Brendan Greene, famously known as PlayerUnknown, has announced his departure from PUBG Corp. The creative genius behind PUBG has decided to start an independent game studio in the Netherlands.
I spent the better part of my weekend playing Flappy Royale. I didn’t necessarily want to. I just felt like I had to. It’s a hypnotic experience that’s way too easy to just keep playing.
Flappy Royale is the brainchild of Orta Therox, Em Lazer-Walker, and Zach Gage. It's a very simple idea: Take the the rules of Battle Royale games (e.g. PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends) and apply them to Flappy Bird. 100 players play as birds that jump out of a bus. From there, they must fly between as many pipes as possible until one player is deemed the champion.
The game controls pretty much exactly like Flappy Bird did back in 2013. The only real differences are the hopping out of the bus (presumably inspired by the Fortnite Battle Bus) and 99 ghost birds flapping on screen with you, all competing for the number one spot.
This latter element—the ability to see other players play while you do—is the secret sauce that makes Flappy Royale such a tantalizing challenge. You can always see your competition flapping alongside you, and you want beat all of them. If you can’t do that, maybe you settle for getting a top 50 finish before diving in again to see if you can do better.
Although it’s not officially released, anyone can go and download the beta release of the game here. In this early state though, the game is already quite popular. Here are some stats Orta Therox shared about the game over the weekend:
Oh… Damn. I was doing the stats wrong.
600,000 games were played on mobile native. 1,300,000 games were played on web.
In two days, there’s been almost 2 million games of Flappy Royale! pic.twitter.com/NmDwYngL2p
— ./orta --tsc (@orta) June 29, 2019
Current Flappy Royale statistics: 20 games started per second right now, with 600,000 games so far. Looks like folks average about 50 plays per session.
— ./orta --tsc (@orta) June 29, 2019
2 million games of Flappy Royale is really impressive, especially considering it populates each of those games with 100 players. Where it starts feeling downright magical is when you consider that all of these matches start pretty much instantly.
The way Flappy Royale eliminates any sort of queue times for matches is ingenious, and probably another big reason for the game’s stickiness. Instead of filling matches with bots or waiting for 100 live players to play a level at once, the game pits you against the ghost data of the last 99 players who played the level before you. In other words, you’re always playing against other people, but you don’t have to wait for them to log in for you to do so.
Right now, Flappy Royale really feels like it has huge potential. It successfully distills the most thrilling aspects of Battle Royale into a really tight mobile package. A lot of this has to do with how quick and easy it is to play ten rounds without blinking, so here’s to hoping the game doesn’t get too bloated with extra features or monetization schemes before it officially releases.
This month, we're looking back at the first half of 2018, looking at the good, the bad, and everything in between. In this piece we're having a think about the big changes that have happened in mobile gaming over the past six months, and what they might mean for mobile gamers moving forwards.
It's our job to keep an eye on the trends, new ideas, and new concepts that are happening in mobile, and we've had a good long think and decided that these five were the biggest changes in 2018. If you've spotted any that you think are worth mentining, then make sure you toss them in the comments section at the bottom of the article.
We're half way through the year, so here at 148Apps, we're dedicating July to looking back at the best, and worst games that have come out in the first half of the year, and looking forward to some of the delights that await us on the mobile gaming horizon.
First up, we're going to have a look at some of the games that have disappointed us in the first chunk of 2018. It's not that they're bad games, it's just that they didn't live up to the lofty expectations we set for them, for one reason or another.
Don't worry though, we'll be taking a more positive look at the year-so-far in other pieces, so it's not going to be all doom and gloom. And, of course, if you disagree with us on anything here, make sure you let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
Battle royale games are all the rage on the App Store at the moment. A couple of weeks ago we looked at the origins of the genre, but now it's time to get the crystal balls out and think about what might be the future for the giant deathmatches we all know and love. With PUBG and Fortnite both available for iOS now, and a good handful of clones out there as well, what can the genre do to stay relevant in a world as changeable as our own? Or is this going to be another flash in the pan genre that falls by the wayside before it's really had the chance to grow? Read on to find out what we think.
:: CHICKEN DINNER
Oh hi nice reader, and thanks for popping in to check out our weekly round-up of all the stuff that you might have missed across the Steel Media network. Yeah, that's right, it's a big ol' network. Obviously 148Apps is the best, but there are some other awesome sites involved too.
And like I say, this is a weekly round-up. So it'll happen next week as well. Essentially we want to make sure that you're up to date with all the comings and goings of the world of mobile and portable gaming. Come back next week, and you'll have all the knowledge to wow your friends and shut down your foes.
In just over a week, Epic Games has made a flurry of announcements. First, they revealed that Fortnite—their ultra-popular PUBG competitor—is coming to mobile. This was followed by brief sign-up period for interested beta testers before sending out their first round of invites yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on one of these early invites, so we can clear the air on exactly what Fortnite on mobile is like.
Before last week, if you asked me which game I prefer between Fortnite Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), I’d choose the latter just about 100% of the time. Now that we know that both games are primed to hit our mobile screens soon (you can even sign up for Fortnite here), I’m not so sure I’d have the same response. Between both of these games, Fortnite seems primed to be a much better mobile experience than PUBG, and here’s why:
148Apps is part of a family. A big family of sites that make sure you're always up to date with all the portable gaming news. Just like a real family, I guess. I don't know, my mum never told me anything about Candy Crush to be fair.
Anyway, every week we look at the best posts from around the network, in order to make sure that you're squeezing every drop of goodness from the Steel Media sites. This week is no different. So have a read, see what you've missed, and come back in seven days for another round up.
Well, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has come out on mobile. This isn't a clone, this isn't a riff on the battleroyale mechanics of the game, it's the official mobile port by Tencent. But there's a little bit of a hitch.
Because right now the game is only out in China. And as you might be able to imagine, that means that the version of the game you might be able to find a way to download, is all going to be in Chinese.
:: BITE-SIZED PUBG
