Flappy Bird's deceptively simple mechanics and painful-to-watch gameplay return in Swing Copters, a game that appears every bit as difficult as the original Flappy Bird.
Instead of keeping Flappy adrift as it soars between dangerously placed pipes, Swing Copters players will guide the game's hero through a gauntlet of gates and swinging hammers as they head upward.
Each tap on the screen swings Swing Copter's hero in the opposite direction. It takes careful timing to achieve exactly measured swings and avoid the game's obstacles.
A couple of days ahead of Swing Copters' launch, TouchArcades's Eli Hodapp got a chance to demo the Flappy Bird descendant and create a trailer for the game. It delivers every ounce of Flappy Bird's "just one more try" draw, according to Hodapp.
"Swing Copters is hard," stated Hodapp. "Just getting through the gates themselves would be tricky enough, but adding in the swinging hammer things below them is just ridiculous, particularly as you're desperately trying to control your guy as he wildly swings from one direction to the other."
After abruptly delisting the original Flappy Bird, Dong Nguyen, the series' creator, brought the weighty bird back in a new game. Tech Times reports Flappy Bird family was released on Aug. 1 to the Amazon Appstore as an exclusive for the online retailer's Fire TV.
Nguyen said he delisted the original Flappy Bird game because there was too much pressure surrounding it and people had become addicted to the game. The removal of the game wasn't prompted by any legal action against him and he still planned to make more games, Nguyen stated on Twitter back in February.
"Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed," said Nguyen after taking down the original Flappy Bird. "But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it's best to take down Flappy Bird. It's gone forever."
Swing Copters launches on Aug. 21 and Nguyen confirmed on Twitter that the game will be available for both Android and iOS devices. Thought the game will be free, players can pay $0.99 to have the ads lifted from their Swing Copters experience.
"It feels like it's got all the same qualities that made Flappy Bird so sticky for me," stated Hadopp. "Once you see even the smallest bit of success in the game, you can't help but play again, and again, and again, always trying to (in my case, anyway) top that amazing five point flight."
