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Code.org Resurrects 'Flappy Bird' As Programming Lesson

Posted by timothy on from the keeping-up-with-the-times dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Flappy Bird might be kaput, but its hilariously awkward hero is serving another useful purpose in its afterlife: teaching people how to code. Flappy Bird, a free mobile game for Android and iOS that asks the player to guide the titular avian through an obstacle course of vertical pipes, became a sensation earlier this year, seizing the top spots on the Apple and Google Play app stores. Its creator, Dong Nguyen, said the game earned him an average of $50,000 a day through in-app advertising — but that didn't stop him from yanking the game offline in early February. Now Code.org has resurrected Flappy Bird, Phoenix-style, from the smoking wreckage, with a free tutorial that allows anyone with a bit of time to code his or her very own version of the game. There's no actual code to learn, thanks to a visual interface that allows budding developers to drag 'blocks' of commands into place. 'Flappy Bird recently met its untimely death. We might've been tempted to cry all day and give up on spreading computer science (not really, but R.I.P Flappy Bird),' read a note on Code.org's blog. 'Instead, we built a new drag-and-drop tutorial that lets you build your own Flappy game — whether it's Flappy Bird, or Flappy Easter Bunny, Flappy Santa, Flappy Shark with Lasers, Flappy Fairy or Flappy Underwater Unicorn.' Childish? Maybe. But it could help draw people into coding for fun or profit."

14 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Copyright? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just because he pulled the game does not mean he gave up rights to it.

    1. Re:Copyright? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rights? Rights to what? Sprites from Mario or the game concept that has been around for decades?

    2. Re:Copyright? by QuasiSteve · · Score: 3, Informative

      Mod anon parent up?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

    3. Re:Copyright? by Cenan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too addictive

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      ... whatever ...
    4. Re:Copyright? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You can't copyright the mechanics of the game, which is why every successful game gets copied until there's 50 different versions of essentially the same thing.

      In fact, I believe this is what Zynga based their business model on -- doing knock-offs of someone else's games.

      You can copyright the specific images, but not the mechanics.

      Hell, I've got one on my Android tablet called "Happy Poo Flap".

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  2. Lego building != Architect by Arith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    WAAAAAIIIT wait wait wait ...

    "Flappy Bird might be kaput, but its hilariously awkward hero is serving another useful purpose in its afterlife: teaching people how to code."
    and
    "There's no actual code to learn, thanks to a visual interface that allows budding developers to drag 'blocks' of commands into place."

    So.. you're teaching people to code by not teaching people to code?

    1. Re:Lego building != Architect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, you are teaching the concept of computer programs. If you want to look at the code click the "Show Code" button. This is a very clever tutorial.

    2. Re:Lego building != Architect by Arith · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll admit all I read was those two lines :) The only exception I take - popularizing code like this - is we get a flood of useless coders out there, who don't know how a compiler/linker etc etc work. Not to say we don't already have that.. just worse.

      On the other hand, sparking that interest is fairly key. Shrug, if it works, it works.

    3. Re:Lego building != Architect by Cenan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's no more a tutorial on programming, than watching the Nature channel is an education to become a biologist. It might spark someone's interest, but I do think that interest would have been sparked regardless.

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      ... whatever ...
  3. Flappy Coding Generation by BisuDagger · · Score: 2

    This is the perfect opportunity to breed more Flappy Coders. I can't wait to see what Flappy Coding will bring us next!

    1. Re:Flappy Coding Generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is the perfect opportunity to breed more Flappy Coders. I can't wait to see what Flappy Coding will bring us next!

      Flappy Code. Flappy Programs. Flappy Servers. Flappy Cloud.

    2. Re:Flappy Coding Generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Beta Slashdot.

  4. Re:Why all the popularity? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    Flappy Bird didn't gain popularity thanks to a great and innovative concept. It succeeded thanks to 1. initially fake reviews from the author 2. many people downloading it 3. and talking about it (basically asking the same question as yours) 4. more downloads. In other words, the snowball effect...

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    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  5. Re:Why all the popularity? by Soulskill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think there exists a good 'why' for games like this getting ridiculously popular. It seems every so often a game will hit a few social circles in just the right way, and enough people will talk about it that it infects other socials, eventually propagating to where it shows up on 'Featured' and 'Hot' lists, which sets off another round of growth.

    At least this one's not another variation on Bejeweled (which was itself very derivative).