Let's take a trip back to a simpler time. It was the winter of 2014, I was in high school, and the polar vortex was ripping through the East Coast (and it sort of still is). The one thing that got me through from one day to the next was a singular app on my phone: Flappy Bird.
I took great pride in the fact that my high score was well over 100. This app, though, was fucking everywhere. It went viral and stayed viral, which was (and still is) rare for an app. After a couple months of fame, the creator, Dong Nguyen, pulled Flappy Bird from the Apple App Store on February 10, 2014, citing fears that the game had become too addictive and overused. Phones that had the app already installed on them sold for high prices on eBay, which maybe proved Nguyen's point that people had become addicted. Flappy Bird addicts can breathe a sigh of relief, though, because I present to you the Street app of the week: Flappy Returns—The Classic Original Bird Game Remake. We're back, bitches.
How it works (in case you live under a rock and have been doing so for the last two years):
The premise of Flappy Bird (and its remake) is incredibly simple. An 8-bit bird character, apparently named Faby, flaps its way through a series of openings in tubes that look like they're straight out of Super Mario Bros. You help Faby along his journey by tapping the screen, which gives him a burst of flight before gravity takes over and he starts to fall again. If Faby hits a pipe, he falls to the ground and that's game over. That's it–that's the entire game.
People loved and hated Flappy Bird because getting the proportionate amount of air necessary to keep Faby going was very difficult, and you had to time your touch exactly right. I personally loved the no–frills challenge of the game and I spent all my time honing my skills (this isn't a joke; my high school friends made so much fun of me for how much time I spent playing Flappy Bird). Anyway, to all those who haven't played Flappy Bird, I highly encourage you to download this remake if you've run out of interesting ways to waste time. Flap on, friends.
