10 Video Games Everyone Played (But NO ONE Talks About)
3. Flappy Bird (2013)
As far as mobile gaming fads went, none were more frustratingly addictive as Flappy Bird.
The premise was as simple and as self-explanatory as the title: players were tasked to tap the screen to make the cartoon bird fly higher to navigate through an obstacle course of pipes. Make it as far as possible without touching any of the pipes to get the high score.
The gameplay loop was genius in its execution. The gameplay itself was so easy to understand that anybody could pick it up and see what all the fuss was about for themself. Likewise, retrying after an inevitable death took seconds, meaning that you could be moments away from breaking your high score. It was this one-more-try mentality which made the game so addictive.
Everybody knew that one person who claimed to have achieved a score so high that it was more ludicrous that they expected you to believe their obvious lies to begin with.
Whether you were killing time on the train or an especially boring meeting at work, Flappy Bird has more than likely been installed on your phone at one point.
Given how ubiquitous this game was, it's strange to consider that nobody ever talks about it now.