Flappy Bird is a free puzzle game. It was developed in
Vietnam and published by GEARS Studios, a small independent game developer
which is also located in Vietnam. Flappy
Bird was released in May last year. In the first two months, it only had 1000
downloads in total and received some moderately positive reviews. However,
by the end of January 2014, it ranked in the top of the “free” category of the
American, British, and Chinese iTunes App Stores. It brought in $50,000 in
advertising revenue every day since last Thanksgiving Day.
Flappy Bird does not contain beautiful graphics and bright
visual effects. At first glance, Flappy Bird looks like an old JAVA game. Its graphics, gameplay and objective are based
in simplicity. The objective of the game is to fly a bird without hitting
pipes. The game gets more difficult as
your bird flies further. However, if
your bird hits a pipe, then the game is over.
The keys to success:
There is no barrier to entry. Flappy Bird is free to
download and free to play. It is only a 2.2MB app. The game is familiar. When gamers play Flappy Bird they feel like they
are playing Angry Bird. Everyone can understand
and play it. There is no action in the
game; players only need one finger to play it. The game never ends; every level
has different pipes and obstacles. The
scoring system in Flappy Bird is very good. You either compete against your own
high score or you challenge the scores shared by your friends on Facebook, WeChat,
Instagram or other social media. Some avoidable obstacles cause Game Over; however,
players are encouraged to try again by the speed and simplicity of doing
so. Flappy Bird with longer attempts, like the game Temple Run which is endless running,
require more time at start up and a potentially greater investment.
