Starling handbook Preview

Flappy Starling
In this chapter, we are going to jump (flap?) right into the development of an actual game. Along
the way, you will get a peek at Starling’s basic concepts. If you don’t understand all the steps right
away, don’t worry: we will look at the details later. For now, I just want you to get a feeling for the
framework, and to enjoy the sense of achievement that comes with finishing a game.
The Blueprint
Flappy Bird is a phenomenon. Developed over the course of just a few days by Vietnamese artist
and programmer Dong Nguyen, it was released in 2013, sharing the fate of countless other games of
its kind: nobody noticed it.
That changed in early 2014, however. For reasons that remain a mystery, it suddenly skyrocketed
the charts! At that time, the game was so successful that it earned about USD 50,000 per day from its
in-app advertisements. The dream of every game developer come true, right?
At the height of this success, though, Dong pulled the game from the app stores. He said that he had
a bad conscience about getting people addicted to his game. It only added to the hype, of course,
and since then, countless clones of the game have appeared on the stores.
Well, it’s time we made our own!
Setup and Gameplay
In all honesty: I admire this game. It demonstrates that it’s often the most simple ideas that provide
the most fun. Yes, it might be argued that it’s not the most original game. Without question, though,
it is definitely challenging and addictive!
If you haven’t played it before, here’s what Flappy Bird is about.
• A bird is flying through a side-scrolling landscape that could have been taken right out of Super
Mario Bros.
• Each time you touch the screen, the bird flaps up a little bit, fighting against the constant pull of
gravity.
• The player’s job is to make it evade the obstacles that appear every few meters: green pipes that
leave only a narrow gap for the bird to pass through.
• You score a point for every pair of pipes that the bird is passing; when you fail, you restart from
the very beginning.
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