The wisdom of crowds?
>£2.99 FROM Nada Studio, nada.studio
>NEEDS iOS 13.0 or later
T here’s a fine line between making a clever, challenging puzzle game and creating something that is abstruse and frustrating. Flocks really wants to be clever, but its levels are more often exasperating than satisfying.
You control a handful of small blue people to complete various tasks. In early levels you must roast a giant marshmallow over a fire, for instance. As the game progresses its levels get trickier, with timers, buttons, and vehicles thrown in.
The problem is that the challenge often comes from the game’s controls, which are clunky and awkward, rather than the level in question itself.
Other times, you’re let down by irritating foibles. For instance, in one level you walk a character onto a moving platform on the back of a truck. You then carefully move the vehicle into place and raise the platform, but at any point while driving the truck, the character can fall off. You must then move the unwieldy truck back to the start and try again, never knowing if the same thing will repeat. It feels tedious and irksome.
There’s also a lack of information throughout. Each level has a short (usually one word) descriptor, and in early levels important objects are highlighted. But other than that, you’re on your own. That would be fine were the results not so confusing. One
