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.
City Size Buff
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.
Witching Hour
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.
More Attention to Strength and Going Wide
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!
Island Changes
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 🐑😈
Full Change Log
Cards
- Advance Warning [3] (common), now gains +35 (previously +30
- Common Roots (common), cost reduced to 4 (previously 5)
- Expedition Log [3] (common), now gains +20 (previously +15 )
- 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 (previously +30 )
- Kindle the Wrath [3] (special), now gains +35 (previously +30 )
- Neighborly Aid [3] (common), now gains +5 per connected city (previously +4 )
- Population Boom [3] (common), now gains +1 [STRENGTH] (previously +30 )
- Structural Archive [3] (common), now gains +5 per card in your deck or discard (previously +4 )
- Vanguard [3] (common), now gains +20 (previously +15 )
- Witching Hour [3] (common), now gains +35 (previously +30 ) and reveals the Cottage instead of marking it
Guides
- Innkeeper (common), now gains +20 (previously +15 )
- Surveyor (rare), now gains +20 (previously +15 )
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)