Massively multiplayer online Flappy Bird
flapmmo.com
flapmmo.com
I've recently decided that, for me, if a game design can't be reshaped to being shared with multiple people, I'd rather not make it. To me, games are at their best when they help create shared stories and memories for multiple people. This little thing has glints of promise.
Games like Skyrim and Broken Age are still incredible experiences that have thrived as singleplayer experiences. Ask yourself what you want when you talk about shared stories. Both games I mentioned have moments that can be recalled with other players, and while that isn't the same as a shared memory, players still have a shared experience on some level.
On a personal level I certainly lean towards creating shared memories in games I develop, whether with online multiplayer, racing ghosts, or "couch co-op." I think the elements of competition and cooperation are awesome, but I don't think you should dismiss singleplayer content just because of a desire to foster shared experiences.
Of course, that doesn't invalidate your point: both games are excellent standing alone.
I personally would like something like a "follow the leader" option for people just watching. Then you can root for people getting insanely high scores. That would go viral.
And if we're going to talk metrics, at the rate that Google Play spending has been exploding, it will be passing the iOS ecosystem sometime very shortly.
By no stretch am I saying that anyone should target Android instead of iOS, but right now if one hits one or the other it is primarily driven by skillsets and not some objective evaluation. Ideally toolsets and skills cross platforms where possible, and it is leaving money on the table to ignore either.
Once Google Play actually passes iOS, feel free to make that point. Not before.
As a recent employee of various startups and established companies in the mobile space, I can tell that you that the only pattern I've witnessed here is:
a) decide what to develop for based on the market
b) hire people that can develop for that platform
This tendency is as old as time. Humans favor what they know over the unknown.
And do you think this rather trivial app was some venture-capital backed startup that then hired a team with a given skillsets? Yeah, I don't think so. It appears to be something an individual or small group did, using their own manpower.
During 2013, spending on the iOS platform increased some 50%. Spending on the Android platform increased 242%+, to within striking distance of iOS spending. Given the enormous growth rates, it is probable that Google Play spending is equal to or greater than iOS right now.
Both are absolutely huge markets, so someone could apply their skills and knowledge in either to reward, but your tired, obsolete, nonsensical claims need to go back to 2010 where they were relevant.
http://kookiekrak.itch.io/flappy-pipes
p.s. i put it on facebook too! (unity + fb integration is amazing)
googles "Unity Web Player" linux ... cries
P.S: I'm on Chrome and UWP is supposed to work on it, but it doesn't.
The parent post is referring to the Unity web plugin for Linux which AFAIK does not exist at all (only Windows and Mac support for the browser plugin).
At least your page loaded. Still can't load OP link.
EDIT: It is really laggy on my MBP /w Firefox
You can see an example of this on our game (http://apps.facebook.com/uberstrike) pushing B at any time will post a screenshot to a specially created Facebook photo album and depending on how Facebook's algorithms are feeling will usually create a feed story about it too. (We were lucky enough to be on the early beta for the Facebook/Unity SDK)
EDIT: Also worth a look is the scores API on Facebook, it's incredibly straightforward to use https://developers.facebook.com/docs/games/scores/
Originally I had it just as a button that said "Share" but the facebook's unity sdk dev's warned me that my app would get reported and removed.
I implemented score's api too, but it doesn't seem to be surfacing my scores anywhere I can see
Then the roll-on effect happened where everyone starts using it to brag about their scores :).
If it wasn't Flappy Bird, it would be something else. But this game does have the key elements: simple, accessible, shareable.
The #1 most subscribed-to youtuber[0] (PewDiePie) did a video on this game right around the time its popularity skyrocketed.
It's "I wanna be the guy" for people who don't like video game culture and immaturity.
If you're fine with both of those, however, go play "I wanna be the guy"!
Many games introduce difficulty through complexity. Here's a game that's simple to grasp, hard to play, yet not boring or frustrating.
I wish this was acknowledged more often, as it might have made the developer feel more comfortable being associated with his game's meteoric success.
And then - by allowing a quick restart, any frustration is overshadowed with the desire to try again.
There are other interesting fine-details. For example, notice when the bird starts to dive (an experience game developer pointed it out to me). It happens when the bird goes under the last flap-point. This allows for a much deeper control system than the one-switch interaction suggests. This depth is intuitively grasped by the gamer on some level, providing more fuel to try again.
If your hit-boxes aren't the same size as your sprites, players are frequently going to die when they didn't even appear to hit the pipes. So no, it isn't always the user's fault.
The conspiracist in me wanted to believe the pipes had additional gravity or something that caused me to hit, but practically speaking I wonder if we're simply used to games making hitboxes smaller than the avatar. I certainly noticed that in Jetpack Joyride.
Yes, it's an often-used trick to enhance the feel of gameplay. Generally you want to make the hitbox of the player, and of the "bad" things smaller, and the hitbox of "good" things (items etc) larger.
This is all (just one) part of the philosophy that the game should behave as the player intends to control it, which is not always equivalent with the literal interpretation of how the player controls it.
Another example is jumping in platform games, if you walk off the edge of a platform, many games will give you a few frames of leeway in which you can still jump, even if the character is actually in mid-air. (alternatively a game can make the platforms' hitbox slightly larger than they appear, but in my experience the leeway approach makes for smoother gameplay)
All of these tricks basically make a game easier to play, but in a way that feels very satisfactory to the player. The idea being, you can always make up for the level of difficulty by making the levels harder, the enemies faster, etc. This shifts the balance from hardness by frustration to challenge.
The fact that Flappy Bird obviously subverts this philosophy, I think is part of its wtf-intrigue. Whether the author of the game did it on purpose or not, is another question.
That's something that's becoming more evident to me with each new clone that pops up.
The pipe gap, the distance between the pipes, the relationship between the height of your flap and gap of the pipes. The tuning of the gravity, etc.
It's all incredibly well done and it's why it's so engaging. If I were to make a clone I would copy all of these properties exactly.
y(t) = y0 + 13.8 - 147 * (t - t0 + 0.288)^2
helicoptergame.net
Flappy bird actually is supposed to be a troll, and that's why its so popular. People found its ridiculous difficulty to be funny, and that's why the game went viral.
I agree with the other commenter that it isn't well-tuned at all. The hit-detection is so bad that it ruins the game.
It's a very similar idea, but how the game is played and the consistency of the obstacles are very different.
The way the game is played is nearly identical. You either increase your altitude or decrease it.
I agree that the consistency of the obstacles is different though.
Also, it doesn't really matter if he did something already done or not. What matters is that he did it in a way that was seen as better by a significant amount of people.
http://www2.sunflat.net/en/games/sfcave.html
http://www2.sunflat.net/en/games/sfcave3d.html
3D SF cave is my favorite by far.
I think we had a game like this on BBC Micros
>Many games introduce difficulty through complexity. Here's a game that's simple to grasp, hard to play, yet not boring or frustrating.
I don't think Flappy Bird is any better tuned or has a better feel than any number of games. I have played many, many games far better on a Ti-85 and they don't even stand out.
And it is boring. There's no escalation or change over time. Once you can get to 50 you can get to 100 or 200. It's like bouncing a ball on a paddle and trying to get the highest score.
I would suggest http://terrycavanaghgames.com/maverickbird/ if you are looking for something better.
More than anything I was trying to respond to the parent's question about why the game works at all, especially compared to so many bad single-switch games in the app store.
(In writing this I just realized - Maverick Brid is not a single switch game like Flappy Bird. Not that it matters - even without the dive key it's superior).
http://www.addictinggames.com/action-games/helicoptergame.js...
I think flappy bird went viral because of the difficulty.
These are not new. Nintendo Game&Watch games were very simple and could keep people playing for hours. Mario Party (in all its many versions) featured similar micro games.
People love the idea of a game that has almost zero controls, with perfect tuning, and a simple to share high score.
Flappy Bird is also hard - I am hopeless at it. I love it for exactly that reason. I'm not great at games so if I can power through some levels I know the devs have just stuffed some easy content in there.
The problem now is in finding these apps. The tuning is tricky to do. The market will be flooded with poor quality clones. It'd be really tempting to allow IAP power ups - "hit one pipe without dying!"
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02/12/flapmmo-brings-non-c...
Edit: It's not a coincidence, they really are on Linode in Dallas...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YkUAh7u...
Please remove the bubble around the players bird - you have to judge distances really carefully in this game, and the bubble makes it even harder.
Also the rotation animation in this version is distracting. The original Flappy Bird only rotated slightly (nose tipping up slightly while flapping) unless really diving fast.
Good fun though.
As much as I despise trying to engineer large team projects in JS, this is a great example of what JS is good at.
Or maybe I missed the point.
But seriously, this is all the game was about? Really?
In fact, add chat to it would be really cool :-D
Never ever before I have felt this much like being the world wide number one at something. Awesome.
yea I made 50 score
There is no strategy in positioning yourself and taking alternate gaps. There are no alternate gaps to begin with. The whole game is just an exercise in timing, like a quick-time event of the sort where you need to stop a moving indicator in a given range.
It would fit as a way to grant an attack bonus in e.g. Super Mario RPG or Paper Mario.
1/10 - it's a real-time multiplayer qte in javascript and that's kind of cool
Sorry about that.