What's the highest score you've ever achieved in Flappy Bird?
Flappy Bird resembled earlier mobile games that Nguyen had released, such as Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block. Games lasted only a few seconds because of the basic gameplay, great difficulty, and adorable tribute to old sprite art provided by the graphics.
The idea seemed almost too easy: tap the screen to launch yourself into the air, let go to descend, and weave through openings in a network of green pipes that were obviously inspired by Super Mario's. The openings were enticingly large, spanning many times the bird's height. But it was quite difficult to get through the opening without wiping out since the bird moved so swiftly and plunged up and down. Since you only receive one point for each pipe that is cleared, your highest score is probably in the single digits, if not negative.
For months, Flappy Bird did about as well as Nguyen's other games, which is to say few had ever heard of it. In late October, he released a small update that fixed some bugs. A few days later, something changed – someone besides Nguyen sent the first tweet about the game.
The game was frustrating yet compulsive. Additionally, players who found it wanted to complain since sorrow loves company. Slowly but surely, Flappy Bird added users during November. One review a day, then three, then twenty, soon started to come in. As gamers shared their love/hate connection with Flappy Bird, it appeared that word of mouth was the only factor driving its growth. In order to communicate with his steadily expanding fan base, Nguyen took to Twitter. He even made a promise to convert the game to Android.
By the end of December, Flappy Bird had clawed its way to No. 80 on the U.S. App Store's "Free Games" chart. Then it took off. Its popularity began growing exponentially as more and more users took to Twitter to complain about its brutal difficulty. Nguyen became increasingly excited as Flappy Bird broke the top 40 most downloaded free iPhone games. Then it was in the top 10.
On January 17, it went to number one, the most popular free app in the world.
Fans began writing hilarious five-star reviews, claiming the game was ruining their lives. "I'm sitting in the bathtub writing this review, warning you NOT to download it," one wrote. "My family doesn't dare enter. My brother hasn't taken a shower in a month."
"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.
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. I sucked.
Flappy Bird is a mobile game that was released in 2013 by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. It quickly gained widespread popularity due to its addictive gameplay and simple mechanics, but also drew controversy and attention for its difficulty and frustration factor.