The game play is very simple. You control an ugly 8-bit bird in a 2-D sidescroller and your job is to keep the bird flapping by tapping the screen. While flying past endless walls of green pipes, you’re challenged with getting the bird through as many tiny openings in a row by adjusting the bird’s height. One wrong move and you get an inevitable splat.

When I first encountered the game, I mistook it for a violent Mario spinoff. At a glance, the green pipes look uncannily similar to the ones from Nintendo, and it sounded like Mario was collecting coins before getting punched at the end of each round.

Asking my friends what they were playing, I got the answer “Flappy Bird.”

First it was Angry Birds, and now this. The game really should just be called “Angry People” because I’ve never seen someone lose this game with a smile.

Despite the simple concept, the game is insanely difficult. Players will set modest goals — a score of 10 — only for the bird to betray them at the first wall. Still, the game constantly draws people in for its low barrier of entry and nonexistent game play ceiling.

I downloaded the game shortly after I found out the app might not be available much longer. It’s extremely addicting.

Got a score of 50? Well, guess what? There is someone out there with a better score than you.
This game’s target audience obviously is people with inklings of free time in their day. And that happens to be almost everyone.

Whether it’s in the cafeteria or at a party, I’ll hear the splat, the sigh, or the occasional cry of frustration that follows. As for me, the only real interaction I had was through a game called “Squishy Bird.”

The spinoff obviously was designed to help players wind down from playing its predecessor by squishing countless waves of Flappy Birds with the pipes.

After the impression “Squishy Bird” gave, I didn’t feel compelled to play a game that incited enough rage in someone to warrant a “Flappy Bird” hate game.

At first, I thought that the removal had something to do with Nintendo filing IP claims on the game’s graphics and sounds. However, this was later clarified when Nguyen said that the removal didn’t involve legal or financial reasons. This surprised me.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the game made $50,000 a day from advertisements alone. That’s more than most of us might make when we land our first jobs after graduating from MSU. To take down the game because of reasons other than copyright issues is bizarre to me.

One possibility is that the game could be drawing unwanted attention to the developer, as many critiques on the game have been negative. Having come from an indie background, Nguyen might have disliked the mainstream turn his game took.

On Twitter, he told followers that he could not keep the game anymore. He then posted that he will not be selling the game, but will continue to develop games in the future.

“I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it,” he said.

Henry Pan is a chemical engineering sophomore. Reach him at panhenry@msu.edu.