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Playing

How do I move?

Tap any bird to select its flock, then swipe in the direction you want that flock to go. The whole flock moves at once. Selecting a different flock costs nothing and is not a turn — only an actual move counts.

Why did my bird stop there?

A bird slides until something stops it: a hedge, the edge of the board, a bird from a different flock, a bird already settled in its nest, or its own matching nest. Nothing else stops a bird, and nothing is random — the same move from the same position always ends the same way.

One of my birds ran straight past its nest.

Then it wasn't its nest. A bird only settles in a nest of its own colour; a nest belonging to another flock is ordinary floor to it. A bird can come to rest standing on the wrong nest if something blocks it there, but it never settles into one.

A bird went home and now it's in the way.

That is the rule, not a bug. Once a bird settles it stops taking orders and starts acting as a wall. Which bird you send home first is often the whole puzzle, and it is also the tool that lets you stop a bird exactly where you want it.

Two birds of the same colour ended up stacked together.

Birds in the moving flock travel as a queue: the one behind can take the cell the one in front has just left, so a flock arrives packed against whatever stopped the leader rather than spread out. Level 5 exists to teach this.

I can't tell the flocks apart.

Colour is never the only signal. The red flock is round with a short tail, the blue flock is crested with a tall pointed crown, and the yellow flock is long-tailed with a flat crown. The nests echo the same shapes: round, tufted, and trailing straw. All six stay distinct in greyscale. If something is still hard to read on your device, please tell us — that is exactly the report we want.

Getting stuck

I've made a mess of the board.

Undo as far back as you like — one undo reverses an entire slide, including any bird that settled during it. Restart puts the board back to its opening position. Neither is penalised in any way.

What does Level Hint tell me?

How many turns the level takes and what its opening move is. It's available only while the board is still in its opening position, so it can get you started but cannot answer the question you're sitting on halfway through. That's deliberate: a hint that answers from anywhere makes the game easy.

I'm properly stuck. Is there an answer?

Yes. After you've genuinely wrestled with a level, two more options appear: Show me the solution, which restarts the board and plays the answer through a move at a time slowly enough to follow, and Skip, which moves you on.

Either way the level is recorded as skipped rather than solved, and stays open for you to come back to. Watching the answer isn't solving it, and the game doesn't pretend otherwise.

What are the stars for?

Three stars means you matched the shortest solution that exists for that board — not a fast time, not a high score, the actual minimum number of turns. Two means you came within a couple of turns of it. One means you solved it.

Watching the solution or skipping a level earns none. That isn't a punishment; it's so the level still has something to offer when you come back to it.

A level seems impossible.

Every level in the game has been checked by a solver that implements the rules separately from the game itself, so each one is solvable and each recorded answer is the shortest that exists. If you believe you've found one that genuinely cannot be solved, please email us the level number — that would be a real bug and we'd want it.

Levels and purchases

How many levels are there?

Thirty are included free. An optional one-time purchase adds a pack of forty-five more on larger boards with longer solutions. It's a purchase, not a subscription, and it isn't needed to finish the thirty.

I bought the level pack and it isn't showing.

Use the restore option in Settings. Purchases are tied to your Apple Account rather than to a device, so restoring works on a new phone or after reinstalling. If restoring doesn't bring it back, email us — include the date of purchase and we'll sort it out.

Can I get a refund?

Refunds are handled by Apple, not by us, through reportaproblem.apple.com. Do tell us what went wrong as well, because that part we can actually fix.

Are there ads?

No. No advertising, no interstitials, no rewarded videos, no banners, no timers, no lives, no daily reset. See the privacy policy.

What language is the game in?

English, Español, Français, Русский, 日本語 and 简体中文. It follows your device's language automatically. The puzzles themselves are taught without words, so only the interface around them is translated.

Your data and your progress

What does the game know about me?

Nothing. No account, no analytics, no advertising identifier, no tracking, and no sign-in. Your progress is a small file in the app's private storage on your own device. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

I lost my progress.

Progress is saved only on your device and there is no cloud backup, so deleting the app removes it and we have no copy to restore. That is a genuine limitation of a game with no accounts. A purchase can still be restored through Apple; solved levels cannot.

Can I play offline?

Entirely. The game needs no connection to play. The only time it reaches outside your device is to make or restore the optional purchase, which is handled by Apple.

Availability

When is it out?

Flockshift is finished and in final polish while its sound is being made, then it goes to Apple for review. We don't have a date to promise, and we'd rather say that than invent one. Check back here or watch techartists.com.

Will it come to Android, Mac, or Steam?

Not at launch. Flockshift is being built for iPhone and iPad first. Other platforms are possible later but nothing is promised.

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