Pinoy Flappy Bird-inspired game Pugo is top pick on AppStore

Pugo, a Filipino-made Flappy Bird alternative, now ranks number one worldwide in the Top Chart of free apps two days after it became available on the iOS AppStore.

Co-creator Patrick Cabral posted a photo on his Instagram account on Friday to show that the game he and his wife Camy designed has topped the charts.




As in Flappy Bird, you have to tap the screen to control your character and avoid the obstacles. But instead of having a bird set in a pixelated, Mario-inspired world, you have a cute, pink quail exploring a forest.

You also acquire extra lives by picking up Philippine flags along the way, so you don't always die when you hit an obstacle.

Ranking high in the Top Charts is a crucial step for developers to monetize their free apps and generate revenue.

By ranking first in the top charts, a developer hits two birds with one stone: he proves that his game attracts a huge number of downloaders, thereby making it a hot pick for advertisers, and he makes his game more visible to future downloaders, since Top Charts are a main reference smartphone users rely on for quality downloads.

The three-day-old Pugo game now has ads that appear before you start the game and below the game's set.

Pugo is Patrick and Camy's first game. Both are designers and artists each with years of experience in advertising, web and graphic design, illustration and art direction, according to Pugo's official website. — Kim Luces/JDS, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Even kids can make their own 'Flappy Bird' game in 15 minutes with this simple tool

What better way to celebrate a flappy, er, happy first birthday than teaching children to make their own "Flappy Bird" game?

A US-based organization advocating computer science education did just that, posting on its website the code for making a "Flappy Game."

"Flappy Bird is a simple game, and using the basics of computer science, any student can create their own version with endless possibilities," Code.org said on its website.

With the code, it said children can build their own Flappy game, "whether it’s Flappy Bird, or Flappy Easter Bunny, Flappy Santa, Flappy Shark with Lasers, Flappy Fairy or Flappy Underwater Unicorn."


It also said that with the code, any student can create his or her own variation of the popular but now-defunct mobile game "with endless possibilities."





"You can make your own rules, and make your flappy game as easy or as hard as you want. You can even reverse the scoring or make it change randomly as you play," Code.org said.

But best of all, it said students can share the code with one click so their friends can play the game on any computer or phone, or even inside Facebook or Twitter.

Meanwhile, Code.org also marked its birthday with one billion lines of code written by students in under three months.

"Since we launched the Hour of Code and its follow-up course in December, over 27 million users, in 34 languages, across 170 countries together wrote one billion lines of code in our tutorials," it said.

In 15 minutes

A separate report on GeekWire said the code allows children to develop their own "Flappy Bird" game in 15 minutes.

It quoted Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi, a Seattle entrepreneur who founded Code.org with his brother Ali, as saying the idea for a "Flappy Bird" tutorial came about during a Code.org employee happy hour.

"The entire group was playing Flappy Bird competitively when they realized they could not only play this fun game, but also let others create it," it said.

“We already know that the chance to ‘make an app’ is something people aspire to, but they think it’s out of reach. We want to give kids something that lets them express a degree of creativeness,” Partovi said.

“There are endless possibilities and kids can try them and realize the creativity involved in computer science within just 20 minutes,” Partovi added.

Code.org described itself as a "non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science education by making it available in more schools, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color."

"Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer programming. We believe computer science should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra," it said. — VC/TJD, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

After Sesame Street’s Bert, Miley Cyrus stars in Flappy Bird spinoff

After Sesame Street's Bert, it's singer Miley Cyrus' turn to star in yet another spinoff game of the popular "Flappy Bird."

The latest spinoff stars a cartoon image of Miley, tongue out and all, navigating through—what else?—hammers and wrecking balls.

The 3.5-megabyte game is available for download from Apple's App Store and is optimized for iPhone 5, though it runs on Apple devices running iOS 5.0 or later.

A separate report on enthusiast site 9to5mac.com said the game, titled "Flying Cyrus – Wrecking Ball," features a "long tongued, head shaved" Miley.

"This has to be the lowest valley the Flappy Bird rip offs could possibly spiral through… right?!" it said.

What's more interesting, the site said, is that the game has topped the US App Store free list.

"All the damage that could possibly be done has been done, folks. Can we leave what’s left of our dignity in tact now? Please!?" it commented. — VC, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com