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Top 5 Weirdest Flappy Bird Clones

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Tiny Flying Drizzy – Are you a fan of chart-topping hip-hop star Drake and a fan of Flappy Birds? If so, this is the game for you. Collect Grammy Awards as Drake's disembodied head in this vaguely creepy clone that looks as if it were cobbled together in an afternoon.

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First Person Flappy – If you've ever wanted to “Be the bird” from Flappy Bird (lord knows why) then this is your chance. This disorientating experience takes the basic mechanics of Flappy Bird and flips the view-point so it plays as a first-person game. The result is a game even more infuriating than the original that could also make you lose your lunch. Especially if you decide to brave the Oculus Rift version!

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Flappy Bert – As a Sesame Street fan, this one hit particularly close to home. The game is largely unchanged, only instead of controlling a lone bird, this time you're controlling a bird carrying the beloved Bert (of Bert and Ernie fame) through a series of multi-coloured pipes. It's actually a lot easier than the original too!

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Flap MMO – As if the original game wasn't difficult enough, this chaotic mod transforms the original endurance test into a confusing mess where the (literal) ghosts of hundreds of other players crowd your screen. Not. Easy.

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Crappy Turd – Do I really need to explain this one? It involves action, drama, romance, plungers and faeces, literally. To be fair, the game itself controls quite well, some might argue more responsibly than most of the other titles on this list. Plus there's the novelty value to consider. Still, the sprites are pretty naff and the sound effects would grate even on an eight year old after a few minutes. One for the crapper. Once again. Literally.

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If you can remember all the way back to 2013 (come on, 2014 wasn't that much of a slog surely?) then you'll undoubtedly remember the infuriating mobile games that took the world by storm almost over night. Flappy Bird was a simple, maddeningly addictive app with no clear goal, just an endless succession of pipes the player had to manoeuvre through using a simple tapping mechanism. It was far from an original concept, and the game itself was flawed beyond belief, but that didn't stop it becoming so popular that it sent its Vietnamese creator Dong Nguyen into self-imposed exile.

Flappy Bird was a simple, maddeningly addictive app with no clear goal, just an endless succession of pipes the player had to manoeuvre through

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Now the horror is set to begin anew, only this time in the arcades (remember them?) thanks to the Wisconsin-based company Bay Tek Games, who have created a surprisingly fancy looking Flappy Bird arcade cabinet. The cabinet is a 300-pound, 91-inch tall behemoth boasting a 43-inch portrait screen and just one control; a gigantic red button. The primary difference here, however, is that there is actually a point to the game, as it will spit out tickets as the player progresses, which can (depending on the arcade) be exchanged for prizes. Now, I can't speak for the value or the legitimacy of these prizes (that depends very much on the establishment in question), but at least those sweaty palms and cramped wrists might actually amount to something for once.

Flappy Bird – Arcade

This is not actually the first time a smartphone hit has been transformed into an arcade machine, as Temple Run and Doodle Jump have both already been successfully converted. As with these forebears, the Flappy Bird Arcade is a game based entirely on score hunting, with daily high scores and all-time high scores both recorded onto each machine's hard drive. Personally, I'd rather play Time Crisis with an actual gun to my head, but then there's no accounting for taste.

The Wisconsin-based company Bay Tek Games, who have created a surprisingly fancy looking Flappy Bird arcade cabinet

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The Flappy Bird saga has been a short and confusing one. The game itself was created by Nguyen in just three days, with the bird character a left-over from an abandoned platform game. His goal was to create a game so simple that literally anyone could pick up and play it. He succeeded, and by the end of 2013, Nguyen was earning more than $50,000 a day in revenue through in-game advertising. The game was removed from both Apple's App Store and Google's Play store in February last year after its creator said he couldn't sleep because he worried he had created a game that was just too addictive. This didn't stop him, however, from releasing an updated version of the game last August, exclusively for Amazon's Fire devices. The quasi-sequel is largely unchanged, save for the fact that players can now choose different birds to control and there is now a split-screen, multiplayer mode.

Flappy Birds Family – Gameplay Trailer

In essence, I believe the Flappy Bird story proves my theory that the world of gaming has regressed (to some extent) back to the home-brew dynamism of the early days, when games didn't require entire studios, just one coder and an idea. Of course, there will always be a place for the big budget blockbusters, but for my money, the real ingenuity on display in today's industry comes from the indie sector, in games such as Limbo, The Swapper and The Binding of Isaac. Granted, Flappy Bird couldn't hold a candle to either of those infinitely superior titles, but its incredible success shows that everyone is not necessarily after another soulless Call of Duty clone. 

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and musician from Kidderminster in the UK. He is semi-considering creating his own Flappy Bird clone, though realises he might have missed the boat. Suggestions in the comments below!

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