Murmur

What it is

Murmur is a boids game: each bird follows the classic flocking rules of separation, alignment and cohesion, and all of them flee the light you move. Level 1 is 60 birds and one pen; by level 10 it is 220 birds in two colours, with drifting pens and a diving hawk.

How to play

You are a single point of light and two hundred birds are afraid of you. Nudge the murmuration into the glowing pen before the sky closes; press too hard and it shatters into panic, too gently and it drifts away.

1. 1The light repels. Every bird flees it, hardest when it is close — you push, never pull.
2. 2So get behind them: put the light on the far side of the flock from the ring and drive them in.
3. 3Push 80% of the flock into the ring and hold them there for two seconds.
4. 4Release often — hold Space, or take the cursor off the sky. Panic spreads bird to bird and blows the flock apart.
5. 5The light tells you how hard you are pressing: violet is calm, red is a stampede.
6. 6Dim the light to halve its reach when you need a small correction.
7. 7Keep them in frame. Scare a fifth of the flock off the edge and the run ends.