I was coding Indie games when it came out. The number of clones in the community was just disgusting. There was even more than one Flappy Game Jam. If Flappy Bird can be credited with one thing, it’s that it made a whole bunch of inept coders think that they too could get rich by making super simple mobile games.
To be fair, a bunch of them did.
Ever heard of the app “I am Rich”?
At its height Nguyen was making $50,000.00 a day from ads in the game. Whew.
Wait I still have it and I don’t remember ever seeing add. When news of recall came out I wondered how he got that rich. Now I’m wondering how I fell trough that crack and missed adds era
It was a piece of crap anyway that had been done before in crappy flash games that predate the iPhone itself.
Just because the gameplay was very simple doesn’t make it crap. The details (movement speed, the gap between the obstacles) were pretty much on point and that’s something that makes or breaks this kind of game.
Last but not least, it had little to none anti-user “features” that plague the modern games. I would choose Flappy Bird over most current games any time of the day. Actually there is no “would” in there as I still have it installed.
Last but not least, it had little to none anti-user “features” that plague the modern games.
Oh I agree with you 100% on here!
I mean, I don’t even remember this game had any IAP nor banner ads… How the hell the creator became so rich lol.
There are cheap flappy clones you can get pretty easily.
Hell, take a beginners gaming programming class and make it yourself, if you genuinely love the gameplay that much. Its not that complex, and would probably make a good first project to work towards.
The mechanically identical predecessor games didn’t have any anti user elements either. The concept predates that too. If my family had enough money and modern day iffy parenting to give their barely highschool aged kid an iphone I probably could have made quite a chunk of money porting simple games I didn’t even come up with to the platform. I hated the ios interface back then too though from trying it when friends were showing off the new toy.
A large part of what made it crap to me both then and now is whatever causes my dislike of GTA even though I enjoyed 100%ing them up to san Andreas, of CoD even though MW2(original) had a special place in my blackened heart for being my first all achievements game, or any sports game other than SNES NHL 98.
I agree with the what you called the details of the game making or breaking it however. The Spider-Man formula just does it for me. Some I just vaguely recall as being fun like older Spider-Man titles, the hulk, prototype, watchdogs, etc., but I still absolutely love gravity rush/daze 1 and 2 as well as the recent Spider-Man games ported from PS. I spent a good chunk of time curled up in a ball, rolling around on the floor while playing gravity rush 1 on ps vita to up the immersion.
You’re not wrong, but it was also kind of a cultural moment and it’s weird that it was disappeared entirely. Most games like that have long tails of focus creep, neglect, crapware, or irrelevance, but Flappy Bird went out with a pop.
Because it should have NEVER BEEN a pop in the first place. It didn’t go anywhere because OP correctly points out, it was done long before. The fact that it went anywhere in the first place is just a testament to humanities mob mentality. We are very easily swayed.
“Not completely novel” doesn’t mean something is crap.
It was literally a stolen concept with a mashup of stolen graphics
Is it possible to install this game on iOS yet?
I know in Android we can just sideload the app…
Unique concept? It was a clone of “Helicopter Game” that was from like 1990
Everything is derivative
Even me?
Git fork your-parents
Not again!
This guy forks.
Shame the dev committed suicide because of so much hate from his game.
Yeah, he didn’t.
What a wild thing to pull out of your ass
The Dong lives
I remember when the game was pulled from the stores. Some assholes were selling their devices with flappy bird still installed for insane amounts of money.
Why is that being an asshole?
Because they are taking advantage of technology stupid people.
Because if you wanted the game that badly you could just get an $15 android and sideload it instead of buying a $100+ phone for $1000+
Sure, it is as easy as you’re saying. So what’s wrong with someone selling a device that is already configured with the game to people who don’t want to spend the effort to do it themselves? At the end of the day, people spent money that they felt was worthwhile to get a game that they enjoy. It’s the same as people selling Batocera cards on Ebay nowadays.
The game is still up in some torrents and websites. Selling old ass phones the same as a new flagship just because it has a program in it that is still available in the internet is just retarded.
Demand and supply. People wanted to play the game and paid a lot to do it. Nothing weird about that.