Flappy Bird set the bar (or rather pipes, placed randomly) for mobile game simplicity. Between that and its bizarrely high level of difficulty, it created a devilish blend of game-playing compulsion I have rarely seen, before or since.
When indie developer Dong Nguyen launched it in 2014, it was almost an instant hit. Everyone was desperately tapping on their iPhones and iPad screens in a vain attempt to keep a tiny animated bird aloft without slamming into a series of bright green pipes. There was almost nothing to the classic side-scrolling game, just the flapping bird and pipes racing toward it with small gaps that the bird would fly through – assuming you could tap just enough to keep Flappy flying but not too high or too low.
Most people failed within the first few pipes. Experts, though, could thread through dozens. I still remember watching my youngest’s laser-like focus as they navigated Flappy through dozens of pipes. The most I ever did was 13, I think.
Despite the game’s extremely high frustration quotient, people played it with the same devotion they now commit to Wordle or Connections. But at least those games are solvable. Flappy Bird really wasn’t.
The Flappy craze
As you may recall, the fascination with the game became a phenomenon and eventually, the intense interest and nonstop attention drove Nguyen into hiding. He removed the game from the app store and has scarcely been seen or heard from again.
Over the years there’ve been numerous attempts to bring Flappy Bird back. The app was so simple that probably anyone could’ve coded a new one, but whatever has shown up has not captured the imagination like the original.
Now, there might be a new Flappy Bird, not from Nguyen, but from a legion of fans convinced they can rebuild what was into something new and maybe better.
Naturally, they are as misguided as the game’s eponymous character and have as much chance of flying to similar Flappy Bird heights as, well, Flappy Bird navigating through those pipes, Which is to say – not much.
The new Flappy Bird will start off on the wrong…, er… wing by not recreating the original Flappy Bird but by adding, levels, skins, and multi-player features. In other words, they’re going to make Flappy Bird on iOS and Android an extremely traditional mobile game. It may even resemble Angry Birds but without cleverness or finesse.
Flappy Bird was not successful because people craved something more or perhaps visually better. They played and played because Flappy Birds triggered some simian part of their brains intent on problem-solving. And Flappy Birds’ quest was an almost unsolvable problem. Nguyen programmed it in such a way that there was no fuzziness to the flight control. Instead, it required a sort of tapping precision not seen in another game before or since.
One might argue that many hate-played 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 drove him away).
The new Flappy Bird will invariably be easier. People will win and compare total flight times through the maze. The skill level will be far reduced, but at least you’ll have entertaining levels.
Enough with the nostalgia
I don’t know why we have to revisit every moment from our past and then take out the defibrillator and restart memory hearts. If we can’t revive them, we go all Dr. Frankenstein and rebuild them.
Like Frankenstein’s monster, these rebuilt memories bear little resemblance to the originals but they do have just enough to trigger that other simian response: nostalgia. It’s why we’re rewatching Beetlejuice after nearly 35 years. Sure, that new movie might be good but for every Beetlejuice 2, there’s a Land of the Lost (sorry, Will Ferrel).
The return of Flappy Birds will not be cause for celebration, it’ll be a reminder that we can’t leave well enough alone. I don’t want a new Flappy Birds, I want the original, untouched, and back in 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.
