The infamous mobile game Flappy Bird has been recreated on the macOS platform using Apple's push notification system long after the game app disappeared from the market. Flappy Bird was a mobile app game from 2013, from the developers at dotGears on both iOS and Android. The game only took a few days to make, which is reflected in the app's simplicity. Players tap the screen to go up, using this movement to avoid green pipe-shaped obstacles moving from the right side of the screen to the left, similar to a Super Mario sidescroller.
While the game was very simple, it was not an instant hit, only gaining notoriety once the infamous online personality and YouTuber PewDiePie reviewed the game on his channel. At this point the app took off, reportedly making over 50,000 in in-game advertising a day. Now, one developer has managed to bring back the phenomenon in a strange new way.
The new macOS feature comes from developer Neil Sardesai, who initially Tweeted about whether or not it would even be possible. It was Sardesai who put a Flappy Bird clone onto the Apple system, having to build a new edition of the game instead of just porting the original over. Getting this to work on a macOS Big Sur does require a workaround, which Sardesai explains in the Tweet thread below, taking advantage of the UserNotificationsUI framework.
The game works by clicking the mouse, instead of tapping the screen as the original Flappy Bird required, with the similar little pixel bird nose-diving towards the ground between clicks. The green pipes from the game have been remade, with the game ending if the bird touches or comes in contact with one. Thankfully, players can just restart a run in the notification box instead of waiting for a new push notification to come through to play it again.
Putting an entire mobile app game into a macOS push notification is a stroke of genius by Sardesai, creating a hilarious feature that Apple never intended the notification box to be used for. The clone can be played in a web browser as well, but nothing will be quite like the thrill of receiving a push notification and wasting a few minutes getting lost in the game. Be warned, though, the Flappy Bird gameplay is still just as addictive as it was when it first launched.
Source: Neil Sardesai