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Attack of the Clones: The Flappy Bird copies have arrived, and boy are they crappy
Flappy Bird is simple, straightforward and hugely successful. Those three things make it a prime target for copycats, and now that the game has perched itself on the top of the App Store charts, the clones are arriving in full force. They are, on the whole, completely garbage, and I've taken a whole bunch of them for a test drive so you don't have to. It was brutal, but here are six Flappy Bird wannabes that you should avoid at all costs. Flappy Penguin Avoid the deadly garbage (lasers and bombs, for some reason) while collecting the other garbage (coins and items). Yawn. Flappy Plane Clipart of a plane needs to avoid the other clipart. That's the entire game, and the plane doesn't flap, so it's also false advertising. Fly Birdie - Flappy Bird Flyer Holy crap. Even though this game consists of two moving parts (the bird and the pipes in the foreground), it runs like absolute garbage. It's actually bogging down on my iPhone 5s. That's a special kind of broken. Smarcle Flyer I don't know what a "Smarcle" is, and I don't ever want to know. The game is ugly and doesn't play any better than it looks. Flappy Bee The best part about Flappy Bee is that its name is actually "Happy Bee" after you download it. Clearly the game wasn't performing well enough under its original title so the developer decided to see if a new title would help. It didn't. Fluffy vs Flappy Birds The one actually looks surprisingly good for a ripoff, but the gameplay is somehow even more frustrating than that of Flappy Bird -- and not in a good way. It's slow, boring and offers nothing in the way of a reasonable, enjoyable challenge.
Take out your Flappy Bird frustration with Squishy Bird
Flappy Bird, the came-out-of-nowhere flyaway hit on Android and iOS, has you guiding a little bird through a gauntlet of horrible pipes. If it's driving you up the wall, you might prefer Squishy Bird, a free-to-play online game where you control the pipes instead, and attempt to squash as many of the floppy fowl as possible. Like the game it parodies, Squishy Bird is simple and free-to-play. Creator Dong Nguyen revealed to The Verge that Flappy Bird is raking in $50,000 a day on in-app ad revenue. Flappy Bird is currently the top app on iTunes and the Google Play store, and has been downloaded more than 50 million times. [Image: Squishy Bird]
One intrepid Flappy Bird player has figured out how to beat the game (NSFW language)
Have you played Flappy Bird? If not, consider yourself lucky. The crushingly difficult, yet equally addictive title has been exploding in popularity on iTunes thanks to its free price tag and simple enough premise. Players tap the screen to make a tiny bird jump through sets of pipes, usually meeting certain death within seconds of starting each round. With adorably simple graphics and easy-to-understand premise the game has become a smash hit, racking up $50,000 a day in advertising revenue. After hours of gameplay, I finally got a score of 15. And when I'm done writing this article, I will probably try to grind my way to 16. Earning a higher score haunts me. How does one beat Flappy Bird? Thankfully one intrepid, and foul-mouthed, YouTube user has figured out how to truly "beat" Flappy Bird. This video contains language that is not safe for work. But if you've played the game, it's language you have probably already used many times while playing. Enjoy, and then tell us your Flappy Bird high score in the comments below.
Flappy Bird is the cheapest digital drug on the App Store
Flappy Bird is currently the most popular free app on the App Store, besting the likes of Snapchat, Beats Music and Clash of Clans. That's a pretty big accomplishment for a game that can be played with a single finger. So why is it so popular? Well, that's actually a bit hard to explain. There's only one thing you ever do in Flappy Bird: Guide your tiny avian -- who happens to look a bit like a fish -- in between a series of pipes. Hitting a pipe or crashing into the ground ends the game. Tapping on the screen causes your bird to flap its wings and remain aloft. For each set of pipes you pass through, you gain a single point. Yep, that's the entire game. This simplicity is remarkably addicting, and as soon as you fail, you're going to want to give it another go. The game's difficulty is shockingly steep right from the beginning, and making it through a few sets of pipes isn't nearly as easy as it might sound. After hours of play, your longest run will still likely be in the 30-point range. Flappy Bird is free, but it is ad-supported. Unfortunately, these ads aren't exactly the most subtle. They appear as popup banners on the top and bottom of the screen and sometimes block the edges of the pipes themselves. It can sometimes feel like you're actively battling the ads just to proceed, which isn't ideal. Thankfully, Flappy Bird's addictive properties make these ad issues worth overlooking, at least for a while. You may eventually get fed up, but you should definitely take the game for a spin, if for no other reason than to see what the buzz is about.
