Show HN: I Created the Inverse of Angry Birds

[Cmccann7]

This is freaking awesome. Congrats on releasing the project Gordon!

Just played till level nine and even paid for unlocking the rest of the levels. Some feedback:

1) The game needs music. It's a little quiet after awhile, would be much better with music. 2) On a lot of the levels you don't need to do anything and you'll "win" by just pressing play. 3) Totally understand why you have the ads on in the game but sometimes on the cloud levels it gets in the way of placing blocks. 4) Sometimes the game gets stuck at the end and doesn't count up all of the points 5) Counting up the points on level with a ton of items in it takes forever 6) You should also explain the different birds and which ones are coming. Noticed some had dynamite strapped to them but didn't expect that at all. 7) On replay I really wish I had the previous blocks stay where they were.

Overall an awesome game but wanted to give you some feedback on it after I played around with it for awhile.

[ghempton]

Thanks for all the great feedback. This is a side project that I had been sitting on at 90% completion for months and finally got it out.

As a side note: I need to remember to not publicize newly launched apps until they have been indexed by the app store. It might not show up in the app store search until tomorrow.

[dpcan]

It showed up in my search today.

[JMiao]

did you make the artwork yourself?

[jtreminio]

I sent the link to my ipad and opened it from there, and whala it shows up.

[lancefisher]

Cool concept. Next up: multiplayer where one person plays the birds and the other plays the pigs (Rovio might have to buy your app for that).

You need to explain why the pigs took the eggs. Maybe you do in the game.

[tedsuo]

It's not the pigs' fault eggs are delicious. :)

[chalst]

Birds? Eggs? What are these egg-laying birds you speak of? They're not in the game.

Wise not to mention them, from an afraid-of-well-paid-lawyers point of view.

[euccastro]

Concentration of eggs helps all. Extra eggs will trickle down back to the birds.

[tokipin]

but who will play the role of the seesaw??

[Luc]

Those birds in the third screenshot look pretty much the same as the Angry Birds to me (I didn't compare them directly, but I don't think that's necessary anyway). You're also directly advertising this with reference to Angry Birds (see title of this post).

I'd say you're pretty much flouting basic trademark law here, and the only way for Rovio to react is to protect their trademark, or lose it. It's all the more likely if they are working on their own title from the viewpoint of the pigs - and I'd say the odds are pretty high that they are.

In addition, the idea of this being parody is not something I'd want to defend in front of a judge...

[nachteilig]

The birds are a question of copyright, not trademark. And one doesn't lose that for failing to defend it.

[johnnyo]

Some feedback:

The UI needs some work. Running on an iPhone 3GS, it felt very laggy, many of my touches didn't register correctly.

Tap to rotate is an odd concept, and combined with the lagginess above, I was always moving when I wanted to rotate, or vice versa. Maybe two fingers to rotate?

Move the advertising. Having it right on top of the playing field caused me to accidentally click it when trying to move around a block, taking me completely out of the game.

A better visual distinction between blocks I'm allowed to move, and blocks I'm not allowed to move would be nice, I spent a few minutes of the first level trying to move the block that was already there.

Otherwise, I love the concept.

[ghempton]

Thanks for the feedback. An iPad 2 was my primary testing device so I surely didn't give the iPhone version the UI love it needs.

[NathanKP]

Having it right on top of the playing field caused me to accidentally click it when trying to move around a block, taking me completely out of the game.

But possibly earning some cash if it is cost per tap. I sometimes think people who show advertising on their websites and/or apps must love tablets and phones because it is so easy to accidentally tap on an ad. I've done so many times, even though I'd normally never click an ad.

[bradleyland]

I hope Rovio sees this, finds it as hilarious as I did, keeps their head about them, then finds a way to work with you on developing the idea.

[kmfrk]

Unless it's freemium, I don't see why they wouldn't find it hilarious.

[ericb]

I would refer to this as a "parody" of angry birds.

[RexRollman]

I agree but I have seen cases where companies have tried to suppress a parody. I think we are going to see Rovio is made of.

[iamandrus]

Rovio probably won't care as long as he doesn't start profiting from the app.

[vidarh]

My two year old would probably love that - he sympathises with the pigs and gets upset whenever he accidentally hits one of them with the birds. Doesn't seem to care as much about the birds.

[kirubakaran]

Perhaps because pigs are mammals and hence more closely related to him than birds?

[aresant]

Awesome and hilarious concept, brilliant to garner PR since it's such a fun story.

Great iphone PR resources:

List of the top sites to contact -

http://www.altiapp.com/2011/09/ultimate-list-of-free-iphone-...

Nice presentation on mobile-app specific PR:

http://www.slideshare.net/triplepoint/pr-101-for-iphone-game...

Your story has legs - worth maybe hitting TechCrunch and the other big boys as well - good luck!

[waldr]

Been playing this all morning, I'd love to see the pig protection milked to the max. A fun plug would be 'how many pigs saved to date' and maybe when a certain number has been hit then for some PR you could adopt a pig - http://worldanimalfoundation.homestead.com/AdoptAPig.html

Be pretty funny to see a load of blog posts about saving pigs, due to help from players!

I've possibly had too much coffee this morning..

[alias1]

Depending on how Rovio take this I would love to see some form of collab (bet it partnered or purchased)

I can see a PvP multiplayer feature, one player in Angry Birds, one player in Misunderstood Pigs, phone vs phone multiplayer goodness.

[r7000]

If Angry Birds is Crush The Castle this is Hold Your Ground: http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Hold_Your_Ground.html. Since Hold Your Ground has been out for years I am surprised someone hasn't done this before considering the runaway success of Angry Birds.

[michaelschade]

Great idea and execution, love it.

Perhaps you mentioned it in the opening message and I just missed it, but...I was waiting for objects to appear that were oriented differently, and only by accident did I realize that I had to tap to rotate (I had first tried by actually doing a rotation gesture).

I'd add some note about this on the object palette in the bottom, and maybe even add a rotation gesture to turn it.

[martingordon]

Looks pretty cool, downloading now. Why is it free, though? Charge a buck for it at least.

[reustle]

I wonder if he's leaving it free to minimize the number of reasons for Rovio to go after him.

[mrchess]

It is ad driven.

[epaga]

This is one of those very rare moments where the idea is so funny and good that you'll probably have quite the success with the idea even if the implementation isn't the best.

But it seems like you've done a great job with the implementation as well. All the best!

[bad_user]

Please do an Android version.

[ghempton]

Hopefully I will have time to get around to this someday.

[fridek]

Few months ago a similar game was released on Android: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rejectedgames.isla...

[Timothee]

I'm growing overly tired of the success of Angry Birds, seeing it on Hipmunk.com, as a special Roku box, pushed on the Chrome Web Store, etc. so this is very welcome. Congratulations on the launch!

[anatari]

Cool game and concept. Lots of fun. Now some feedback:

1) The touch logic on the blocks is frustrating for me on the iPhone. It takes me several tries to move a block. It thinks I want to scroll half the time, or doesn't register the touch with block. Maybe the block touch zone should be bigger than the block itself.

2.) Putting ads directly in the level seems distasteful to me and ruins the immersive experience. Would rather have them in-between levels or at start up.

[nazar]

The idea sounds great! I don't have an iDevice to test it, but hell with testing, I believe my fellow HNers, and I want to wish you good luck from Turkmenistan!

[YuriNiyazov]

E-mail me please, I am curious about costs of web development in Turkmenistan.

[mvkel]

Very clever! I'd rename it to something catchier though -- Pity Pigs, Sorry Pigs... something with no more than three syllables