
The simple genius of Flappy Bird - gren
http://www.mrspeaker.net/2014/02/26/genius-of-flappy-bird/
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superasn
As someone mentioned earlier on HN, the real genius of flappy bird is the
signle/double digit scores that people tend to gloat about, when they beat
yours. It's hard to care about a score like 434,456 but 93.. that doesn't
sound so scary.. at least when your last hi-score was 83.

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Double_Cast
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia)

> _Apophenia /æpɵˈfiːniə/ is the experience of seeing patterns or connections
> in random or meaningless data.

The term is attributed to Klaus Conrad[1] by Peter Brugger,[2] who defined it
as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific
experience of an abnormal meaningfulness", but it has come to represent the
human tendency to seek patterns in random information in general, such as with
gambling and paranormal phenomena.[3]_

~~~
mrspeaker
Aw, c'mon... I'm saying (with probably too many words for the internet, I'll
concede) that changing any (not all, _any_ of the details of Flappy Bird makes
it shit. I tried it.

That's not seeing random patterns - that's double-blind testing. Well. Kinda.

~~~
miggyb
It's a good argument, but I'm still not entirely convinced. Using "actual"
gravity instead of video game gravity and having questionable collision
detection sounds to me like it could have been done on purpose or it could be
the result of poor planning or programming.

Maybe the "random" distance between starting the game and the first pipe
coming up is also just a function of how far along a loop you are when you
start playing. Did you check the timing or when you started compared to the
background, for example? If it's completely random, that's actually very
interesting. At the same time, however, it doesn't seem like there's any
purpose for that, either.

I'm guessing that this is the only game Dong has released and there's no way
for us to look at his previous work to help confirm/deny his genius status. It
also doesn't look like he's going to keep releasing games. I think I read
somewhere that he's not really open to interviews either. Oh well. It's
looking like it might be one of those internet mysteries that will remain
unresolved forever.

~~~
robinhouston
No, he’s made at least two other games.

Super Ball Juggling: [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/super-ball-
juggling/id733348...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/super-ball-
juggling/id733348557?mt=8)

Shuriken Block: [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shuriken-
block/id636374339?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/shuriken-
block/id636374339?mt=8)

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piratebroadcast
Part of me is convinced that the genius of this game is that it can be
completely operated with only one thumb, even while riding a crowded subway.

~~~
wmil
I think it's most important feature is fast restarts. Too many game devs think
a 30 second loading screen is no big deal.

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mrspeaker
Wow, I remember this guy from the Flappy Bird Typing Tutor
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7210459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7210459))
that was all the rage last week. He must be one smart and handsome cookie!

~~~
interstitial
Probably smart enough to have gotten his bitcoin out of Mt. Gox ages ago.

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interstitial
If only someone could write the definitive Bitcoin / WhatsApp / Flappy Bird
Trifecta article that fully encapsulates the the get rich unit tests embedded
in the HN carbon-based CPUs, we could have more stories about Node.js and
Angular.js on the front page.

~~~
drcode
Are you saying React.js isn't the way to go?

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gabemart
I've only played the Android version, but I never found the collision
detection anything less than pixel-perfect. If I'd felt the collision
detection was poor, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have enjoyed playing it as much
as I did.

The author seems to imply that the collision detection is poor, then backtrack
and say that actually, only collision detection that cheats in favor of the
player is good. In this kind of simple 2D game, I think that cheating
collision detection would lead to frustration.

Criticism of Flappy Bird seems to divided into two camps:

The first dismisses it as a clone of any one of a dozen or so older
helicopter-style games.

The second descends into ridiculous over-analyses of the ephemeral merits of
the game.

I find both camps irritating.

It may be a clone, but it's a clone that's done extremely well. Execution is
everything. None of the "Flappy Bird done in X" versions that made the rounds
came close to me.

And it may be a well designed and executed game, but luck is clearly the
largest single factor that propelled it to worldwide success. A well-designed,
well-executed, easy-to-learn, hard-to-master fun game with viral potential is
the prerequisite for mass-market growth, but it's not even close to a
guarantee.

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Luc
There's also this hilarious article, which I assume is written by a masterful
troll:
[http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Full+Indie+UK+news/featu...](http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Full+Indie+UK+news/feature.asp?c=57376)

I can only shake my head at how misguided these people are. If Flappy Bird is
genius, there's tens of thousands of genius games on the App store alone.

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userpasswd
It would be down in the dumps without a great luck anyway. Thousands of so-
challenging games prove the point.

~~~
maresca
His rise in the app store is questionable. He most likely gamed the app store
using bots.

~~~
DanBC
His rise in the app store happened after he was featured on a popular
Youtuber's account.

A couple of million people seeing someone play your game will tend to drive
sales in a way that pushes your app up the charts.

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josephlord
The speed at which you can go from death to flying again is also really
important to keep you hooked.

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jamesjamesjames
This article was a nice advert for the poster's game... that's about it.

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a3voices
It's a copy of the game Helicopter from Ebaumsworld. You don't need to be a
genius to copy a game.

~~~
tfgg
The irony of saying someone copied anything from Ebaumsworld.

