Flap Off: Flipping the Bird to the Chirping Turd

You’ve probably not missed the recent reality-distraction of a smartphone game, Flappy Bird. The aim is simple: keep airborne a flight-shy canary by endless screen tapping. Now further navigate its way through various Mario-style pipes for points. It’s a tireless exercise that feeds the lab-rat compulsion of score-bettering, but with zero sense of achievement or enjoyment. 

So far, so suck, but its baffling level of popularity has lead, inevitably, to a slew of legal litigation-baiting imitators, all wanting their piece of the feathered nest. So, with a sense of self-loathing, I set about trying all of them. This is what I discovered.

Fly Birdie – Flappy Bird Flyer

TapTomic

The most brazen infringement of intellectual property on this list to crap down from above, which has even half-inched the title. As it’s slightly uglier, much easier and even less compelling, it’s less a Xerox, more a smudged Polaroid of the original. But don’t take my word for it. Check out Stoo bum’s grammatically-challenged but otherwise spot-on review.

Flappy Plane

sungsoo jung

Well, yes, planes do have flaps. Their use to constantly levitate said vehicles is frankly questionable, however. Suffice to say, this game is deep-fried dogshit. Weirdly, it comes with a difficulty level selection but no instructions.

“And how would sir like his Unicorn penis cooked?”

“Erm...”

The gameplay, such as it is, requires the player to not so much tap the screen as keep the finger humming at a speed invisible to the naked eye, lest your poorly-animated aircraft belly-flop to the ill-defined no-go area below. All to the nauseating aural backdrop of a cheap nineties Casio. To add insult to incompetency, it’s rammed to the pixels with bullshit pop-ups and ads, so exists purely as a platform to hawk yet more thumb-numbing nonsense.

Flappy Rabbits!

Aitor Velasco

An eerily silent “smear the icon about to miss hailing things” puff of nothing. Card game Snap carries a greater level of sophistication.

Ironpants

Eduardas Klenauskis

Ha ha ha - "pants"! See, it's better than Flappy Birds because oh no wait it is just as shit.

Flappy Penguin

DaisyBo LLC

Dunno about this: there’s no free version so fuck ‘em.

Super Ball Juggling

Dong Nguyen

Doesn't really belong on this list but it’s by the same team/man/pebble that produced the original so here it is. Either way, like wanking at disaster footage; joyless and confusing.

A Flappy Turkey World - The Best Tree Village Mini Pet Birds Free Adventure

Ashfak Ahmed

A slightly sub-par side-scrolling Doughnut Games-style dodge-em-up that’s, hey, not too hateful if you’re into that sort of thing. It only earns its place here due to its mischievous/cynical use of the word “flappy” in the title (a title so long, it doesn't fit on the App Store). Do Turkeys flap? Suppose their wattles do. Or their wings, if someone’s treading on their necks, swinging an axe wildly towards their throat.

Smarcle Flyer

Smarcle, Inc.

“What’s a Smarcle?” I hear no one ask. On the evidence of this, I’d say it’s the sound of lawyers typing threatening cease-and-desist letters.

Now, the next two games pre-date Flappy Birds by at least three years, so their inclusion on this list was questionable at best and downright dishonest at worst. This was pointed out to me after initial publishing so apologies and suckjobs all round to anyone concerned. I loathe intellectual property theft (hence this) so to accuse others of it without doing a modicum of research is unforgivably poor on my part.

I'm leaving them here though, as the core mechanics are startlingly similar to Nguyen's App Store chart topper. Or rather, his game is startling similar to theirs. Of course, I'm not for one second suggesting that he copied existing titles. Oh no. If you wish to decide that, then that is your conclusion. Not mine.

Copter Classic

Classic Games

From the audaciously-titled Classic Games is this – the only iOS release that feels as if it’s been knitted into existence. Ironically, chewing a ball of wool would be more pleasurable than cranking up this abomination of a timepiss. It lacks even the common decency to be a challenge: halfheartedly navigate your bum-guffing chopper through a chasm of easily-avoidable blocks. Bring it down with firepower and dance about like a lunatic insurgent on the news NOW.

iCopter

lawlmart

iHatethis

So, that's it. What have we learnt? 

Nothing. We have learnt absolutely nothing.