Since the unveiling of Apple’s mobile App Store during the summer of 2008, smartphone users have seen an explosion in the handheld gaming industry. Despite the hundreds of thousands of apps available for download in the online marketplace, every year the spotlight tends to shine on one app in particular. In 2009, Angry Birds stole the stole the show selling 12 million copies to date followed annually by games such as Fruit Ninja, Tiny Wings, and Tower Run. With winter still in the air, it appears as though 2014’s spotlight will be shined upon the mysterious, scandalous, and oh-so-frustrating Flappy Bird.
Created in May of 2013 by Vietnamese app developer Dong Nguyen, Flappy Bird tasks players with navigating a small bird through tunnels of green, obstructive pipes. Paying homage to the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, Flappy bird features colorful, pixelated graphics and does little to satisfy the eye despite the graphical capabilities of the devices it is running on. What ultimately sets this small game apart from the rest of the apps available in the App Store is not its looks, but its hard-as-nails game play experience that leaves players starved for more after each run.
While walking through the halls of MHS, it is almost difficult to ignore the presence that Flappy Bird has taken on throughout the student body. From the incessant tapping of finger on glass to the disgruntled mutterings of enraged students, the sights and sounds of the game are overwhelming.
While most MHS students (or most humans for that matter) are struggling to push their score through to the double digits, senior Sanja Dmitrovitz has somehow managed to rise to the top. After over a week straight of practice and determination, Sanja managed to fly her way through an amazing 328 pipes only to be consumed by the game’s inevitable end.
“I think patience was the key”, stated Sanja when asked about her secret to success. “I tried to avoid frustration to get past my earlier high scores.”
Even though Sanja has seemingly cracked the Flappy Bird code, she still has mixed emotions on the game itself. “I don’t think that Flappy Bird is that good of a game” voiced Sanja, “but the idea of the “impossible game” appeals to a large audience. She states that “people, including myself, want to feel that they can overcome the difficulty of the game.”
Although the game has devoured countless hours out of the lives of the MHS student body, several feel as though the Flappy Bird craze is becoming too much. One student in particular, senior Katy Costikyan, stated “I never thought that a miniscule, poorly pixilated, ugly, feathered vertebrate could have such a profoundly deleterious effect on my sanity, well-being, and life in general. Then I downloaded Flappy Bird.” Some students such as senior Adin Makowsky have gone as far as to simply saying that “Flappy Bird is for Communists”.
Others around the country are joining Katy in calling the game “one hell of a drug” and believe that its mere existence has brought nothing but negativity along with it. A quick trip to the Apple App Store will be rewarded with user reviews claiming that Flappy Bird has destroyed their families, cost them their jobs, and turned their lives to shambles. Whether these claims are true or not, they quite clearly demonstrate the general population’s frustration and distaste with the game.
After months at the top of the App Store and thousands of hate-filled letters, Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen made the decision to remove the game from the marketplace claiming “I cannot take this anymore.” As of February 8th, 2014, iPhone and Android users will no longer be able to download Flappy Bird off of the platforms’ respective digital marketplaces. This decision to remove the game will cost Nguyen daily revenue of roughly $50,000.
Luckily for those who somehow missed out on this year’s App Store craze, online resellers such as Ebay have iPhones preloaded with the game for the reasonable price of $1000. For those who would rather not spend their hard earned money on a once free and sub-par app, it looks as though they are just going to have to wait it out until next year’s spotlight finds a new home.
Sources: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/02/10/flappy-bird-takes-down-game-it-ruins-my-simple-life/