Path of Baa: Flocklands is a cooperative sheep survival game where players explore a shared world together, restore biomes, build community structures, and grow their flock. The game runs directly in the Reddit feed, built with Phaser and Devvit, Reddit's developer platform. It was created by Patrick from Hammertime Studio (officially Hammertime e.U.), with most of the artwork by Pixel Frog. The game is currently in open beta, with a full release planned for late June or early July 2026.
If you're thinking about building your own game for Reddit with Phaser, this is a timely interview. Reddit and Phaser have just launched a joint hackathon with $40,000 in prizes, including a $5,000 Best Use of Phaser award. And if you want to get started quickly, there's a Devvit Phaser starter template ready to go.
The Interview
Path of Baa: From Puzzle Game to Cooperative Sheep Survival
Q: Where did the idea for Path of Baa come from, and how did it evolve into what it is today?
Creating a sheep game has been on my to-do list for quite some time. I grew up in the countryside surrounded by nature and, you guessed it, sheep! With Path of Baa: Flocklands I wanted to capture some of that picture, and reflect real-world events in it, making it both reasonable and educational as well as relaxing and giving.
My first concept was a 2D puzzle game. It then evolved into a mini RTS, and then into several other ideas along the way. In the end, of course, it became something completely different.
During the early stages of development, I joined "Foundry", Reddit's funding program for games and apps, where the focus was much more on multiplayer experiences and genuine social interaction through playful experiences. What started as a puzzle game with a level editor evolved into a cooperative survival game centered around nature, exploration, and teamwork. The intention behind the game stayed the same throughout the process and was refined by players joining early on.
Q: What does your day-to-day look like? Is Path of Baa your main focus, or do you juggle it with other projects or a day job?
My days usually start pretty simply before I dive into the ever-shifting goals I've planned for the day. The morning ritual however is usually the same: a walk with my dog, a good cup of black tea with bergamot (try it - it's great) before checking mail.
The daily routine involves a mix of development, art tasks, organizational work, keeping in touch with clients, community discussions, finances, researching what's new in the world, testing new ideas and features.
While Path of Baa: Flocklands is my main focus, I juggle several projects at the same time, including both client work and my own games, apps and tools. Most of my time goes into browser games on various social platforms, as well as working on my own IPs however, I also take the freedom to work on non-game projects like charityroyale.at (parts built with Phaser) which I believe are good for the people. Which brings me to an important message that I hold high every day, I choose not to work on projects related to NFTs, excessive gambling, web3, crypto, or unnecessary violence. These are definitely not part of my daily routine 🙂
I've been working as a full-time solo developer for nearly three years now.
"I choose not to work on projects related to NFTs, excessive gambling, web3, crypto, or unnecessary violence. These are definitely not part of my daily routine."
Building a Shared World on Reddit with Phaser and Devvit
Q: The world is shared between all players in real time. How did you implement that technically?
That's a great question! The short answer is that the world isn't fully "real-time", it really depends how you define that term. It's a slower shared-world model rather than the millisecond-level synchronization you'd see in a traditional fast paced multiplayer game. What is important is that the sensitive logic remains fully server-authoritative.
Path of Baa: Flocklands isn't a competitive, fast-paced game that requires server-side physics simulation, rocket science server validation of every player action with their precise ordering and timestamp analysis of inputs. So I decided to keep things simple where possible. If someone really wants to trick the system, they will find ways, always.
The flocklands backend is built around a combination of Devvit's schedulers, client-side polling, server-initiated push events to specific clients or broadcasts to all connected players, and a server-side world state. Essential parts for reconciliation are either shared to the clients as the full state per flocklands region they are in or the full state on hard correction on the client.
Devvit schedulers are basically cron jobs that continuously advance the simulation on ticks - for example, changing weather conditions and processing world events in the background. The other way around are user actions that trigger certain updates and corrections, but as mentioned sensitive logic runs exclusively on the server without relying on untrusted client input.
This approach gives the world a shared, living feel while keeping the technical complexity and infrastructure requirements manageable. It is no secret some player actions are delayed a few seconds while other, more sensitive events in the lower hundreds of milliseconds.
Q: The art in Path of Baa is absolutely charming. Pixel Frog created most of it. How did that collaboration work?
I think so too, and I am proud enough to say I love it a lot!
Since we're in different time zones, the collaboration is almost entirely asynchronous. I usually start by building a prototype, creating rough sketches, or putting together mood boards to communicate an idea. Ideally, I make the prototype look as ugly as possible to encourage working on it asap (haha). From there, we iterate, either together or with feedback from the community.
At the beginning, most concepts are fairly low-tech: a sketch on paper or a quick mashup of ideas on a virtual whiteboard that eventually flows into prototyping, sometimes with the help of AI tools. The important part is getting the idea out of my head and into a format we can both discuss.
I generally prefer to develop original ideas and go through the concept phase before diving into AI-enhanced workflows, but that really depends on the project as well.
Ten Years of Phaser and Building for Reddit
Q: How has your experience with Phaser been, and what has it made possible in this project?
I've been working with Phaser for quite a long time. I built my first Phaser game back in 2015 for AirConsole, and since then it has become my go-to framework for almost every 2D web game project I create.
I stuck to Phaser because the project continues to evolve, which became even more apparent when Phaser Studio LLC was founded. The active development, supportive community, Discord discussions, and the establishment of Phaser LLC as a company have given me confidence to stick to it although I got my moment with other engines.
I enjoy working with people and tools I genuinely like rather than constantly chasing the latest hype. While I don't necessarily agree with every piece of news or every decision, Phaser very much represents what I want from a framework and the kind of tool I enjoy using.
Technically, it hits a sweet spot for me. It's lightweight, fast, and doesn't get in the way with the project that I work on, especially on platforms like Reddit.
For Path of Baa: Flocklands, Phaser also allowed me to deliver the game directly inline in the Reddit home feed without requiring an extra click to open a separate pop-up. The camera system is solid, and load times are short enough to provide a smooth experience without negatively affecting Reddit's performance requirements.
Another major advantage is bundle size. Comparing Phaser's output to that of larger game engines WebGL export, the resulting bundle is impressively small, which helps achieve excellent load times right out of the box (and doesn't bloat reddit's feed performance).
And, to be completely honest, it's also the game engine I know best out of all the ones I've worked with.
"I stuck to Phaser because the project continues to evolve. The active development, supportive community, and the establishment of Phaser LLC as a company have given me confidence to stick to it."
"Phaser allowed me to deliver the game directly inline in the Reddit home feed without requiring an extra click to open a separate pop-up. The camera system is solid, and load times are short enough to provide a smooth experience."
Q: You have built several games for Reddit using Phaser. What have you learned about building games for Reddit with Phaser along the way?
One of the biggest lessons I've learned is to build the core game locally first and get the gameplay loop working before worrying about platform-specific features. It's much easier to iterate quickly when you're focused on making the game first, however keep Reddit as your core principle when it comes to social features and shared experiences. From my point of view, there are no extraordinary skills required to ship a Phaser game on Reddit.
I guess worth mentioning for my workflow, I try to integrate Devvit as early as possible so I can get a first version out and start gathering feedback and eliminate risks early. The Reddit audience can be incredibly fun to work with and consistently provides thoughtful, valuable feedback throughout development.
Luckily, with Path of Baa: Flocklands, I can say we already have a fantastic community that has shaped the game's development tremendously.
"The Reddit audience can be incredibly fun to work with and consistently provides thoughtful, valuable feedback throughout development."
Q: How has Reddit worked for you as a platform in terms of reach and monetization, and would you recommend it to other game devs?
Reddit has become quite a big part of what I work with every day. My first game in 2024 was actually a Flappy Bird clone with customization features built with Phaser. Things really started taking off when Riddonkulous "went viral" in 2025, followed by hackathons, developer funds, and eventually the foundry program. I now have a few monetized games on Reddit that help cover most of running my own infrastructure, commission work and development time.
What I like most is that Reddit combines discovery, community, and feedback in one place. Players become part of the development process early on. If you enjoy building in public, iterating quickly, want to reach millions and make some money, I recommend it to other indie developers or studios. Their framework Devvit is fantastic to work with, and working on a lot of social platforms, I mean it!
If you have something great to show, show it, don't be afraid! Reach out to both Reddit users and Reddit admins, ask for feedback, and request to be featured.
There are a lot of tricks and best practices to create games or game-y apps that work well on Reddit. I invite everyone to join their very active Discord community, plenty of knowledge and helpful developers.
"If you enjoy building in public, iterating quickly, want to reach millions and make some money, I recommend it to other indie developers or studios. Their framework Devvit is fantastic to work with."
Tools, Current State and What's Next
Q: What other tools or libraries have been essential during development?
Hmm great question, to name a few: Claude Code, Cursor IDE, tmux, NodeJS, Devvit, Aseprite + Lua Scripts, TexturePacker, GIMP, Inkscape, Miro, NodeJS scripts, and a questionable number of Google Sheets. Not to forget getting my hands on Phaser's new create studio that runs completely in the browser 🙂
Q: Where are you in development right now, and what is left before the full release?
Right now, I'm focused on fixing bugs, improving stability, and making sure the current scope is fun to play and easy to understand. And oh Baa, there is plenty of work for me to take players by the hand in Flocklands.
Onboarding, balancing, and discovery. I want new players to immediately understand what is going on in Path of Baa: Flocklands and why it is something they haven't played before. Also worth mentioning, where my focus goes: Redditors seeing posts and comments should become curious enough to jump straight into Flocklands, explore and have fun with other players.
There is still a lot to do! Baa! 🐑
Play Path of Baa: Flocklands
Thanks to Patrick from Hammertime Studio for taking the time to share the story behind Path of Baa: Flocklands. The game is currently in open beta on Reddit. Jump in, explore the Flocklands, and leave your feedback in the r/PathOfBaa community. Full release planned for late June or early July 2026 🐑