‘Flappy Bird’ Online Lookalike Flappy Doge Seeks to Duplicate Frustrating Experience

‘Flappy Bird’ Online Lookalike Flappy Doge Seeks to Duplicate Frustrating Experience
Jack Phillips
2/13/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

“Flappy Doge” is seeking to duplicate the experience of “Flappy Bird” after it was deleted from the App Store and Google Play this weekend.

The game is available online at this website.

It took the gameplay of “Flappy Bird” and superimposed the “Doge” meme on top of it. 

The “doge” meme--primarily used on Reddit--dates back to 2005 when it was put on “Homestar Runner.”

The “doge” in question is the Shiba Inu dog Kabosu.

AP update: Creator says game over for maddening Flappy Bird  

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The young Vietnamese creator of hit mobile game Flappy Bird has removed it from the App Store and Google Play saying it ruined his life.

The game which was uploaded in 2013 but only surged to the top in downloads earlier this year was removed early Monday.

The success of the game that based its appeal on being simple and also maddeningly difficult made its creator Nguyen Ha Dong, 29, a minor celebrity.

The game was downloaded more than 50 million times on App Store alone. In an interview with The Verge website, Dong said Flappy Bird was making $50,000 a day in advertising revenue

But tech blogger Carter Thomas said the sudden popularity of Flappy Bird might have been due to use of fake accounts run by computers to create downloads and reviews.

Thomas said he couldn’t prove his suspicion and that the success of Flappy Bird might also be explained by it being “just a wildly viral game.”

Dong, from Hanoi, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the Internet sensation caused by the game “ruins my simple life” and he now hated it.

“I will take Flappy Bird down. I cannot take this anymore,” he wrote.

Dong had agreed to talk to The Associated Press about the game in an interview scheduled for Friday, but canceled.

On Twitter he didn’t address the inflated downloads allegation but denied suggestions he was withdrawing the game because it breached another game maker’s copyright.

“It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore,” he wrote.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
twitter