Angry Birds is a 2009 puzzle video game developed by Rovio Entertainment and published by Chillingo. Utilising touchscreen interaction, it revolves around players using a slingshot to launch limbless birds at green pigs stationed in various structures, with the intent of defeating all of the pigs on the playing field. As players advance through the game, new types of birds become available, some with unique abilities.
Rovio had developed 51 games prior to Angry Birds. The game was conceived as a result of the development studio nearing bankruptcy; the concept was primarily inspired by sketch of stylized wingless birds illustrated by designer Jaakko Iisalo, and its gameplay is based on Crush the Castle, another 2009 puzzle game.
Angry Birds was originally released for mobile devices on December 11, 2009, with several ports and patch updates having been produced thereafter. It has received critical acclaim and is considered one of the best video games of all time. It was a commercial success, being downloaded over 50 million times as of 2010 and appearing on several app store top charts for long periods of time, and has won multiple awards. The success of Angry Birds spawned a media franchise, including numerous television series, print media, amusement parks, and feature films. Its first spin-off, Bad Piggies, was released in 2012. A sequel, Angry Birds 2, followed in 2015.
In early 2019, the game was discontinued alongside many of its early successors. In response, a remake titled Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was released on March 31, 2022. The remake was renamed Red's First Flight on iOS on February 23, 2023, and delisted on Android on the same day.
Gameplay
Angry Birds is a physics-based puzzle game. It follows a flock of flightless birds whose eggs have been stolen by green pigs. Using a slingshot controlled via the touchscreen, the player must launch the birds at the pigs, who are hiding in structures made of various materials, to defeat them without depleting their preset supply of birds. The player can target weak points to destroy structures, which can either drop or crush pigs. More types of birds, each with unique abilities, are unlocked as the game progresses. In each stage, the player is awarded with a star rating out of three upon depending on how many birds they used to defeat every pig, and golden eggs can be found to unlock bonus stages.
Development
Before Angry Birds, Rovio Entertainment—then known as Rovio Mobile—had developed 51 games for other publishers such as Electronic Arts as a work-for-hire studio. , Rovio's marketing and business developer, decided that making their own intellectual property would be more rewarding. By 2009, the company only had the funds to make one game; development on what would become Angry Birds began that March. The development team consisted of 10 people all-in-all, with four to five staying by the project's end. Among multiple concepts that were experimented with was one by designer , in which a flock of angry-eyebrowed birds would attack color-coded structures. The team liked the characters depicted, even though there was no clear indication of gameplay. The team had previously set a criteria to decide upon which concept to choose, but it was discarded in favour of Iisalo's concept.
When a prototype was made, test players were clueless on what to do. The developers determined that a "recognisable mechanism" was necessary; the slingshot was experimented with first, but it was initially thought to be too obvious, so other ideas such as a swing were experimented with instead. However, the slingshot was revisited as players understood how to use it immediately. Programmer Tuomo Lehtinen created the physics for slinging balls, which were later replaced with the birds, into blocks that could be knocked over. The aiming mechanism was tweaked so that players could decipher why they had failed, and the blocks were tweaked to be more satisfying to break. Structures were placed further away from the slingshot to increase anticipation and excitement.
The developers later realised the birds needed an enemy. It is believed that the 2009 swine flu pandemic was the inspiration behind making them pigs, though Iisalo claims that the pigs were inspired by drawings he had made at the age of 10. Chillingo claimed to have participated in final game polishing, such as adding visible trajectory lines, pinch to zoom, pigs' grunts, and birds somersaulting upon landing.
Release The initial iOS version of the game, which soft launched in Finland on December 1, 2009, and released internationally ten days later, included a single episode entitled "Poached Eggs" which contained three themed chapters, each with 21 levels. Rovio released free updates that include additional content, such as new levels, new in-game objects and even new birds. As updates have been released, they have been incorporated into the game's full version offered for download from each platform's application store.
The first update released on February 11, 2010, added a new episode called "Mighty Hoax", containing two new chapters with 21 levels each. Updates released on April 6, 2010, added the "Golden Eggs" feature, which placed hidden golden eggs throughout the game that would unlock bonus content when found, and a new episode called "Danger Above", which initially contained a single chapter of 15 levels, released on April 23 under version 1.3.0. Two later updates (released as version 1.3.2 on May 18, 2010, and version 1.3.3 on June 22, 2010, respectively) added two more chapters to "Danger Above", each with 15 levels. "The Big Setup" episode, released on July 16, 2010, as version 1.4.0, added a new chapter with 45 levels and additional Golden Egg levels.
A fifth episode, called "Ham 'Em High", launched on December 23, 2010, in celebration of the game's first year on the iOS App Store. "Ham 'Em High" contained 15 American Old West-themed levels in a single chapter; updates on February 4, 2011 and March 17, 2011 each added one new 15-level chapter. "Ham 'Em High" also introduced the Mighty Eagle, a new bird that may be used once per hour to clear any uncompleted levels. The Mighty Eagle can also be used in previously completed levels, without the once-per-hour limit, to play a mini-game called "Total Destruction" in which the player attempts to destroy as much of the scenery as possible, both with the standard birds and the Mighty Eagle, achieving 100% destruction earns the player a Mighty Eagle feather for the level.
In 2011, the Mighty Eagle was offered as a one-time, in-game purchase, and was initially only available for iOS, as its App Store customers have iTunes accounts with pre-linked credit cards. Rovio begun testing an Android update called the "Bad Piggy Bank" with the Elisa wireless service in Finland and T-Mobile, which allows users to charge in-app purchases, such as the Mighty Eagle, to their mobile phone bills. The service went live on Android with the release of version 2.2.0 in August 2012, using Google Play's transaction system, which allows both mobile billing and credit cards, allowing both Android phones and WiFi-only tablets to unlock the features. This version also added the power-ups from the Facebook version and added an option to pay to remove ads, allowing Android players to play the game ad-free as iOS players can.
The sixth episode, "Mine and Dine", was released on June 16, 2011, with 15 new mining-themed levels and a new Golden Egg. A July 25, 2011 update would release 15 further levels, and an update released on August 25, 2011, concluded "Mine and Dine" with the final 15 levels.
The seventh update, "Birdday Party", was released on December 11, 2011, to commemorate the second anniversary of the first release of the iOS version into the iTunes App Store. It included 15 new birthday cake-themed levels, as well as updated graphics and the addition of elements from the spin-off games, such as the scoring graphic seen in Angry Birds Rio and the introduction of Bubbles, the orange bird that first appeared in Angry Birds Seasons. The update was later released for Android and Microsoft Windows. The eighth update was released initially to iOS on March 20, 2012, in a lead-up to the release of Angry Birds Space. The new update included an animated tutorial, enhanced gameplay, redesigned user interface, and the first 15 levels of "Surf and Turf", the Angry Birds Facebook-exclusive episode. Another 15 levels were added later on August 2, 2012, with the iOS version receiving the power-ups first seen in the Facebook version.
On October 9, 2012, the final chapter of "Surf and Turf" was released, along with a new episode titled "Bad Piggies" to promote the spin-off of the same name. Another update was released on December 11, 2012, the 3rd anniversary of the game's release, with 15 new levels to "Birdday Party" and 15 new levels to "Bad Piggies". The second set of 15 levels in "Birdday Party" introduced the pink bird Stella to the game. 15 final levels were later released for the "Bad Piggies" episode on March 7, 2013. On the same day these final 15 levels were released, Angry Birds became "Free App of the Week" on the Apple App Store until March 14, 2013, and became an instant hit on the Top Free App charts on the App Store until March 18, 2013, when the app returned to the normal price of $0.99.
An update released on July 22, 2016, introduced the Mighty League, a competitive side mode in which players compete against others' scores to rank up through leagues.
Ports Since its initial release for the Nokia N900 multimedia Internet device, and Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch mobile digital devices, Rovio has released versions of Angry Birds for additional devices. An iPad-exclusive version, Angry Birds HD, was released with the iPad mobile digital device in April 2010. In August 2010, Angry Birds was made available to the Palm Pre phone running Palm's webOS operating system through its App Catalog online store. Symbian^3 phones received a version of the game in October 2010, which initially includes only the "Poached Eggs" and "Mighty Hoax" episodes.
In May 2010, Rovio announced plans for a version for devices using Google's Android operating system, with a beta version being released through the Android Market (now Google Play) in September 2010. The full Android version of the game was first released instead on GetJar in October 2010, though it was subsequently released on Android Market within days. Rovio officials noted that GetJar had a more global reach than Android Market, and GetJar's availability on other smartphone platforms (including Symbian) would make cross-platform promotion of the game easier. Unlike the previous versions, Angry Birds for Android is a free, ad-supported application, as paid applications aren't available on Android in some nations. An update called "Bad Piggy Bank" enabled players to remove the in-game ads for a fee.
In October 2010, Microsoft suggested on one of its websites that a Windows Phone version of Angry Birds was in development. Rovio complained that Microsoft had not asked permission to make such a statement, noting that at that time it had not committed to design a Windows Phone version. Rovio would ask Microsoft to revise its site to remove references to the game, a Windows Phone version was ultimately released in June 2011.