Flockshift

The whole idea

Pick a flock. Pick a direction.

Every free bird of that colour slides at the same time, and keeps going until a wall, another bird, or its own nest stops it. You are not moving a piece. You are moving all of them.

Three red birds spread along the top row of a six-by-three board, with three red nests below on the right. — Three red birds, spread out. One swipe right.

The same three red birds now packed tightly against the right-hand wall in a single turn. — They pack against the wall. That was one turn.

The birds behind can take the cell the bird ahead just left, so a flock arrives packed rather than scattered. Learning to use that is most of the game.

Recorded from the game

Four boards, start to finish

This is the solution playback the game itself offers once you have genuinely worked at a level — the real board, at the real speed. Watch a flock arrive packed, and watch a bird that gets home turn into the wall the next one has to work around.

Level 13 · Flockshift Exam
solved in 9 turns, three flocks

Four rules, no manual

You already know how to play

Nothing is hidden, nothing is random, and the same move in the same position always does the same thing. Every puzzle is solvable by looking at it.

Birds slide

A bird moves in the chosen direction until something blocks it — a hedge, the board edge, or a bird that isn't in the moving flock.

Nests are final

A bird that reaches a matching nest settles there for good, even with open floor beyond it. That is how you make a bird stop where you want it.

A settled bird is a wall

Once home, a bird stops taking orders and starts blocking. Every bird you send home changes the board for the ones still out.

The wrong nest is just floor

A red bird slides straight over a blue nest without noticing. It can rest on one, but it can never live there.

Not one of those rules is explained in words anywhere in the game — the opening levels teach them by letting you try. The puzzles need no translation. The interface around them is translated anyway, into English, Español, Français, Русский, 日本語 and 简体中文.

Three flocks

Tell them apart with the colour turned off

Colour is never the only signal. Each flock has its own body shape, and each nest is built to echo it — so the board still reads if you can't separate red from green.

The red flock's bird: plump and round with a short tail.

Red

Round. Plump body, short tail.

Its nest: small, round, tightly woven.

Blue

Crested. Tall pointed crown.

Its nest: a raised tuft of twigs at the back.

Yellow

Long-tailed. Flat crown, straight tail.

Its nest: a wide oval trailing loose straw.

Knock all six shapes down to a flat silhouette and they are still six different objects. That is the test the art had to pass before it shipped.

The content

Thirty levels, and the first thirteen teach

Each of the opening levels introduces exactly one idea, in order, and none of them explains it in words. The rest are there to use what you learned.

A curve that was measured, not guessed

The back half is ordered by how much board there is to search per correct answer, rather than by how many turns the solution takes. Ordering by turn count put the second-hardest puzzle in the game between two of the easiest.

Every level has been checked by a solver that plays the rules independently of the game. Each one is solvable, and each recorded solution is the shortest one that exists.

Thirteen hand-authored teaching levels
Seventeen generated and hand-picked
Forty-five more in the optional level pack — bigger boards, up to ten by ten, and solutions that run to fourteen turns

The level select screen: numbered tiles each showing three stars, one marked skipped, levels not yet reached dimmed, and a row offering the forty-five-level pack.

Three flocks on one board

Add a second colour and the birds you aren't moving become the walls you move against. Add a third and the order you send them home in becomes the puzzle.

Boards stay small and always fit one screen. A level is a minute or two, not an afternoon.

A seven-by-seven board with red, blue and yellow birds and their matching nests scattered among hedge blocks.

Nothing to grind, nothing to wait for

No lives, no timers, no energy, no daily reset. The game never asks you to come back tomorrow, and it never asks you to wait.

There is no score and no timer. The one mark you get is stars, and they measure only one thing: three for matching the shortest solution that exists, two for coming within a couple of turns of it, one for solving it at all.

Watching the solution or skipping a level earns none — not as a penalty, but because the star is the reason to come back to it.

A completed level with a panel reading three stars, Level 12 complete, three turns, optimal — there is no shorter solution.

Getting stuck

You can always take it back

A move that strands a bird is a normal part of solving these, not a punishment. So undo is unlimited, and it's the first button on the bar.

Undo reverses a whole simultaneous slide, every bird that settled during it included, as far back as you like.
Restart puts the board back to its opening position instantly.
Level Hint tells you what the level costs and where it opens — but only while the board is untouched, so it can't answer the question you're actually stuck on.
Show me the solution restarts the board and plays the answer through a move at a time, slowly enough to watch. Every puzzle book prints its solutions; withholding one is the odd choice.
Skip moves you on without pretending you solved it. The level stays open to come back to.
Neither watching nor skipping earns stars, so a level you took the back door on is still sitting there asking to be solved properly.

The last two appear only after you've genuinely wrestled with a level — the same gate a puzzle book applies by making you turn to the back.

A board part-way through level 14, Undo the Trap. Undo is available and Level Hint has greyed out because the board has been moved.