Flappy Bird is a mobile game that flapped its way into our hearts in 2013, thanks to the genius of Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen. It zoomed into the spotlight faster than a cat chasing a laser pointer, thanks to its oh-so-addictive gameplay and easy-peasy mechanics. But hold onto your hats, because it also stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy with its hair-pulling difficulty and frustration levels that could make a saint swear!

In Flappy Bird, players take charge of a tiny feathered friend, guiding it through a treacherous obstacle course of pipes that seem to have been designed by a particularly mischievous architect. The goal is to navigate through the gaps without crashing into the pipes or plummeting to the ground, which calls for some serious timing and coordination—like trying to dance while juggling flaming torches! Every time you squeeze through a gap like a contortionist at a circus, you snag a point, and the ultimate aim is to rack up a score that would make even a calculator sweat!

Flappy Bird is like that one friend who insists on playing the hardest game at the party—it's a real test of your patience and skill! The game is famous for its ruthless gameplay, where players find themselves in a constant battle to keep the bird airborne while dodging obstacles like they're in a high-stakes game of dodgeball—except the ball is a brick wall and the stakes are your sanity! This led to a bunch of players getting hooked on the game, desperately trying to outdo their own or their friends' high scores, and proudly flaunting their victories on social media like they just won an Olympic gold medal.

Flappy Bird flew into the spotlight with its pixelated graphics and animations so simple, they make a potato look high-tech, giving players a delightful trip down memory lane—if that lane was paved with 8-bit nostalgia! The game's creator, Dong Nguyen, eventually removed Flappy Bird from the app stores in 2014, citing the game's addictive nature and the negative impact it had on his life. But wait, the game's fame didn't just take a bow and exit stage left! Nope, it stuck around like that one friend who always shows up uninvited, leading to a whole parade of clones and spin-offs popping up from other developers like mushrooms after a rainstorm.