The Bird Game, by pilots for pilots, out now on iOS & Android
Fly high
- The Bird Game is a new flight sim built 'by pilots for pilots'
- Rather than simulation dense aviation mechanics, it focuses on simplicity and fun
- Trade energy to climb, use altitude to gain speed, and so on, through seven procedural environment types
A huge number of great releases are driven by passion and knowledge, as is the case with The Bird Game. Where's this expertise coming from? Well, in the case of solo team Candlelight Development, it's all things aviation (or aviaries in this case). This fun, fast-paced flight simulator comes with a feathery twist, and it's available to play for free on iOS and Android.
The core conceit of The Bird Game is that you're, well, a bird. Your objective is to fly around and collect other birds' feathers, while managing the energy you spend to flap your wings and climb. If you've played simple flight sims you'll be familiar with the tradeoff between altitude, speed, and managing the two to gather enough resources to keep your energy up.
Yes, despite being built by an aviation enthusiast you don't need to worry about being perplexed by dense avionic terminology or mechanics. Just race your way through seven different, procedurally-generated environment types, unlocking over 16 bird avatars and upgrade your bird for more speed and excitement.
To refer to something I always do, The Bird Game reminds me of a great many Flash releases that made use of similar mechanics. That's not a bad thing either, as I think Candlelight Development has hit the sweet spot of producing something that clearly has a lot of passion and expertise behind it. But also not being slavishly devoted to having it be as accurate and granular in simulation as possible to the exclusion of casual players.
You can find The Bird Game right now on Android and iOS, free with in-app purchases.
If you want to keep up with great, underrated releases like The Bird Game be sure to check in on our weekly feature of the top five new mobile games to try this week for great upcoming releases!
