Swing Copters Review (iOS)

A few months ago a really simple mobile game has taken the world by storm, becoming immensely popular in just a few days. Flappy Bird, developed by Dong Nguyen, has literally become a cultural phenomenon since even those who usually don’t play video games came to know and love the mobile title. Or hate, depending on the frustration brought to you by the game itself.

Due to the huge success of the game, many were anxiously waiting the new game developed by Dong Nguyen, called Swing Copters, a game that promised to feature the same addictive gameplay of Flappy Bird while adding some new features that could make the game even more interesting. Unfortunately Swing Copters will probably not be as popular as Flappy Bird due to these same new features, which only manage to add too many variables to make the game as fun as its predecessor.

Just like in Flappy Birds, in Swing Copters players will have to lead a cute looking character as high as possible by repeatedly tapping on screen. Things obviously won’t be too simple, as players will also have to avoid some swinging hammers.

The inclusion of the hammers could have been a really nice one if it was better implemented. There’s a really weird hit detection system that makes the player fail even though the character is not that close to the hammers. Making matters worse is the fact that your character will be instantly smashed, meaning that it’s impossible to understand what really happened. This is really frustrating, especially considering that Flappy Bird actually showed what went wrong when failing.

The swinging hammers issues would have been less annoying if it wasn’t for how the character is controlled, which is not intuitive at all. Given the nature of the game, you will have to turn your character often to avoid the obstacles. Unfortunately the character’s speed will decrease every time you turn, with the character not moving straight away into the new direction. Added with the strange hit detection, this creates a lot of unexpected deaths and, in turn, frustration. It’s a shame things aren’t as expected, because a slightly more complex gameplay experience is what the Flappy Bird formula needed.

Swing Copters could have been a good game and worthy successor of Flappy Bird. Unfortunately the new gameplay features are not implemented properly, ultimately resulting in a frustrating gameplay experience that very few gamers will try to master. Flappy Bird has become successful thanks to its simplicity, something that Swing Copters definitely doesn’t have.