Flappy Bird
One button, two pipes, and the most frustrating scoring curve ever shipped. Dong Nguyen pulled it from the stores for a reason.
Flappy Bird was released in 2013, became the most downloaded game in the world in early 2014, and was removed by its own creator weeks later because he felt it was too addictive. The rules fit in one sentence: tap to flap, do not touch anything.
What makes it work is that the bird is always falling. There is no neutral state and no hovering, so every moment is either a tap or a drop, and the gap between pipes is just slightly narrower than feels fair. Scores in the twenties are respectable. Scores in the hundreds exist and were mostly achieved by people who stopped thinking about it.
Controls
Click, tap or press Space to flap
Tips
- Aim for the bottom edge of each gap. The bird rises fast on a tap and falls slowly, so low is recoverable and high is not.
- Tap in a steady rhythm rather than reacting to each pipe. The pipes are evenly spaced and a rhythm beats reflexes.
- The first pipe kills more runs than any other. Do not tap at all until the bird has settled after the start.