Bird Mania Review

Bird Mania is an aerial side-scrolling runner that has players controlling a bird while dodging trees, bees, other birds and more. It’s the player’s job to dodge everything while collecting stars, popping balloons and collecting an occasional group of musical notes to increase their score. They’ll also press a dash button to speed up and blast their way through other birds. By doing so, players increase their multiplier for achieving an even larger score.

The gameplay is pretty basic as most runners are. The game begins by moving along at a slow pace, but the further players get, the faster the bird moves. That’s the challenge, how far can a player go? The game tracks distance, highest multiplier, number of balloons popped and birds hit. The overall objective is achieving the highest score on the online leaderboards. Instead of one single play-through, like most runners, this game combines three attempts into one large total score.

The controls handle well as players only need to slightly move their finger or thumb up and down to control the bird. Slight movements precisely move the bird in the right direction, all the way up or down.

The visuals are decent as they change from night to day, and it also rains from time to time. Players need to be aware of the cloudy skies as birds or bees can be hidden behind the clouds causing the player to run into one, ending the round. I found it best to simply dash as much as possible to avoid such collisions. Dashing only lasts for a matter of seconds before it needs to quickly recharge.

The music during the gameplay is fine to listen to and it makes the gameplay slightly more interesting, for a moment, as players collect musical notes that go in sync with the music. While it’s not an amazing feature, I did like it the first time I came across it. However, the second time, I dashed – increasing my speed – and the notes didn’t coincide with the music which made that part become disappointing. I think they could have done more to make that a better experience.

While Bird Mania is pretty basic, it certainly has an addictive quality that entices the player to put up higher scores. However, it’s not a game that is going to be played over and over again after the initial rush.

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