The Thinking Blog ~ Knowledge Grows When Shared

Flappy Bird was created and developed by Dong Nguyen in the span of two days and originally released on 24th of May 2013, it gained remarkable success early this year. However, it was soon taken down by its creator for being too addictive and that he "cannot take this anymore." Don't worry though, just like Angry Birds, there are many free alternatives available online!

The closest that comes to the original is perhaps these HTML5 and Flash variations of it. The objective is the same: to direct a flying bird, which moves continuously to the right, between each oncoming set of pipes without colliding with them, which otherwise ends the game.

Flappy Bird HTML5

Flappy Bird Flash

You can also play Flappy Bird with many other players online with this Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) version of the game. You can create your own party to play with your friends, and it also allows you to choose from 3 different visual themes, on FlapMMO.

FlapMMO

While there are countless other clones, remakes and parodies of this game, the gameplay is more or less the same so they are not listed here. There are a couple of spinoffs that got my attention which are worth mentioning though. The first one brings a new twist to the already notoriously difficult game by making it like a typing tutor. Not only you need to watch out for the obstacles but also type the words correctly.

Flappy Bird Typing Tutor

Finally, there is this brand new online game. Unlike most spin-offs, however, Flappy Space Program is more than just a reskinned clone of the game. All it shares with the original is a similar name, a simplistic concept, and frustratingly difficult, yet rewarding gameplay experience. The goal of the game is simple: repeatedly tap (or click your mouse) to launch a mechanical space bird into orbit. Once the bird is successfully orbiting the planet, you'll be given another bird ship which you have to launch. There's no winning, only launching more bird ships into orbit with the hope of achieving a new high score.

Flappy Space Program

Jobs are boring - unless you're playing! What is play, really? The fact that there are many theories by prominent researchers like Jean Piaget, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud are clear proof that the phenomenon is difficult to understand. Johan Huizinga defines play as "a free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious' but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly." Play is most commonly associated with children and their juvenile-level activities, but play can also be a useful adult activity, and occurs among other higher-functioning animals as well. Kids tend to play with whatever they can find, pick up any household item and "fly" it through the air as to pretend that it is an airplane. However, when play is structured and goal-oriented, it becomes a game - with rules, challenges, and more importantly - a social interaction. When did we start pursuing voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities for enjoyment?

Games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, terminals before modems, and cardboards before screens. The expansion of online gaming has reflected the overall expansion of computer networks from small local networks to the internet and the growth of internet access itself. Its rise enabled video game player to come together and compete over servers, but the participation in the late 90s was largely limited only to the very enthusiastic. Facebook would bring it to the masses not long after launching in 2004. The huge growth of Facebook attracted great interest in the platform, from users and developers alike. Zynga was one of the early developers to seize upon the opportunity for social media gaming, with the 2009 launch of Farmville.

New forms of social gaming are emerging every month, and it is all thanks to the continual development of new technological devices, like mobile phones, joining in on the action. The gaming industry is beginning to embrace the value of social gaming, as seen by many sites incorporating social media functions into their online games, especially for games that appeal to demographic groups that otherwise play very few video games (like the elderly who play on mobile bingo sites from their smartphones, for example www.bingoonmobile.co.uk). Thus, the online gaming market expanded exponentially over the past decade, making online games a form of social activity beyond offline limits, and it seems like the future of social media gaming is shooting for infinity.

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