Play the game that Flappy Bird (and dozens of other mobile hits) are ripping off

The mobile game Flappy Bird, developed by Vietnam’s .GEARS studio, has gone absolutely viral. You might find that quite surprising—we certainly did in our review of the game—or you might be too busy playing Flappy Bird to be surprised by anything.

But, as many observers have pointed out, Flappy‘s simple-but-addictive gameplay comes pretty much directly from a much older game, a relic of the early days of simple browser-based flash games. Specifically, Seethru’s famous helicopter game:

(If you don’t see the game below, try reloading the page or click here to play the game on another site).

Of course, I don’t intend to accuse .GEARS of copying; the helicopter game doesn’t have a copyright on that game mechanic (that I know of), and to be fair, Flappy Birds is not the first mobile game to borrow it. There are dozens of similar games out there; the most widely-played of which is probably Halfbrick’s Jetpack Joyride. Yes, Halfbrick added a lot of paint, polish, and pizazz to the game, but the basic idea—hold to go up, release to go down, try not to hit stuff—is pretty clearly similar to the old-school helicopter game embedded above. If it’s OK for Halfbrick to borrow the concept, I don’t see why Flappy Bird can’t do that, too.

But just because borrowing is OK doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give some credit to the classic. So the next time you’re playing Flappy Bird, spare a thought to the brave, suicidal chopper pilot from the helicopter game, for he is the seed from which your current addiction has blossomed.

Related:

Flappy Bird review: it’s frustrating, dumb, and ridiculously addictive