daveynin from United States on Wikimedia
13 years ago, an app was launched that changed mobile gaming forever. This deceptively simple side-scroller burned bright and quickly. 18 million people downloaded it before it was pulled from the app store after less than a year.
That game was Flappy Bird.
It's no exaggeration to say that the story of Flappy Bird is that of Frankenstein retooled for a digital age. Rather than seeking to create life, Flappy Bird's inventor sought a way for gamers to pass a few minutes. However, the consequences, much like those wrought by Frankenstein's creature, spiraled wildly out of control in a way that nobody could have been able to predict.
Flappy Background
Flappy Bird was the brainchild of Vietnamese programmer Dong Nguyen. Nguyen founded .Gears studio in 2005, specializing in hypercasual mobile games. This meant games were free to play and easy to learn, with infinite playtime, looped mechanics, and minimalist interfaces.
Flappy Bird wasn't the first or last game Nguyen developed for .Gears, but it was by far the most popular. Nguyen created the game in a matter of days, recycling the bird model, Faby, from a cancelled game. Gameplay was inspired by the repetitive act of bouncing a ping pong ball against a paddle.
If you missed out on the Flappy Bird craze of 2013, let us walk you through gameplay. Though simple on the surface, Flappy Bird was notoriously difficult. The game's difficulty was part of the reason why it became so addictive.
The player helps Faby, the titular Flappy Bird, navigate a maze of pipes. By default, Faby descends from left to right, relying on the player to keep him in air and out of danger. Tapping the screen gives Faby a boost.
While the gaps between pipes are all equally sized, they're placed at random heights. This meant that navigation could be erratic. Players would have to time their taps carefully so that Faby could glide between gaps, earning one point for each gap.
Flapping Too Close To The Sun
Flappy Bird's gameplay was inspired by another bird-centered mobile game: Angry Birds. However, Nguyen found Angry Birds' gameplay to be too complicated for players on the move, needing something to pass a few minutes in a busy day. The original version of Flappy Bird was much easier than the model that hit foreign markets; Nguyen felt the demo was too boring, amping up the difficulty.
This deceptive difficulty was exactly the reason for Flappy Bird's fame. The premise should be simple, but the game was designed to lull you into a false sense of security. 40 points would net you a platinum medal; anything past the three-digit mark was practically unheard of.
Flappy Bird was a sleeper hit. Released in May of 2013, the game flew under the radar until January 2014, thanks to reviews from several high-profile streamers. In less than a month, the game became the most downloaded app in history.
Then, Nguyen abruptly removed Flappy Bird from both the App Store and Google Play. Nguyen cited the game's addictive nature as his reason for removing it, which caused both players and the game's creator unforeseen levels of stress. Flappy Bird fans descended into chaos.
The Legacy Of Flappy Bird
Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
While clones and parody games (some littered with malware) filled app storefronts, other Flappy Bird connoisseurs found a way to make a quick buck....or several. Phones with the app installed were for sold on eBay for anywhere from $1000 to $90,000. These sales were later found to be in violation of eBay's requirements that phones must be restored to factory settings in order to be sold.
There was additional controversy over whether Nguyen plagiarized Nintendo for the game's design. While the pixelated pipes Faby must navigate bore some resemblance to the ones Mario travels through, the same could be said of practically any pixel-style arcade game. None of the plagiarism accusations amounted to anything.
Today, there are Flappy Bird clones and spin-offs abound, including a desktop version that's harder than the original. Streamers rack up millions of views playing the game, sometimes achieving scores in quadruple digits. While the original Flappy Bird is no longer available, this self-replicating modern-day Frankenstein's creature will never truly vanish.
