Flappy Bird is one game that does not grow old, and Epic Games - who are famous for games like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament apart from the popular Unreal Engine - are now the proud creators of Tappy Chicken; a new Flappy Bird clone.
Epic Games thus adds to the collection of Flappy Birds clones developed by various developers, soon after the meteoric rise of the 8-bit game by Vietnam-based developer Dong Nguyen.
Tappy Chicken uses Unreal Engine 4 and was result of the hard work of video game artist Shane Caudle, reported Polygon. The main reason for Tappy Chicken being out on the market is to show how flexible and useful the engine can be in the development of a game, regardless of the developer's experience, considering Caudle is not even a programmer.
"Tappy Chicken is the perfect showcase for the ease of use and flexibility of Unreal Engine 4. While it may not flex the full graphical muscle of the engine, it shows how almost anyone can make a fun and pretty game fit for mobile devices and web browsers," said a statement from Epic Games.
Interested developers can use the game, extend it and even mod it, by using Unreal Engine 4 Blueprint visual scripting. Further, a web browser version of the game is also in development. Tappy Chicken can then be played in different browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. It has also been revealed that the game can be easily ported for consoles.
Tappy Chicken has features like 2D style visuals with procedural level generation, leaderboards, achievements and AdMob, Unreal Engine 4, low system requirements and is easy to modify. Tappy Chicken is currently a free-to-play mobile game, which is available on both iOS and Android devices.
Tim Sweeney, founder Epic Games, has said that the company is not shipping the Unreal Tournament game.
"It is not developing anything in the Unreal Tournament universe at all at the moment," he said, Joystiq reported. However, Sweeney said that the company is developing Fortnite and other games which have not yet been announced.
A study has found out that during the period between 28 February and 3 March, nearly 250 Flappy Bird clones were released with an average of 60 everyday.
Meanwhile, Flappy Bird creator Nguyen has said that he will bring back the sensational game in August, and it will have multiplayer component too. It is also reported that Nguyen is working on other games, with one featuring a character that jumps between buildings, according to a CNBC's Kelly Evans.
