While the creator of Flappy Bird has announced that the sensational game might make a much-awaited comeback soon, there is another game that is gaining a lot of buzz.
The new game on the mobile gaming space is named simply as 2048. It can be seen as a game for math lovers but essentially anyone who can recognize numbers will be able to play the game.
It does not involve any amazing graphics but just numbers popping up on a minimalist, four by four grid. The objective is to combine tiles sporting the same number until you get a tile that shows "2048."
Simple, right? No.
Just like Flappy Bird, it looks utterly simple but far from being simple. It is free. It is addicting. It is frustrating. The game demands a lot of patience and gray matter working to win.
Those who will be playing on their computers just need to press the arrow keys while those on their mobile devices will have to just swipe their screens to move the "2," "4", "8," "16," and so on tiles to add them up together . So, if the gamer can move the "2" and "2" next to each other and push one to the other, that will add up to become "4." Player needs to do that to matching tiles until one tile shows "2048."
There are no Super Mario green pipes or a cityscape background but just like Flappy Bird, 2048 is designed to be frustrating enough. Players will not see a bird hitting a pipe or hearing a thud as it falls flat face to the ground but the screen will simply show "Game Over"-- over and over again until you solve the puzzle.
The new gaming craze was created by Gabriele Cirulli, a young programmer who lives in northern Italy. The game clearly takes inspiration from Veewo Studio's 1024 and Asher Vollmer's Threes.
"I like to look at the things I use daily and ask myself questions such as 'Is this good enough?', or 'How could I improve it?'. Something that 'just works' isn't good enough for me. The design and user experience of the tools I use plays a very important role for me, and this aspect of my personality is reflected in my work, too. Almost-maniacal attention to detail is one of my flaws and strengths," wrote the 19-year-old programmer on his website.
"I taught myself a great portion of the things I know, such as the English language and Design and Development for the Web, and I keep learning new things every day. I love to design and build products that look good and express their philosophy through their visual aspect. I also have a devotion to good typography," Cirulli added.
Whether Cirulli will be like Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen who will pull out his creation when it starts to affect people's productivity or life in general is not for certain.
As of reporting, the website of the official version of 2048 has been tweeted almost 75,000 times. On Google Play Store, it has been reviewed 9,411 times and has been recommended by almost 2,500 people.
The statistics on how many smartphones and tablet screens have been thrown onto floors by their owners-- not yet in.
