Review of Fox & Flock

Fox and Flock is a computer boardgame on Steam and a modernized version of the old English boardgame Fox and Geese. It's small, simple and won't exactly be replacing Go anytime soon, but it's also fast, clever and oozing style. Well worth the price.

The Crunch

For those of you not familiar with obscure Victorian boardgames, Fox and Flock(Geese) is sort of like an asymmetrical Chinese Checkers on a cross shaped board. One player is the Fox (either one or two foxes) and the other is the flock. The point of the game is for nine of the flock pieces to make it(or not make it) to the bottom of the board, or to prevent the fox from moving. Only the fox can capture pieces, but the flock is more numerous(17 or 24 pieces) and can easily overwhelm an unaware fox. The two sides seem to be balanced well(although it can feel like the fox has the advantage whenever he jumps multiple flock pieces. The flock is far more prone to feelings of rage quitting)

The board is rather small, so games tend to be fast and short(I've yet to have a game last over twenty minutes). Also, it's very easy to pick up. The tutorial teaches you the game in about three moves, and everyone I explained it to immediately became formidable opponents. On the hardest AI or playing humans the endgame can get really stalematey, however. Admittedly, this happens in chess, but in Fox and Flock, this is the rule rather than the exception.

The AI is entertaining, but once you beat the story mode you can exploit even the hardest(aristocrat) difficulty. Humans are (of course) far more fun to play with, but unless you have friends who are into posh little boardgames, you're out of luck. Local multiplayer only. I can sort of see the reasoning behind that, what with the game being a bit exploitable and stalematey(along with it being fairly cheap). That isn't enough to stop every single fighting game that has online multiplayer, however, and it shouldn't stop this game.

With humans, the win/loss ratio I've experienced is about 50/50, even though I was mostly playing against a friend who is objectively better at boardgames than I am. This confirms my suspicion that the game is only partially about strategy, and mostly about waiting for the other person to do something stupid. It's actually far easier to do something stupid than you may think. I can't really hold it against the game because I don't think it's trying to be chess. It's trying to be a fun little party game anyone can get into, but also feel smooth and graceful, like the dance it's pretending to be. It does both these things fantastically, and that's not even what it does best.

The Fluff

Holy crap this game is stylish. The characters are all hand drawn ballroom dancers with animal heads. It's equal parts charming and unsettling. The music is all baroque and waltzes. I know that it's technically public domain music, but if they had the soundtrack on the Steam page I'd buy it. The artwork and music go together so beautifully to make the player feel super freaking posh. It also has a bit of darkness to it. When the fox takes a piece there is a sickly satisfying crunch sound, and the board gets bloodier and bloodier. I felt like a Downtown Abbey character playing this game, but edgier.

The story mode is, like the rest of the game, short but brilliant. You play the fox and the flock interchangeably. The story is that a ball has been announced, and all of the animals have been invited... except the fox. The fox, of course, finds the ball anyway and begins killing and eating all of the dancers in a series of tutorialish levels. The narrator tells the tale through metered rhyme and a really nice voice. There are a couple plot twists; one you'll almost certainly figure out, but the other is a bit shocking. It feels a bit short, but it's probably better to leave me wanting more.

The Verdict

Fox and Flock is the price of a cherry limeade with tater tots, and makes you feel like a slick Bond villain. The lack of online multiplayer hurts, but this is a no brainier buy if you're even a little into boardgames.