Flappy Bird Returns As A Multiplayer Game… But Only For Amazon’s Fire TV

Screen Shot 2014-08-01 at 1.54.06 PM

NOBODY PANIC! FLAPPY BIRD IS BACK. Kind of.

Back in February, Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen pulled his game from the store, citing his guilt for making what he considered an “addictive product”.

He later promised that the game would return in August, but with a few tweaks. It’d intentionally be “less addictive”, and would have a new multiplayer element added into the mix.

It’s August — and sure enough, it’s back. But it turns out there was another twist he didn’t mention before: at least for now, it’s exclusive to Amazon’s Fire TV box.

Now rebranded as “Flappy Birds Family“, the game tries to focus on a two-player mode that pits players against each other in a race to a pre-set finish line. In a strange move, Dong has opted to complicate the game a bit — instead of only having to worry about pipes, the game now has roaming enemies (like the little ghost dude pictured below) that try to get in your way and wreck your progress.

The decision to go exclusive to the Fire TV is also a strange one. Unless Amazon kicked down a small mountain of cash for the exclusivity, tying your game to a weird psuedo-console that not many people own doesn’t really make it less addictive — it just makes it less likely anyone will care. So did Amazon shell out? If so, how much? We’re asking around — shoot us a tip if you know anything.

Screen Shot 2014-08-01 at 1.54.40 PM