7 Ways Flappy Bird is Like Dark Souls

Don’t be fooled by Flappy Bird’s colorful, Mario-inspired graphics. The game is a brutal, unforgiving, neverending gauntlet of pain and death. And once you start playing it you might never stop.

Flappy Bird is the Dark Souls of casual mobile games. Allow me to explain why:

1) It punishes you for the smallest mistakes.

Flappy Bird is a simple take on a well-worn gameplay idea: your little bird is always moving forward. Flying through gaps keeps him alive. Hit a wall, and it’s game over. We’ve all played games like this before. But not quite like this.

To call Flappy Bird “unforgiving” is an understatement. Success requires near-perfection. There are no compromises and no second chances. Get it right, and your run continues. Make a mistake, and your run ends. It’s as simple as that.

2) It may be brutally hard, but it is never unfair.

Every game-ending pipe collision is pixel-perfect. Some climbs or dives might be hard to make, but none are impossible. Every single death in Flappy Bird is always your fault, never the game. You either jumped too early, or too late - that’s all there is to it.

The game doesn’t even escalate in difficulty over time until you get yourself into an unfair or impossible situation, either. It doesn’t need to. The amount of focus and precision required guarantees that every run will end. Likely sooner rather than later.

3) You can feel yourself getting better…

At first Flappy Bird’s gaps seem impossibly small. For 10 runs (or more) your high score will probably be… 1. Maybe as high as 3 or 4, if you’re a natural. You’ll crash into the tops of pipes, or not jump in time. Over and over again.

But then something interesting happens.

The gaps that used to seem so miniscule genuinely start to look bigger. The game starts to feel easier. It doesn’t happen right away, but it does happen. Once you truly understand Flappy Bird’s momentum, you’ll fly through 10 gaps. Then 20. Then 30. You’ll think back to when you couldn’t get a score higher than 1 and laugh.

4) ...But you never truly feel safe

Even with a 50+ high score and most runs climbing well into the double digits, you’ll still die on the first or second gap. A lot. You never feel safe or comfortable in Flappy Bird’s gauntlet. The game is still out to kill you. And it will.

5) Nothing is explained to you. You learn by dying.

Flappy Bird’s confidence and purity is such that nothing needs to be explained to you. You’re just shown a picture of a bird and a single command: “Tap!” - nothing more is needed. Through just a few moments of trial-and-error you’ve learned everything you need to know.

6) You play best when you concentrate and focus intently.

Flappy Bird is a game that demands your full attention.

Even though the entire game is just one-fingered tapping, this is not a game you can win on the bus, or absent-mindedly in line. You need to lose yourself in it. You can’t allow it to put you on-tilt when a small error messes up a great run. You have to become the Flappy Bird zen master, shutting out the outside world and your own inner monologue. Only then can true Platinum Medal success come.

7) Success feels so, so good.

Every run in Flappy Bird ends in abrupt disappointment. But putting together a perfect run and setting a new high score feels so good that you can’t ever stay mad. Whenever you set a new high score you’re compelled to snap a screenshot and share your success with all your Flappy Bird-playing friends.

Not unlike finally making it past a brutal Dark Souls boss.

Justin Davis is the second or third best-looking Editor at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN.

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