In Chapter 6, Making the 2048 Game, we already fiddled with simple game development, exemplified by the well-known 2048 puzzle. This is the logical continuation: we're going to build an arcade game, more specifically a Flappy Bird-style side scroller.

Flappy Bird is an incredibly simple yet very addictive mobile game released by Dong Nguyen back in 2013; by the end of January 2014, it was the most downloaded free game in the iOS App Store. The Flappy Bird phenomenon is very interesting, game design-wise. The game features exactly one action (tap anywhere on screen to bump the bird, changing its trajectory) and one player activity (fly through gaps in obstacles without touching them). This simple and repetitive gameplay has become quite a trend lately, as explained in the following section.

Asceticism in mobile game design

The classical two-dimensional arcade genre was recently reborn on mobile. There are currently lots of commercial re-issues of retro...