Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular?
mauronewmedia.com
mauronewmedia.com
As already stated in the comments, Angry Birds is almost identical to "Crush the Castle", another game, of which Flash versions were quite successful but mobile versions weren't. (It involves destroying castles with a trebuchet -- play it here: http://armorgames.com/play/3614/crush-the-castle).
It would have made for a more interesting article to compare Angry Birds and Crush the Castle (CTC) to identify differences between the two; as it is the article lists six attributes of success for Angry Birds:
1. simple yet engaging interaction concept
2. cleverly managed response time
3. short-term memory management
4. mystery
5. how things sound
6. how things look
Every one of those qualities is present in CTC, sometimes differently (different sound, different look) but most of the time EXACTLY in the same way (the first three items).
The main originality of Angry Birds is that projectiles are not inanimate objects but living (thinking) creatures, and the pigs (the victims) are stupid/despicable.
In CTC the projectiles are bullets and the victims are soldiers: the goal is to crush the castle but not really to kill the soldiers; the player doesn't care about them (and she certainly doesn't care about the projectiles). It's mostly an engineering project.
In Angry Birds the goal is more to kill the pigs than to crush their houses, and the player identifies with the birds. I would argue this (the story) is a key element to user engagement.
A slight error in the timing of the trebuchet launch easily turns your shot into a complete miss.
Angry Birds does introduce timing later, with the various types of birds whose behavior changes with a tap while in flight, but that generally occurs when the bird is close to the target where a slight error usually doesn't completely waste the bird.
The net result is that in Angry Birds I feel like I'm spending most of my effort concentrating on how best to attack the puzzle of understanding the physics of the level so as to efficiently get through it. In CTC I'm concentrating on the reflex game of clicking at the right point in the trebuchet swing. The former is simply a much more engaging game.
PS: I disagree that CTC is not about killing the people. There are levels with people outside the castle. Take down the castle but leave some of those people alive, and the level is not over. Killing the people is the victory condition, so I'd say the game is about killing the people.
True, but do you really want to kill those people? They don't even behave like people -- more like "statues that bleed".
> A huge difference is the controls. In CTC you aim by timing the release during the swing of the trebuchet. This is tricky
I'm not so sure. I find operating the trebuchet more intuitive / simple than pulling the sling in the right direction with the right amount of force to send the birds in the air.
BTW, birds fly; they don't need a sling to be airborne... Those "angry birds" are in fact chickens.
Chickens vs. pigs: a simple farm image that speaks to everyone and draws on childhood memories?
In addition, for my son I've found that the physics element in Angry Birds has helped build interest in other physics puzzles, including those that don't have as much flavor, such as Ragdoll Blaster.
While this reduces complexity in Angry Birds, it also means you can't always choose the most devastating ammo, which adds a bit to the challenge.
I assumed that it's because the initial positions of the objects in the game are slightly off the equilibrium state, so when the physics is switched on they slump a little bit.
1. The splash screen shows a high degree of polish compared to all other games. Every time I start it, it stands out heads and shoulders above other apps.
2. The whimsical characters mean that there are no scruples with killing real pigs.
3. The ability to advance to the next level quickly, but at the same time, there is a higher three star achievement for finishing a level with some finesse.
4. There is an element of luck and timing involved, and this makes for addictive gameplay. It is also very difficult to get the angles exactly the same each time on a small device. Every time you play, you think "this is going to be the perfect game".
5. The matter of waiting for 2-3 seconds makes for exasperating play, which again is pretty addictive.
Less ridiculous is this comparison. It's like that slight twitch you get watching the "starting in 3..2..1" dialog before a round of Starcraft or Halo or something... but even more frequent. Anticipation is everything. You get addicted as much to the anticipation, as the moment itself.
Once you have tossed your coin, the control is out of your hands. All you can do is sit there and watch the mechanical arm sweep. It is over in about 2-3 seconds. The tension climaxes when the arm gets to its full reach, and it is usually unresolved because the coins end up being herded together into an even bigger pile. (Incidentally, this reminds me of Screwball Comedies http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/screwball.jsp, where the male and female characters are kept apart right until the last minute).
It is the same with Angry Birds. When you launch a projectile, most of the parameters have been set. You may have some control later, but it could not "fix" a bad move. So you now have 2-3 seconds where you are totally helpless, and once it a while, all the stars line up and you get rewarded. Like a monkey throwing a stick at a stationary object. This is insanely addictive. It is a hail-mary gamble that works out often enough to make you keep trying. To earn three stars, one needs at least two "perfect" throws. This is extremely difficult and chancy.
The levels have been designed to progressively require smaller tolerance against errors. The Rovio people probably could programmatically control the angle and velocity to see the effects, and from that tweak the pieces to make the gameplay easier or harder.
Google Instant Search?
While I'm working on an app with vague similarities to Google instant and I like the idea of it being a wild success, I can't see evidence that it's anything like a "run-away success" given that it was simply a make-over of an already successful interface. Google had most of the market before and after so what could you say about this. I don't remember it getting good review either.
Now all we need is a level editor for angry birds...
It feels a little like when, working in a large supermarket, they force-shoved the "FISH!" video down our throats, even though the business model didn't have any flexibility in it. We couldn't apply the principles but they management team hoped that simply being exposed to it would work.
Most of the experience I've had with enterprise product design has demonstrated that "Being engaging" is very VERY low on the product design list, because corporate companies don't care how engaged their staff are.
Developers, however, are loud and wonderfully obnoxious (No, really, I love it) about their tools, so I see a lot more room for engaging behavior, BUT I imagine a developer will also be a lot more annoyed at any perceived duplication of effort (No matter how clever you 'wipe' their short term memory).
The game involves employing a sling shot to propel small cannonball-shaped birds with really bad attitudes at rather fragile glass and timber houses populated by basically catatonic green pigs.
Is this contrary to expectations? This is what we mean when we say, over and over again, that "ideas" don't matter a hill of beans. To misquote the best line of the movie: if they had had the idea for Angry Birds then they would have developed Angry Birds.
hmmm, perhaps this appeal isn't as strongly felt by the general public as cute birds slamming into pigs?
The reason I think that AB is more popular is it fits a more general audience, the graphics/story/etc are all neutralized so they're covering every demographic while CTC is more male-oriented.
Although Angry Birds has undoubtedly made more cold hard cash the CTC franchise (3 titles) would have plays in the 100s of millions by now.
That transcends considerations like "times played" or even "money made".
Unique users in the 100s of millions? I'm doubtful.
When a Flash game is very popular 1000s of other websites copy the swf file and host it themselves exposing their own audience to that game - and CTC is 3 very popular titles.
Anyway, Crush the Castle is itself a clone of Castle Clout, but had _far_ greater success than its predecessor, even though they were visually similar (nearly identical, actually).
Character - You're not shooting rocks and bombs, they're birds! They are colorful and they squawk! And you're not shooting targets, you're shooting pigs! Pigs who smugly smile when you don't hit them.And there's fun music.
Puzzles - Some of the levels are difficult but overall the puzzles can be solved quickly. And there are plenty of them. A series of fun, quick puzzles: the perfect game for 5 minute breaks.
It's interactive and just fun to play. Move your finger, release, shoot the bird, it makes a sound, maybe touch again and the bird does an ability, then shit falls down. And it's you who's doing it. Who doesn't like to knock down dominos?
You're constantly touching the phone and the phone is reacting to you. There's sensory feedback and an addicting rhythm.
Anyway, if you want to design an addictive game, look at the characteristics of casino games and design games around those. Maybe all game companies should take copies of their games to Gambler's Anonymous meetings for vetting :).
I do find it depressing that this is the only thing people can bloody go on about though.
2. Funny storyline/characters.
3. Simple. Can get in and out. Can play for 1 minute or 30 minutes.
4. You can play the same level over and over and it's different every time due to the mechanics of destroying things that have their own physical properties. It's hard enough to get you to try again but not so difficult that you're driven away.
Points 1 and 2 are what I would call The Draw. They bring you in.
Points 3 and 4 and what I would call The Keeper. They bring you back.
This is why I think it's a good game. There are lots of good games that aren't popular. The reason why it's popular probably has more to do with word-of-mouth advertising and then media coverage. There are probably a high number of addicts (myself included) that go on to evangelize the game to other device owners.
It's easy to start and easy to stop, and you don't feel that you loose something if you have to stop at this particular moment, and this is really import for the casual game on the phone.
Look at the Cut the Rope. It copies AB concepts verbatim - short engaging levels, three starts, cute character (and candy! :) It became quite a successful game. I don't think Tiny Wings will hold position 1 in the charts long - it's cute, but game progress becomes very difficult quickly and "start-stop model" is not as good. The main reason it is (most likely) not going to stick to position 1 is that there is no way to add incremental value by adding new levels and thus rekindling interest and pumping the rating (another ingenious thing Rovio invented or borrowed and perfectly executed).
It is much more the perfect play, rather than the perfect game.
Problem is, good game mechanics are very hard to do. But even worse, using such mechanics makes it very easy to accidentally promote wrong behaviour.
For example, score 2 points for sending an email to a prospect, score 5 for calling. 3 emails will give you more points, but any salesman will tell you one call is worth more than 3 emails. So if the "game balance" in your biz app is off, you might thus end up with negative productivity for your users :-)
It's all very interesting though.
At any rate, that game's success has been monumental and I am in awe of the creators.
* evergreen mechanic
* cute visuals
* generated contentIn Angry Birds, all the levels are designed. Not generated algorithmically (as opposed to a game like Canabalt, where the entire level is generated on the fly).