Ninja, etc. were all made to entertain you in the ol’ crapper.

 

They were all equally fun, at the very beginning. But then, some quickly faded to become a challenge. Angry Birds, for example, sure made people angry because that ONE DUMB PIG REFUSED TO TOPPLE OVER AND DIE. Temple Run frustrated many people because I SWEAR, I SWIPED MY FINGER DOWN TO AVOID THAT TRUNK.

 

But now, a new one has arrived. Flappy Bird is what it's called. It looks like some bootleg Mario Brothers game at first glance, but really, it's so much more. There's a bird (that actually looks more like a fish-bird hybrid) that you need to make go in between two pipes without touching them by tapping it repeatedly. You stop tapping, the bird nosedives into its own death.

 

It seems pretty easy when you just hear about it, or look over at someone who's playing it. People would give you sneers for not getting over five points, until they actually try it (given it's their first time). The thing is, the bird is SO DARN SENSITIVE, that when one of its pixels touches a single pixel from the pipe, it dies. Boom. No saving, no going back.

 

It takes so much finger-eye coordination to get past one pipe, and that is before you start becoming aware of blinking and breathing.

 

"How hard could this be?" sophomore Chelse Rathnayake asked herself before playing her very first Flappy Bird game which, by the way, resulted in a 1 point nosedive death.

 

"I didn't know you were supposed to keep tapping! I just held my finger there, and next thing I knew, I was dead," she added.

 

Chelse represents 95% of Flappy Bird gamers.

 

Some people, however, have mastered the flapping of the bird. Daniel Diaz-Vita, a junior, had achieved triple digits within a matter of hours.

 

“It took me one class period to get used to it. My very first score was four. I started in extension and I got triple digits in Spanish that same day,” he said.

 

When asked if he had any special methods to his “success”, he simply said he didn’t really have one; he just makes the bird go through the pipes. Daniel currently holds a high score of 233. Whatever.

 

Flappy Bird is currently the number one most irritating yet most addicting game of this young year. Now, it’s time to ask ourselves. These games that bring frustration, anger, the worst of us, are they signs of the upcoming doom of the technological era? What will be the next infuriating and “innocent” game to come? What do they have planned for us? Only time will tell.