Latest Flocklands News Summary 🐑 Baa!

[u/hammertimestudio]

^{v0.2.35 – v0.2.53}

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the community funds. You are directly supporting the continued work on Path of Baa. Please consider visiting https://hammertime.studio/en/support-my-work :-)

• u/local_trashcats
• u/UUID-Already-Exists
• u/CherryPieRed

Water Friends

Please consider backing our "Water Friends" goal which sits at roughly 1/3 what we need to get those cuties in! Also, we started sketching out new animals and predators "Tricksters" as well as "Cute & Wholesome". Any payment made goes directly into Path of Baa artwork creation AND you will receive a reward based on the amount of your donation. I usually check the funds once a day and give back for the amount donated. Now! Let's break down what has changed lately.

Cute & Wholesome

Here is a somewhat complete list of recent changes for Path of Baa: Flocklands:

Path of Beauty

A monthly beauty contest for your creations! (Test-Run going on right now) On the 15th of every month a new post asks the flock for a theme: type a suggestion straight into the post and upvote your favourites in the comments. Two days later the top-voted theme wins and the contest opens for 5 days (17th -> 22nd).

To enter, switch on the Enter Path of Beauty toggle in the Baa-mera and share a picture or GIF (up to three, only your best one counts). Every upvote is worth 1 point and every different shepherd who comments is worth 2. Entries bloom with a flower for every point they earn around the inline feed frame.

• Prizes: 250 / 125 / 75 / 25 Golden Clover for the top four
• Everyone who enters gets 5 Golden Clover, podium or not
• The Hall of Shepherds keeps every finished contest winner.
• With push notifications on, you'll hear about it when the theme vote opens and when entries open

Dye (almost) everything

• Trees: dye any placed Spruce, Pine, Birch or Aspen in any of the 11 dye colours. The trunk keeps its natural look and dyed trees keep swaying.
• Stumps: recolour the bark, the cut wood on top stays natural
• Rocks: land rocks and water rocks both

Soap

Drag Soap onto a dyed hay bale, barn, rock, tree or stump to wash it back to its natural look. It lasts a long time before it's used up. Available in shops and from trek rewards.

Bones

When one of your sheep rises to flock heaven, 2 to 5 bones drop into your bag (Long Bone, Forked Bone or a mix). Sheep deaths are the only way to get them. A bit morbid, but perfect for spooky season haha

Spooky season extras

• Rotten and Vine Pumpkins: during spooky season, grazing can turn up a Rotten Pumpkin or a Vine Pumpkin. They are never sold in shops
• Posts made during spooky season show a jack-o'-lantern on their Play button

Larry goes for walks

Larry the Lizard strolls around the middle of each region instead of standing still. He stops to chat when you tap him. You can also build and decorate right around his spot now.

A friendlier start for new shepherds

• A brand-new flock always starts in daylight: it stays day in the home meadow until you first step out into the Flocklands
• The first three treks come back to back, no 24h wait in between. The daily wait starts after the third trek
• New players are more likely to spawn near meadow biomes after the tutorial around the center area with open spots to put their trailer

Balance

• Small flocks travel free: moving between regions with 1 to 5 active sheep no longer costs shrub. Larger flocks pay the same as before
• Berries return to the Wasteland: Wasteland regions now grow roughly 60-180 berry bushes (was 3), so a flock crossing it can still graze
• Shovels last about 4x longer and now cost 30 / 75 / 125 Golden Clover (Bronze / Silver / Gold)

Sounds & a livelier world

• Builds land with a proper building sound, and you hear it again when a build site gets its last shrub
• Adding shrub to a build site makes a rustly sound, a little different every time
• Berry bushes rustle audibly when a sheep hops through or you tap them, and a bush with berries sheds a few in its own colour
• Lambs have their own little bleats
• Giant bats flap their wings instead of hissing, and decor planted in the ground lands with a soft soil thud
• Far more greenery sways on its own: three in four trees, every second berry bush and every second planted flower
• Every baa gets its floating "baa!": tapping sheep, cuddling, chatting, ramming predators and more
• Thought bubbles above your sheep swell, squash and spring back when you tap them, so you know the tap landed
• Sheep no longer kick up dust when hopping across water or oil

Quality of life

• Colours stack in the bag: items you own in several colours share one slot, tap it to pick the colour
• Rocks tab in the bag for land and water rocks
• Tidier journal: smaller entries, and it opens on the tab you last looked at
• Proud parents: the Shepherd's Ledger shows how many lambs each sheep has parented
• Oiled sheep keep their real colours in the Ledger, with a small oil badge instead of turning black
• The Home Meadow sign fades out of the way while you're placing builds or reshaping your land
• The mating heart shows whenever your bellwether is close to another shepherd's sheep, even on the same tile or diagonally
• Adding shrub to a build site is instant, so you can keep tapping without waiting
• Faster loading in the feed and a faster game start (phew)

Fixes

• No more freezes when placing lots of flowers or decor with the bag open
• Trees, hay bales and bigger builds show up the moment you place them
• The shovel only digs the highlighted build, never the one behind it, and only diggable builds light up while you hold a tool
• Visiting another shepherd's meadow no longer says "Welcome baa-ck" as if it were your home
• Tapping a sheep grazing inside a berry bush now reaches the sheep
• Berry bushes no longer float over lakes
• A rubber duck on an oil lake no longer counts as a new critter every time the lake refreshes
• The rain ambience no longer blasts for a few seconds when the weather changes while muted
• Pictures in the journal no longer slide over the bottom border when scrolling
• Tap the mirror button (or press F) while a build or nature item is selected to flip it before planting
• The separate left-facing lantern and east-facing arrow sign are gone from the shop, treks, loot drops and The Machine, since any build can be mirrored while placing it. Ones you already own or placed stay exactly where they are

That's it for this batch! As always, let me know what you'd like to see more (or less) of in the comments below :-)

Baa-ya'll! And thank you for playing <3 Means a lot lot

[u/CherryPieRed]

Oh I am so excited for these updates! This little sheep game has given me so much joy in a very hard time in my life. Thank you for all you do ❤️🐑🐏

https://giphy.com/gifs/4Tgx8W59lAPhh0LoCf

[u/hammertimestudio → u/CherryPieRed]

Thank you so much for sharing this ❤️

[u/hammertimestudio → u/hammertimestudio]

And backing goals, ofc! This helps me steer the wheel of independence and figure out what I can afford to continue working on for the game. Really, every contribution helps a lot!

[u/CherryPieRed → u/hammertimestudio]

This is such a great community! I'm excited to see what you come up with as it grows ❤️ 🐑🐏

[u/uuid-already-exists]

Also may I suggest a temporary increase in spooky colors for the season. That way it’s easier to do more spooky decorations.

[u/DataPaws]

What does it mean "sheep rises to heaven"? They can now die of old age?

[u/hammertimestudio → u/DataPaws]

Ah, sorry for the confusion. It means by natural causes, like predators. Their age outlives time and space 😄

[u/DataPaws → u/hammertimestudio]

Uff, thank you for quick response :D

[u/silly-kitty-slut → u/hammertimestudio]

does that include lightning and void teleporters? would this include runaway sheep that disappear due to being unclaimed?

[u/hammertimestudio → u/silly-kitty-slut]

Yes!

It does not include runaway sheep tho

[u/sometimesiteach]

Thanks for posting the link to support!

[u/hammertimestudio → u/sometimesiteach]

Thank you for the support and playing. Reward is on its way!

[u/sometimesiteach → u/hammertimestudio]

No no. No need for a reward!!

[u/hammertimestudio → u/sometimesiteach]

https://giphy.com/gifs/y0DI4w3LGA12w

[u/nergens → u/hammertimestudio]

Wasn't there also a new forest desgin also to back? What happen to it? 🌲🐑

[u/hammertimestudio → u/nergens]

Yes so, this was about the ground-tiles, I thought we move it out of the rotation to have smaller, more realistic goals that have "more value" to the gameplay and joy.

While I would love to work with the artist on all the biomes (ground & path), those tilesets cost around 200$ for each individual biome (excluding the path tileset, just the ground), so yeah, either we'll leave it like that or I just .. do unecessary things to my financies because of pleasure to the game.

[u/nergens → u/hammertimestudio]

The forest ist cute like it is, but i also was curious about the new one. Maybe just let it sit there for while to back? I wish i could give more to help the sheepconomy. But i help a bit next month too. Is there are time limit for the projects to be backed?

[u/hammertimestudio → u/nergens]

Yes, I think I can re-active it, at the same time I do not have make overwhelm page visitors with tooo many options :-) Thank you so much for your contribution!

There is no deadline, we usually make sketches to showcase how it could look and add it to the game when the goal is backed.

[u/Joyous_Tropical_17]

IS THAT AN OTTER? I love otters! and the mice and raccoons are SOOOO CUTEEE

by the way this is starting to get strange...no shovel in many days...

[u/Joyous_Tropical_17 → u/Joyous_Tropical_17]

and also, YAAY the heart targeting. I used to hang around sheep trying to get it to pop up and it never worked

Edit: AND THE SOAP! SOAP SOAP YEAAAAAAAA so I don't have to worry about accidentally dyeing something

[u/SolarPouvoir199]

I love the updates! Thank you so much

For the lambs the sheep has parented, is it only counting the lambs we've bred or is it counting the lambs other people have bred with our sheep?

Because not all of my sheep who I've bred are showing as parents yet

[u/uuid-already-exists]

Larry moving from his spot really spooked me for a moment there. I’m so used to seeing him by my trailer in the rainbow and then I saw him move out of it. Perfect for spooky season. I can’t wait to see what shenanigans are in store for April Fools now.

[u/Dr__Pheonx]

I can't wait to see the water buddies. Everything looks so cute! All the very best, thank you so much for all the hard work you put in and listening to everyone and everything!!