Flappy Bird both frustrates and entertains

Watch out, Candy Crush–there’s a new game in town. The latest mobile gaming craze? Flappy Bird, an app with a fairly simple premise: tap on the screen to flap the wings of a bird and fly while avoiding obstacles. Made by .GEARS, an independent game developer based in Vietnam, the game has simple graphics: a sort of retro style animation reminiscent of early Mario games. But the main allure of the game isn’t the animation or even the fun of it; it’s the difficulty. Flappy Bird is notable for being incredibly frustrating, and many users have a high score in the single digits.

“I believe it is a very fun and addicting game, but if you have anger or time management issues, you should probably not download it,” junior Tyler Seplak said.

Despite the difficulty, Flappy Bird’s popularity has skyrocketed as the most-downloaded free app on iTunes (Candy Crush is nineteenth) and is in the top twenty for Android.

Here are some Twitter reactions to Flappy Bird from students: