How games work
WhenFlappy Birdleft its mark on the world last year, it was glaringly obvious that it was a simple game. However, to the layman, there’s rarely an apparent connection between the presentation and the amount of developer coding required. That “simple game” could require tens of thousands of lines of code as far as most people know.
Well,Flappy Birdwas likely less convoluted than that, given that someone’s essentially recreated it in exactly18 lines of code. Okay, actually less than that because the last line is dedicated to a Douglas Adams quote. The clone, which is appropriately and uncleverly namedCrappy Bird, isn’t quite as refined as the original, but the sentiment’s there nonetheless.
It’s interesting to think ofFlappy Birdas a new de facto of sorts for beginner game development, possibly replacingSnakeas the go-to easy-to-make videogame. And, for those with only a rudimentary understanding of programming languages, it’s a neat look at the sort of stuff that makes beloved games run — even if it is just the smallest sliver.
