The fallout of Flappy Bird has been hard to avoid. No matter where you look, clones have littered our favorite websites and news feeds, and the fascinating rise and fall of this three week urban legend continues to sputter on even well after the game's death.
I've given my hand at a few of the clones, and some have been admittedly quite good, if not forgettable the very second you turn it off. Decent art, good graphics, an original spin on the formula. This one however defies all sensibilities and has to have a few seconds of your busy day to be appreciated.
FlapMMO is a game which uses all of the resources and physics of the original, but allows you to play along with the rest of the world.
Only now, the focus is no longer a quest for a high score, but rather it is a quest to see who can survive the longest. Each match starts you alongside other players who have just begun a new game. Nobody is able to interact tangibly with each other, nor can they distinguish themselves in anyway besides a moniker. Everyone has the same abilities. Everyone uses the same infamous sprite, and everyone flaps along through the world at the same slow pace, racing to nowhere.
During your run, the skilled players continue to shuffle on as those who make mistakes or simply lose interest slowly peter out. One by one, racers fall to an obstacle or a poorly timed jump, and are forced to restart their journey, and it is very unlikely you will ever race alongside them again. A one time rivalry or one time companionship that can't be recreated except through coordinated timing and communication, destroying the purpose.
Sounds a lot like Journey, doesn't it?
And at the end, you might be the only bird still flapping, getting the highest score on the server even, but the only problem is that nobody is there to witness your achievement. Foes died out a long time ago. Friends did not make it as far as you. You are left to bask in the loneliness of victory for a brief second before being thrown back into the shuffle and beginning a run with a whole new wave of gamers.
This is a sad purgatory, and the fact that your bird can have a name is the only thing stopping it from being hell. Without an identity, there is nothing to show your progress, nothing to set you apart from the other miserable prisoners trapped in this cycle of addictive tapping.
Either that or it's just a quick and cheap knockoff of a fad that seriously needs to flap the way of the dodo. Turn the game off and go play some Parasite Eve or Dark Souls.
