Aliens do play a part, except this time you (gasp) help them instead of exterminate them. The extra-terrestrials need farm animals - sheep, chickens, cows, pigs, anything really, they aren't fussy - and it's your mission to procure them. To achieve your sheep-rustling dreams, you are given a very big and very orange mothership into which you must herd the livestock for safe passage through space. The top of this flying, bell-like structure detaches, giving you a small UFO to pilot around the level, which sheep, having evolved an innate fear of alien abduction, are naturally terrified of, causing them to flee from the mysterious green beam that it casts upon the ground beneath you. With skilled movement of the hovering saucer you can herd the sheep together into a flock, getting them to scurry where you want them as you bend them to your evil will! The pesky critters aren't really mindless drones to bolster your alien empire though, as they often fall out of their trance and run off in the wrong direction just when you don't want them to. Getting them back while preventing the remaining flock from escaping is all part of the fun, though, and you only need to herd a certain number of the fluffy critters into the carefully parked mothership before it can blast-off; aliens reward efficiency, so the quicker you can do this, the better.

However, getting a group of unwilling animals into the ominous-looking mothership is not as easy as it sounds, as the land-dwelling farm animals don't fare too well at all when they're mistakenly herded off the edge of a cliff, tumbling into the endless sea below and causing instant death for the unfortunate fluff balls. Also hindering your progress are the ill-minded (and exceptionally clever) farmers, who have arranged their farms into giant puzzles and mazes, similar to the one puzzle per level structure of World of Goo. For example, some farmers position dung heaps to distract pigs that love nothing more than to roll about in the smelly stuff, while others divide the ground beneath ramps with impenetrable stone walls, causing some of your flock to go one way and some the other if your UFO is not handled with precision. I haven't seen many of FLOCK!'s levels yet so I can't say how difficult the puzzles become - but, from the levels that I have seen, it all seems easy enough with sufficient practice.

With the animals successfully abducted, you are left to wonder exactly what the malevolent off-worlders (assuming that they are malevolent!) want with our precious critters. Being a simple, quick play arcade game that's all about enjoyable gameplay, FLOCK! doesn't really include a story to inform curious players of ET's intent. Actually, the decision not to add a story was a conscious one, as the developers' wanted to leave this aspect open, allowing you to form your own theories - and with the aim of the game being to herd sheep into an alien mothership, there is plenty of scope for your imagination to run as rampant as a stampeding bull! A possible reason for the pure hearted among us would involve aliens saving innocent animals from the global disasters caused by man, such as rising water levels and increased temperatures. Incapable of comprehending such humanitarianism, my twisted mind, blackened by years of paranoia about zombie apocalypses and alien invasions, formed a somewhat different and more violent story. I decided (and this is no longer debateable) that the murderous and vengeful aliens abduct livestock to fit them with bionic, intelligence-boosting devices. When they have enough cattle, the aliens will return to Earth, releasing their army of missile-launching cows and chickens with deadly laser beams shooting from their eyes in a ruthless campaign to destroy humanity.

That's plenty of scope for an all-action sequel, so now it's time to move on to the next unique feature of the game: its visuals. I actually don't know where to begin with the eye candy, as it so unlike any other game I've seen before. The crux of it is that everything in the world of FLOCK! looks like it's straight out of a toy shop. The ground is a patchwork quilt of different greens, yellows and browns, decorated with bulbous flowers and stitched boulders; even the animals look like they are made out of fabric - the sheep are no more than cotton wool balls with eyes and the very British highland cows (or coos as we say in the North) are draped in multi-coloured strings of fur. In addition, the UFO that you control is brightly coloured to resemble a child's plaything, albeit one that hovers above the ground casting an eerie green light beneath it.

As the UFO is the control unit separated from the top of the mothership, a second one appears if you decide to enter co-op mode. Now two players (nicely referred to as Flockers) can start herding livestock into the mothership, co-operating to defeat puzzles and circumnavigate obstacles that one UFO would have trouble with, such as large stone slabs or quickly re-growing crops. As both are on the same screen at once, there's no need for split screen shenanigans, as whenever the UFOs clash they simply bounce off each other unscathed. However, you do need local mates to try it, as there is no online gameplay, which is a definite shame. When the developers were asked to explain this injustice, they replied that the pressure to release and budget constraints rendered such a feature implausible. That's a fair response and, as the gameplay is focused on a single player experience anyway - being a puzzle game in the vein of World of Goo - a significant drop in the number of levels would severely damage the enjoyable gameplay, resulting in it being over painfully quickly.

With that said, the sheer quantity of levels does not imply a quality, long-lasting game - words that Proper-Games hope will become implicit with all of their titles. To boost longevity, they have taken the bold step of packaging a map editor as part of the game - the same editor that they used to build all the levels, in fact - a feature that they are particularly excited about. This magical level creator appears exceedingly easy to use; you select what you want - ground, ramps, stones, sheep, piles of poo and so on - and simply plonk them where you want them in your complex mousetrap (or rather sheeptrap) of doom. With the layout complete, you can turn your scheming mind to settings including the time of day (some levels take place at night for some added spookiness) and the number of animals that you have to herd into the mothership to achieve victory. With the level established and settings confirmed, you are free to upload your mind-bogglingly fiendish levels for others to try - and a sufficient fanbase creating and uploading outrageous levels will ensure FLOCK!'s longevity.

Perhaps it'll even last long enough for a sequel to arrive, as, although it all depends on FLOCK!'s sales, the developers do have ideas - well they do now that I've submitted my groundbreaking plotline! This also applies to downloadable content (extra maps and such); if the sales are good enough to put smiles on the publishers' faces then content will come - it's really down to your support.

This is an apt place to stop - with the future left open. However, FLOCK! does, from what I saw and played, seem to be shaping up very well with its beautifully stylised graphics, level editor, effortlessly simple gameplay and humourous nature. There were minor disappointments along the way, such as the lack of online multiplayer, but with launch imminent (the game should be out by the time you read this feature) I can't wait to give FLOCK! the thorough inspection that it deserves.

I'd like to thank Andrew Smith and the rest of the Proper-Games team for organising such a wonderful event and for taking the time out to answer my silly but purposeful questions.

Written by Tom Clark for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).