"I love your magazine and I would love to do that." We set a date to talk on Skype. "Wow, it is a honor to have a chance for an interview from WIRED," he wrote. On January 24, I emailed Nguyen, asking for an interview. I grew increasingly pissed off that I couldn't score more than 10 points. It was about this time that I encountered Flappy Bird, with a reaction of utter bewilderment: What is this low-budget game that looks like it took all of its art from Super Mario, and why is it becoming popular? I downloaded it, and played a few rounds. "All it takes is seeing the words 'Flappy Bird' until you find yourself, 19 hours later, fingers bleeding, screen cracked, eyes duct taped open, insomnia and paranoia set in, so determined to pass the devil bird through the impassible gates that you would sacrifice every part of your body except your thumb if it helped beat your high score," wrote another. My brother hasn't taken a shower in a month." "I'm sitting in the bathtub writing this review, warning you NOT to download it," one wrote. On January 17, it went to number one, the most popular free app in the world.įans began writing hilarious five-star reviews, claiming the game was ruining their lives. Nguyen took to Twitter to interact with his slowly growing fan base, even promising to port the game to Android. Its growth seemed based entirely on word of mouth as players expressed their love-hate relationship with Flappy Bird. Reviews began trickling in: One per day, then three, then 20. Throughout November, Flappy Bird slowly added users. And because misery loves company, players who found it wanted to vent. "Fuck Flappy Bird," it read in its entirety. A few days later, something changed – someone besides Nguyen sent the first tweet about the game. In late October, he released a small update that fixed some bugs. Because you get just one point for each pipe cleared, your high score is likely to be in single digits, if not zero.įor months, Flappy Bird did about as well as Nguyen's other games, which is to say few had ever heard of it. But because the bird moved so fast and dove up and down so quickly, making it through the gap without wiping out proved extremely challenging. The gaps were invitingly wide, many times the height of the bird. The concept sounded almost too simple: Tap the screen to fly up, release to dive down, and maneuver through gaps in a series of green pipes clearly styled after those in the Super Mario series. The graphics played cute homage to retro sprite art, the gameplay was extremely simple and the difficulty was jacked up high, meaning games lasted just a few seconds. Flappy Bird was similar to other games Nguyen had released on mobile devices, games like Shuriken Block or Super Ball Juggling.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |