How 'Flappy Bird' Went From Obscurity to No. 1 App

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Image: Mashable, Will Fenstermaker

By Karissa Bell2014-02-04 21:40:01 UTC

The developer behind Flappy Bird, a simple but rage-inducing game that recently went viral, says his success was just luck.

Flappy Bird, which first launched in May 2013, is currently the number-one free app in Apple's App Store and the number-one free game in the Google Play Store.

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The game became an overnight success after a wave of hilarious tweets, YouTube videos and expletive-filled reviews in iTunes and Google Play went viral in the past week.

Dong Nguyen, the Vietnam-based indie developer who created Flappy Bird, said he never did any promotion for the game. "The popularity could be my luck," he said in a recent interview with Chocolate Lab Apps.

Flappy Bird is so difficult, many users don't get scores past the double digits.

The goal of Flappy Bird is simple: Tap the screen to keep the bird from falling out of the air, while dodging obstacles in your path. Its basic gameplay and low-res graphics is reminiscent of other endless-running-style games, such as Tiny Wings .

Nguyen, who created Flappy Bird by himself in two to three days, said the game's uncomplicated approach may be key to its success, and added that he thinks western-made mobile games are unnecessarily complex.

Nguyen did not respond to Mashable's multiple requests to comment. He appears to have been caught off guard by his apps' sudden popularity, calling its success "overrated," and is currently avoiding press.

Flappy Bird's success has also propelled Nguyen's other two games, Super Ball Juggling and Shuriken Block , to top spots on iTunes; the two games currently hold the number-four and number-nine spots, respectively.

Flappy Bird is available for iOS and Android. Nguyen said in a tweet that fans can expect a Windows Phone 8 version of the game some time in the next two weeks.

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Topics: Android, apps-and-software, Apps and Software, flappy bird, Gaming, iOS, mobile games, Tech