Create Your Own Flappy Game

Dong Nguyen’s viral hit may have been the app that spawned a million clones, but why play other people’s knockoffs when you could piece together the game yourself in a little under ten minutes? FlappyBird’s simple yet brutal template is an ideal lens through which to teach core game logic, as computer science advocacy group Code.org proves in this ten-step workshop. Each asks you to assemble blocks of actions and conditions into chains to complete a basic task, walking you through replicating the titular bird’s graceless flaps as well as fail states and scoring. What could be dryly academic is enlivened by room to tinker – you’re increasingly free to bend rules. The end result is derivative, sure, but every fledging artist starts out by carefully observing their peers.