10 reasons why Vietnam-made game Flappy Bird is so ridiculously addictive

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Flappy Bird. It’s the number one app in the iOS App Store in over 100 countries. The game comes from a developer based in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. That’s right. One Vietnamese guy has surprised the world and beat the likes of Supercell and Rovio single-handedly. And the irony is that he hasn’t done it with any lessons from the big guys.

You’ll remember a few years ago how Rovio took the world by storm with Angry Birds. Angry Birds was the 52nd game from Rovio. Since then, many gaming companies have not only cloned Angry Birds, but they’ve also taken the principles learned from Angry Birds and applied them to their own games. Making multiple levels, adding a three-point star system, allowing users to share, buying packages of more levels, and turning it into a full-blown franchise with Star Wars versions. Rovio successfully defined and packaged the principles of mobile gaming success. The same can be said of Clash Of Clans from Supercell and Candy Crush from King.

Flappy Bird does none of this. And that’s one key reason why people across the world are taking to it. They’re sick of the bullshit of in-app purchases and levels that go on and on with increasing difficulty. People want something new, and Flappy Bird does just that. Flappy Bird brings with it a whole new set of lessons for game designers and casual gamers. Some may say that it’s a fluke, that Dong Nguyen, the lone Viet designer is a lucky guy, but I’d say he’s touched a chord in what people really need and want in a casual game in 2014.

Why else would his other games also jump to the top of the App Store? While Flappy Bird retains the top spot, his two other games, Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block, have also jumped into the top ten. Not to mention Ironpants [1], a Flappy Bird clone, which only has 2.5 stars compared to Flappy Bird’s solid four-star rating, is at number three. And don’t forget, .GEARS, as Dong Nguyen’s brand also has three more games on his website which are not featured on the App Store but may be coming soon. This includes Smashing Kitty, Droplet Shuffle, and Ninja Assault. All of which can be played on your mobile. In other words, there’s much more to come from .GEARS. And if you’ve played all of them as much as I have, you’ll start to get a feel for Nguyen’s aesthetic.

Here’s my breakdown of the principles that Flappy Bird is bringing to the gaming table.

1. Make it really hard

Of course, the first thing you notice when playing Flappy Bird is how hard it is. Some of the team at Tech In Asia haven’t even flown past the first pole. It’s so hard that it’s ridiculously frustrating, annoying, and somehow existentially hilarious. It’s so hard it’s funny. In this way, Flappy Bird is punishing. If you take a gander at the reviews on the App Store, you’ll immediately see how much people love to hate it. And this is probably the single biggest reason for its success. People love to torture themselves, and they love to share it. The difficulty of the game is engineered for virality.

2. Make it extremely simple

Flappy Bird has almost no barrier to entry. Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, and other big-name mobile games take minutes on the dollar for gamers to learn how to play. And for every second you have to train a new user how to play, you lose another user. I can hand anybody my iPhone on the street and they will, within one second, know how to play Flappy Bird. That means anybody can play and anybody will play. And this is somehow perfectly balanced with the difficulty of the game. It’s easy to learn but it’s near impossible to master. Flappy Bird is in the sweet spot of learning curves.

3. Make it feel almost winnable

Probably the worst, and therefore best, part about Flappy Bird is that it always gives you a feeling that you could have done better than last time. With the case of Angry Birds, I’m usually satisfied even if I just get two stars on a level. The feeling is “at least I passed it”. With Flappy Bird, there is no such relief. It is essentially one level. And each point just tells you how much you suck at it.

• “Oh, you got two points? You suck”
• “Oh, you got 25 points? You suck”
• “Oh, you got 100 points?! Wow! You still suck!”

The moment Flappy takes a nosedive, you get a sinking feeling of failure that you just want to beat. You want to be better than last time. And in the midst of that, you’re going to go tell everyone you know: “Hey! I got 20 points!” But on the internet, there’s always someone better than you.

4. No in-app purchases

5. No more than three buttons

6. Rely on gravity

7. It’s all about skill

8. Make gameplay as brief as possible, so you get as many plays as possible

9. Pollute the App Store

10. Don’t do what Candy Crush, Angry Birds, and Clash Of Clans do