Gravity Flipper review: Indian studio VG Games improves on the Flappy Bird formula

There’s no dearth of challenging, borderline sadistic games in the vein of Flappy Bird. It’s as if an entire generation of developers were suddenly influenced by the tough arcade games of yore. Very few of them, however, are as slick and time consuming as Gravity Flipper.

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The game has you controlling two squares that have to avoid incoming blocks. There’s a scoring system based on how many blocks you avoid and how long you last. Your score can be amplified by collecting dots. We can only wish it were as simple as it sounds.

Though it differs from Flappy Bird and its brethren that have you traversing across the screen avoiding obstacles in your way, you’ll end up furiously tapping your screen all the same. Reason being, when you tap one square, the other one moves as well. This forces you be doubly watchful for any impending collisions. As is custom, getting hit by a block is met with a game over screen.

As you survive the first few waves of blocks the game begins to throw obstacles at you at a frightening pace. Surviving past the initial few minutes takes quite a bit of skill, making it one of the more addictive arcade titles around though some might find it a bit too much.

However, it isn’t all reflex-driven. The game is replete with power-ups such as the ability to slow down time. These show up every once in awhile to give you a helping hand in some of the game’s tougher segments (or if you end up dying constantly). Throw in some surprisingly infectious music, and you’ll be playing it for longer than you hoped.

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And play you will. Gravity Flipper sports minimal aesthetics with two colors and a few shapes, a far cry from the number of pixel-art infused apps that make up most of the app stores. It has no pesky in-app purchases or annoying notifications that plague most free releases either. There’s a genuine intent to keep you playing as long as you want, with ads served to you only after you hit a game over screen and even then with extreme infrequency.

All in all, Gravity Flipper is a slickly made game that will have you playing for hours on end. If you like your games tough but fair, you can’t go wrong with this sophomore effort from VG Games. You can download it for Android here.