10 Years Of Angry Birds

Harry looks back at the Castle Crush knock-off.

- Harry Fritsch

It’s the casual mobile gaming sensation that has been downloaded over 3 billion times and has created a multi-media franchise which includes movies, tv shows, and theme park attractions. For many, it was their first gaming experience on the emerging smartphone market. For others, it was their first game, full stop. Although it’s both loved and loathed by the gaming community, the influence of Angry Birds on the industry throughout the 2010s cannot be overstated. And like any iconic franchise, it was inspired by flash games, mock screenshots, and the swine flu.

In early 2009, senior game designer Jaakko Iisalo approached his co-workers at Finnish development studio Rovio with a screenshot he had created. It depicted wingless and legless birds looking particularly angry, possibly because they were wingless and legless. It gave no clues as to what kind of game they would feature in, but the staff were so enamoured by the colourful characters that they decided to attach them to a project, regardless.

An idea was then hatched to create a physics-based puzzle game similar to the popular online flash games of the time. Given they couldn’t fly, the birds would be rocketed out of a slingshot towards structures with the intent of wrecking them to the ground. Occupying these structures were green pigs looking to steal and feast upon the birds’ eggs. Pigs were chosen as the enemy because it was 2009 and the swine flu pandemic had reached its most alarming spread.