The best (and worst) of some recent Flappy Bird knockoffs

Best pipe analog

Winner — Flappy Devil

Something has always bothered me about Flappy Bird: Where the hell were those upper pipes coming from? I mean, I know it’s a video game and we have some issues of scale to consider. But now that I think about it, where did any of those pipes come from, and why doesn’t the bird just go around them if they’re so damned dangerous? You’re outside, Flappy; get your shit together.

Flappy Devil fixes two of those problems by taking place in a cave and having players avoid stalactites and stalagmites. I still don’t know why he doesn’t go around the stupid things, but at least I understand why they’re there.

Runner-up — Flappy Nerd

Flappy Nerd takes place in Doodle Land, and our brave hero must flap his tiny arms to avoid pencils. This is another case of the obstacle making sense for the setting even if the setting doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in itself. But it also explains why he can’t go around, since he’s a doodle or whatever and therefore two-dimensional.

But maybe we shouldn’t spend too much time unspooling the lore of Flappy Nerd. That could take all day.

Worst pipe analog

Winner — Saudade

The weird thing about Saudade is that it has some interesting visual elements. The fish looks pretty cool, anyway.

That’s why it’s disappointing that the obstacles you’re sending him through are so boring. They’re rectangles. And I’m not an oceanographer, but I’m hard-pressed to name any place on Earth in which these formations exist. Throw in some rocks or something, please. You spent all that time on the fish. Look at him in that screenshot; he doesn’t even understand what that thing is.

Runner-up — Floaty Fish

I’ve already said my piece about the pipes and stuff not making sense, but this is a special case because it tries to have it both ways. Floaty Fish is trying to avoid mines. And these are apparently special mines that can float or sink as needed with no change in appearance.

Do you see that mine over there floating up from the bottom of the ocean? About 10 feet away is an identical mine extending down from the surface. Who placed these things, and why? And how? And what would have happened to them if they’d accidentally put a floaty mine where they wanted a sinky one? They’d all be dead, is what. Mark your mines, kids.

Even Floaty Fish is calling bullshit.

Best App Store description

Winner — Flappy Pants

I mean, it’s really hard to go wrong with an app in which you control a pair of floating pants that appear to be in pursuit of a naked man. And the developer is aware of this and just lays it all out in the App Store description. Here are some choice bits:

• Among the features: “Simple controls! Pants! Sweet Animations!”
• “Can you get the high score — Who wears the pants?”
• “Flappy Flappy Flappy till you are Happy Happy Happy!”

OK — I know this is dumb. But it’s a game about pants, damn it. Paaaaaaaaants.

Runner-up — Die 2 Fly: Penguin Adventure HD

Yes, this is a flying game about a flightless bird. And normally that would have put this game in the running for “Worst Bird Analog,” but that ignores one important fact: Penguins are adorable.

The developer is aware of all this, though. “Penguins can’t fly,” the description says. “This one thinks he can; can you survive the icy pole hazards?”

That line has two things going for it: an acknowledgement that the game is, in fact, wildly scientifically inaccurate and the phrase “icy pole hazards,” which in this case means “pipes identical to the ones in Flappy Bird except these ones are blue, but sssshhhhh.”

Best title

Winner — Aqua Bird: Super Pipe Saga

Do I even need to say why this won? In this flap-free title, you play as a boy riding the Aqua Bird rocket through an obstacle course of giant tubes full of sharks. The whole thing sounds like a spin-off of Axe Cop (a comic whose writer created it when he was 5 years old), and it has a suitably awesome name to go along with it.

If this game were a cartoon, I would watch the hell out of it.

Runner-up — Owl Fly 2014

Before you ask: No, this is not the latest entry in an annual series. But it sounds like one, and that’s why it’s the runner-up.

Owl Fly 2014 doesn’t offer much else in the way of creativity or not being like Flappy Bird, but I like to imagine an annual Owl Fly event, like when people dress up dachshunds like hot dogs and make them race.

Only more dignified and with way more talons.

Most confusing

Winner — Splashy Eagle Flyer

Somebody please help me understand this game.

You play as an eagle. I get that part. But I don’t know where “splashy” comes from, nor do I understand why the eagle in question is flying around inside someone’s house. And are the bookshelves the obstacles, or do the pets count, too? How big does this house have to be to give an eagle enough room to fly forever?

And how freaking big must that mouse be to have made a hole taller than the cat?

Runner-up — Cheeky Monkeys

This one was really close. I couldn’t figure out if it was more confusing to play as an eagle inexplicably flying indoors or a monkey inexplicably flying at all.

In the end, the eagle won, but that doesn’t mean this title makes any more sense. Look at the size of those coconuts. Behold the monkey’s too-red behind. Marvel at how this character is moving at all.

All these mysteries and more can be yours in Cheeky Monkeys.