory that are being attempted to guide the sheep to escape from as there are cogs, conveyor belts, chains, cranes and other machinery along various structures and pipes as plumes of steam rise up from vents surrounding the logo of the game in the centre.

The audio consists of sound effects and music with the sound effects including the bleating from sheep, the activation of switches and the various environmental hazards closing in on the sheep, while the music is what players would imagine to be played for a group that is about to experience an adventure but are unsure of exactly what awaits them. The DualShock 4 speaker implementation is used to positive effect to layer the audio as the speaker produces the sound effects of the sheep from their various tones as they continue to bleat, which certainly adds an element of comedy and charm to the audio; particularly when fast forwarding the movements of the sheep when they sound more along the lines of mice and the trampoline style sound effect after you have granted an ability to a sheep.

The trophy list includes twenty-one trophies with five bronze, seven silver, eight gold and one platinum trophy. There are some that will be earned naturally with the easiest trophies having to be the Just the Start bronze trophy for completing the first three levels; the Bespoke Winner bronze trophy for completing any level with a customised sheep; and the Bleederboards bronze trophy for viewing the online leaderboards of the amount of sheep you have failed to rescue. There are some trophies that rely upon pure luck, such as the Get In! gold trophy for getting twenty sheep into the exit at once within one second; the Four Friends bronze trophy for getting four sheep into the exit at once within one second; and the Woolly Jumper silver trophy for having twenty sheep jump simultaneously. However, there are some rewards that will take that much more time and will be harder with the hardest trophies having to be the Winner gold trophy for completing every level including all of the secret bonus levels which requires you to guide enough sheep to the end of each level and the Cream of the Flock gold trophy for earning three stars across every level including all of the secret bonus levels which requires you to complete every level to the absolute best of your ability. It is estimated that depending upon skill in regards to solving the puzzles and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take around five to ten hours to platinum the trophy list.

There is no local or online multiplayer, although it would have been great to see local and online co-operative multiplayer with multiple players controlling different groups of sheep and a form of local and online competitive multiplayer with one of the players controlling the environmental hazards of their choosing at any given time, while the other player is attempting to navigate the sheep past the hazards and to safety to add an edge of competitiveness to the gameplay.

However, there are online leaderboards, which are focused on global rankings, the players own score and friends rankings covering an all time and monthly basis across all of the sixty-six levels with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and score with the positioning of each player based upon the score that has been accumulated on that particular level of the game, while there are also separate leaderboards showcasing how many sheep have been saved under the players watch and unfortunately how many sheep have been failed to rescue.

There are no difficulty levels, although the complexity curve rises as the puzzles increase in their intricacy which progressively increases the amount of puzzles and the number of sheep that must be rescued in order to succeed in the level, but this may leave some thinking that it would have been better to have an easy, normal and hard difficulty level, so that a player struggling with some of the harder puzzles or higher total of sheep rescues could instead enter at an easier difficulty with lower requirements before moving upwards through the difficulty levels after having learnt more regarding the ins and outs of the gameplay mechanics and puzzles.

The replayability of Flockers stems from the sixty levels and six secret levels, while unlocking new levels as progress is made by earning stars based upon performance in each level and attempting to unlock the six secret levels that are scattered throughout the game as attempts to earn three stars and find the golden fleece in every level, alongside unlockable rewards in the forms of seventeen species of sheep and six blood types and competitive online leaderboards for every level that will collectively have you returning to the game for a long time after you have first completed it.

Overall, Flockers is a quality re-invention of Lemmings starring a herd of sheep that need to be guided along to safety, which is just as an entertaining premise and with just as great gameplay mechanics as the series of Lemmings games. If players are a fan of Lemmings or platforming puzzle games, then Flockers is certainly an entry into the genre that you will appreciate and that is highly recommended, especially at pretty good value for a retail game with a budget price of £19.99.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Flockers
• Developer: Team 17
• Publisher: Team 17
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1 (Online Leaderboards)
• Hard Drive Space Required: 3.4GB