Smartphone owners beware. Prepare to test your sanity with Flappy Bird’s Successor: Swing Copters.

The legendary creator of Flappy Bird Dong Nguyen did it again. Instead of navigating a bird sideways, you now need to guide an adorably cute helicopter upward without hitting any of the hammers that swing from each gate. You get a point for every gate you pass through. Basically, this is Flappy bird, except that you’re doing it vertically this time.

This article will compare both Swing Copter and Flappy Bird, talk about whether Swing Copters will create a hit comparable to Flappy Bird, and what this will potentially mean for the future of mobile gaming.

As mentioned, the mechanics, graphics, and even the physics of the entire game is the same. The sprite is still unbelievably difficult to control and the point scoring system is the same. The copter moves faster than the bird in Flappy Bird, and this time round there are swinging hammers to make you question whether you’re indeed the calm person you once told yourself you were.

What will probably differentiate Swing Copter is the novel new concept of gameplay that says “It’s the same thing, but different.” We have seen too many clones of Flappy Bird in the app store these days, and a new game will definitely bring some freshness in the casual gaming industry.

This leads me to the second point: Will Swing Copter create a huge phenomenal hit, just like its predecessor?

One argument would be that the market is always looking for novel concepts. Despite the app store overflowing with games, mobile users are still hungry for cooler and better games that they can get addicted to. Mobile users want something that fits into their lifestyle: Something challenging, yet easy to learn, together with a high score that they can compete with other friends. Flappy Bird has indeed achieved that. Together with the expertise of Dong Nguyen, there is no reason why Swing Copters will not create a huge hit, since it already satisfies this model.

However, we could also argue that the world has already experienced the marvel that is Flappy Bird. Together with the multitude of clones, the world can be said to be bored of this high score genre of games. Mobile users are looking for games that are novel, but more novel than what can almost pass off as a mere copy of Flappy Bird.

Once again, we have to see how well-accepted Swing Copters will be in the next few months.

There are, however, just a few dubious claims that I will lay on the table for now. Firstly, Dong Nguyen withdrew Flappy Bird because he could not take the popularity of the game’s overwhelming success. People dismissed it as a normal human tendency. If that is so, then why the release of Swing Copters?

Furthermore, what are mobile gaming users truly looking for? Companies spend big bucks trying to develop a comprehensive and interactive mobile game, just to lose out to a game with took a developer a short amount of time to build. Is there a certain formula that should be followed?

If the success of this new mobile game ensues, this could potentially change the whole mobile gaming industry. It just goes to emphasise that big budgets does not always equate to better games.

How Swing Copters play out in the next few months could potentially affect the mobile gaming industry more than anybody would think it would. We would just have to wait and see.