Flappy Bird migrates to the Vectrex although the computing power of a smart phone is considerably more than the first home computers and games console of the 80’s, quite a few phone game Apps (especially those written by a single author rather than a full software house) fit the ethos of the early 8 bit games i.e. simple graphics and addictive game play. So it is not uncommon to see some of the popular games get ported to the computers and games consoles of yesteryear.
In Feb. 2014, promising next level developer Michael Simonds wowed the Vectrex community with a free download of a Flappy Bird port for the Vectrex called "Veccy Bird." While the brief 'flappy bird' craze of 2014 spawned many copycats, imitators, and spinoffs, Veccy Bird is the only version which managed to improve upon the original in three significant ways, it's more enjoyable to play with an external controller (as opposed to tapping in the game field's touch screen,) it has an end screen, and even more significantly, it's a real vector game, and playable on the only home vector gaming system ever created, our beloved Vectrex.
Game play
The attract mode beckons the player to "tap..."
Fly Veccy bird between sets of oncoming pipes as they scroll across the screen. Only one finger is required for control. One tap flaps your wings causing Veccy Bird to fly upward. Gravity pulls you down. Your altitude varies logarithmically with time between flaps. Two flaps in rapid succession will send Veccy Bird skyrocketing. Longer periods of flaplessness causes Veccy to nose dive.
Like the original game, Veccy Bird is easy to learn, difficult to master, and mind-numbingly addictive.
Final version
The .bin for the final version (1.5) is improved upon previous versions in numerous ways
- Bird is brighter
- Added support for Vectrex standard high score
- Fixed high score bug where it would reset to a lower value sometimes.
- Reduced the maximum score required to win to 50 pts.
- New score name ratings
- Added a win screen
V1.5 can be downloaded here.