Can you hear that folks? Is it the beating wings of eternity? The steady rhythm of all existence? No. It’s a one-eyed pixel fish with wings flapping its way through an endless slalom of Super Mario pipes. But this isn’t a Miyamoto fever-dream, it’s Flappy Bird, and it has come to consume your very soul. Or, you know, make you tap your mobile device of choice a bunch for two minutes before deleting it. It certainly scratches the itch for exacting, skill-based achievement thoroughly, but its staggering lack of ambition or creativity put a pretty low ceiling on how high it can soar.
It will take longer for you to read this explanation of how Flappy Bird works than it would for you to download it (for free) on your iOS or Android device and see absolutely everything it does first hand. Your bird flies slowly and steadily to the right, through an obstacle course of rather familiar-looking pipes. Every set you pass gets you a “ding” and a point. Just tap to flap. But for as simple as it sounds, it usually only takes milliseconds to get your first infuriating taste of defeat. See, our little pixelated hero isn’t a very good flier. He doesn’t so much glide as he awkwardly bops like a cast-iron fishing lure being tugged against the current. He’s also afflicted with a most rare and unfortunately fatal allergy to green pipes – dropping dead from even the most fleeting contact with them. If this doesn’t sound very fun, it’s because it isn’t… not in the traditional sense of the word anyway.
Despite being so needlessly cruel, Flappy Bird is also extraordinarily fair and exacting. You won’t find any randomly inescapable patterns, or run-ending collision detection issues here. Whatever the number is on the screen when your randomly colored bird’s flight inevitably ends, it’s a badge – an immutable quantification of your skill and focus. It is in this regard that Flappy Bird finds its one true success. There is no pretense, no story, and no reason but your own limitations why the number on screen can’t get bigger. Maybe that doesn’t speak to you, but it did to me, and once I had vowed to walk its walk, Flappy Bird took me to an embarrassingly addictive place in my brain.
The inevitability of failure for the slightest mistakes creates a tension that’s difficult to put words to. For a while, I felt accomplished when I hit double digits, struggling from pipe one to keep my bird from crashing. It felt like playing a Mario game for the first time as a child and leaning from side to side, as if I could will my way through. Not long after that though, the rhythm clicked, and getting into the 20s and 30s was easy. But around 40 I’d notice I hadn’t blinked, which got me thinking about blinking and then WHACK. When I crossed triple digits, staying mentally dialed in became the real challenge, and during my high-score run of 138 there were times where I realized I had actually forgotten to breathe. I suddenly found myself trying to inhale as carefully as I could so as not to disrupt the rhythm of my finger. That’s quite a psychological trick for a game to pull off, but it comes at an expense.
Flappy Bird is entirely artless, and completely uninterested in giving us an experience outside of mechanical mastery. There’s no variation, and the one mechanic never evolves or even attempts to apply itself in interesting ways. The number on your screen is the only indicator of progress, and the only thing that differentiates pipe number four from pipe number 400. Without it, Flappy Bird could never have held my attention for more than a minute or two. Emphasizing skill shouldn’t have to come at the expense of creative possibility. In that sense, all Flappy Bird really is, is a proof of concept; a skeleton with only the barest bit of flesh hanging from it.
The Verdict
Flappy Bird isn’t a good video game. It’s arguably not even a fun one. But its no-frills approach and exacting, relentlessly repetitious gameplay make it an addictive short-term distraction for the skill and score-obsessed. It’s a bird that sings only one note, and though it sings it well, it does so while flying needlessly low to the ground.
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