First launched in 2009 by the finish company Rovio, you certainly heard about the angry birds and their personal fight against pigs. Initially only available to the iOS platform, today they can be found everywhere, from video games, to Smart TVs, they have expanded into more games including one with the Star Wars universe, and more recently they even became a cartoon. But, despite all that, I never have played. Until now.
If you don’t know the game, the idea is to use a slingshot to throw birds, adjusting angle and power, into constructions that can be destroyed, with the objective of killing green pigs (yes, yes, but no frivolous judgment, please). By killing all the pigs you advance to the next level, by advancing many levels you get happier. As simple as this.
Through the game many types of birds are presented, like a bomb bird, or a bird that splits in three, or even birds that fill up and fly like a ballon. Pigs of different sizes and hats (yes) are also presented. The stages are thematic going from things like birthday party, cave mining, the jungle, wild west and more.
To me, there are two points which are probably keys to the huge success of this game.
The first point one is that the game is simply very well made. To beat the stages you don’t just throw the birds anywhere in anyway, it is necessary a strategy combined with the ability to execute this strategy, when you throw a bird you need to know where to hit and then you need to succeed in hit it to get the effect needed to kill all the pigs. There is also great talent in the charismatic design of characters, of the stages and audio in general.
The second point is how well it fits into the idea of a portable game that can offer you some quick 30 seconds fun, or hours of gameplay if you feel like. Still concerning this combination of a game that matches perfectly game design and platform, the use of the touch interface makes sense, it never fills as something shoehorned, as frequently happens in games to smartphones and tablets.
I think it is also worth to mention that this game is one of those games that by design present a challenge that people tend to accept without much thinking, believing it is simple too easy to be denied, then, when you play, you are surprised and may find yourself trying for almost one hour to hit the dammed bird in that piece of wood to finally kill that pig that keeps laughing of you every time you fail. Tetris is a good example of a game like this and that is also a huge success.
So, because, deep inside, we all love to break stuff, because we all like to see that domino effect of a little disturbance causing a great chain reaction of destruction, or because we all may need some ballistic knowledge someday (no?), Angry Birds deserves all the success it has and is very much recommended to
mammals of all ages.
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More about Rovio
More about Angry Birds
A cat playing Angry Birds (I told you it was for all mammals, no?)
