CS491 Homework 0 – meierdg
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App Name: Angry Birds
App Developer: Rovio Mobile/http://www.rovio.com/
Part of the beauty of Angry Birds lies in the fact that anyone can learn how to play it in a very small amount of time. Even if the new user isn’t told what to do, they can load the app up, press the big “Play” button in the center of their screen, and they’re well on their way. The only difficulty in learning the game (assuming they don’t know how the slingshot works) is that they must realize to either keep trying to touch the screen in different ways to figure out the mechanics, or to press the pause symbol, and touch the question mark. That’s the extent of the learning, later on in the game new birds are revealed, but there is also pictures showing what each bird does.
The controls are so minimalistic it’s beautiful. The only words in the entire app are: Play, Highscore, Score, and Angry Birds. This obviously lends well to multi language support (even google would be hard pressed to mess those translations up), but it just makes everything easy for the user in general. Need to pause? Press the pause symbol! The control of flinging your birds is intuitive once the user knows the basics of the game, if you want to sling something you hold it, pull it back, and then release, which is exactly how the app works.
Rovio Mobile (the developers) really hit it big with this app because it was made for a mobile platform. There are countless other physics-based puzzles (apparently also referred to as petrary physics puzzles) to be found for free on the internet prior to Angry Bird’s release, however with the combination of cute characters, amusing noises, and the simple fact that it could be brought with the consumer with no constant internet connection required, really led to a hit.
Feedback from users in the app store about this game is all positive, the game has an average rating (rounded of course) of 5 out of 5 stars. Its addictiveness tends to be its most praised attribute and it really shows: in the app store the original is the 4rd top grossing app, the “Seasons” sequel is the 1st in the same category, and the “Rio” sequel is 10th in the “Top Paid” category.
The only possible way I had of getting any sort of framerate issue playing this game on my iPod touch was when it popped up a warning saying the battery was at 20% power. So in reality, I haven’t found a way to crash it or anything of the sort.
As it was listed before, all of the Angry Birds games are available for purchase for a measly $0.99 each. At that price even the most frugal of people have a difficult time writing it off as a waste of money, which definitely seems to help with sales. There are also free versions in the app store, which seem to have fewer levels and adds that show up to make up for the price tag.