Flappy Bird set the standard (or rather, haphazardly placed standards) for simplicity in mobile gaming. Between that and its oddly high difficulty level, it created a diabolical combination of gaming compulsion that I’ve rarely seen, before or since.
When indie developer Dong Nguyen released it in 2014, it was almost an instant hit. Everyone was desperately tapping at the screens of their iPhones and iPads in a vain attempt to keep a little animated bird in the air without crashing into a series of glowing green pipes. There was almost nothing to the classic side-scrolling game, just the flapping bird and the pipes running towards it with little gaps for the bird to fly through – assuming you could tap enough to keep Flappy flying, but not too high and not too low.
Most people failed on the first few tubes. However, experts could get through dozens of them. I still remember my youngest son's concentration as he guided Flappy through dozens of tubes. I don't think I ever did more than 13.
Despite the game's massive frustration level, people played it with the same devotion they now devote to Wordle or Connections. But at least those games were solvable. Flappy Bird was not.
Flappy's Madness
As you may recall, the fascination with the game became a phenomenon, and over time, the intense interest and constant attention drove Nguyen into hiding. He removed the game from the app store and it has hardly been heard from again.
There have been numerous attempts to revive Flappy Bird over the years. The app was so simple that anyone could probably have created a new one, but what has emerged hasn't captured the imagination like the original.
Now, there could be a new Flappy Bird — not from Nguyen, but from a legion of fans convinced they can rebuild what was into something new and perhaps better.
Naturally, they're just as wrong as the game's eponymous character, and have about as much chance of flying to Flappy Bird-like heights as, well, Flappy Bird has of surfing those pipes, which is to say, not many.
The new Flappy Bird will get off to a bad start, as it won't recreate the original Flappy Bird, but will instead add levels, skins, and multiplayer features. In other words, they'll make Flappy Bird for iOS and Android into an extremely traditional mobile game. It might even look like Angry Birds, but without the wit and finesse.
Flappy Bird didn't succeed because people craved something more, or perhaps something visually better. They played and played because Flappy Birds activated an ape-like part of their brains that was devoted to problem solving. And Flappy Birds' mission was an almost unsolvable problem. Nguyen programmed it in such a way that there was no imprecision in flight control. Instead, it required a kind of precision in tapping that hadn't been seen in any other game before or since.
You could argue that many hated it in a desperate attempt to beat the Flappy Bird system. Few, if any, did, and yet we played and played and often complained to Nyguyen on social media (and kicked him out).
The new Flappy Bird will invariably be easier. People will win and compare total flight times through the maze. The skill level will be much lower, but at least you'll have entertaining levels.
Enough of nostalgia
I don't know why we have to relive every moment of our past and then remove the defibrillator and restart the hearts of memory. If we can't relive them, we become Dr. Frankenstein and rebuild them.
Like Frankenstein's monster, these reconstructed memories bear little resemblance to the originals, but they have enough to provoke that other ape response: nostalgia. That's why we keep watching the film. Beetle juice After almost 35 years, sure that new movie can be good, but for each Beetlejuice 2There is a Land of the Lost ((Sorry, Will Ferrel).
The return of Flappy Birds won't be a cause for celebration, but rather a reminder that we can't just let things take their course. I don't want a new Flappy Birds, I want the original, intact and back on the App Store so I can fail over and over again until I wish I'd never discovered, or rediscovered, the game in the first place.
