You may be one of many smartphone and tablet users lamenting the loss of Flappy Bird since the developer famously pulled it from the App and Play Stores earlier this month. If that’s the case, you may be desperately looking for your next fix – but be aware that many of the Flappy Bird-a-likes now popping up may not be exactly what they seem.
Naked Security blogger Paul Ducklin explains in this post how users with Android devices are now looking for off-market apps from unknown sources, unaware of what they may be getting into:
…as Andras expected and soon noticed, the malware crooks muscled in, too, offering infected versions of Flappy Bird in alternative Android markets…
…like writers, musicians and artists whose popularity surges when they die, Flappy Bird enjoyed a bigger-than-ever viral marketing boost upon its demise.
So it’s possible, even likely, that otherwise conservative users have been turning on the “unknown sources” feature so they can take a belated look at what the Flappy Bird fuss is all about.
The entire article is worth a read, just to get an idea of how sneaky and easily your data can be compromised if you’re not careful and exercising caution.
Meanwhile, Pythonista user ‘bashedcrab’ decided to make his own clone, and also ended up letting his son work in an underwater redesign:
This gist is modelled as closely as possible on the original Flappy bird to the point the the tower gap/width, scroll speed, jump height, gravity etc make playing this game just as frustrating as the original. If you want to make it accessible for kids, increase the gap. But doing for yourself will destroy the Flappy Bird’s addictive quality.
What’s nice about this is, because it’s written in Python, you have the ability to go in, tweak the code, adjust some of the playability settings and, because it’s already on your iOS device, you can just crack on and play with it.
That seems a heck of a better way to get your Flappy fix – all while getting to know how the game mechanics work. And you can have it up and running in about 40 seconds:
Pythonista from omz:software is Universal and costs £4.99.
/via MacStories