Ironpants app review: a Flappy Bird clone by the same developer

Introduction

You could have guessed that with the success of Flappy Bird, there would be a plethora of other developers come and steal the idea of Dong Nguyen and stick their own license on it. This has happened in a few cases, but the weirdest case in the case of Ironpants. Ironpants appeared oi the App Store just a few days ago, just before the developer took Flappy Bird offline (because according to Dong, the game was too addictive). Will Ironpants be able to fill the boots of Flappy Bird? Or how long will this game last? I will try and answer these questions in the next paragraph.

Gameplay

As soon as you boot up Ironpants, you will see that the similarities between Flappy Bird and Ironpants are everywhere. The concept is exactly the same. You control the main character of the game by touching the screen and avoiding obstacles, in the case of Ironpants hey are crates instead of the famous green pipes from Mario Bros. Luckily for Ironpants there is a small difference. The game is made so much harder than Flappy Bird, as you now no longer tap the screen to flap wings, you simply hold the screen when you want iron Pants to go up. This adds a whole other level of difficulty and frustration to the table, but I will suggest you to try it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.

 

Graphics and Sound

Again, the graphics and sound of this game are similar to other games by Dong Nguyen. The graphics look like games from the early nineties, while the sound uses the same 8-bit style as Flappy Bird, Super Ball Juggling and all the other games by this developer. I’m curious to see how many developers will take over this classic style of games, looking and sounding like the nineties, with a very similar punishing gameplay style. Maybe some developers will actually try and make original games that are challenging again, instead of simply ripping off other developers’ ideas.

 

Pros and Cons

Pros

• The unmistakable “one more go” feeling
• You will keep coming back to this one
•  It’s free!

 

Cons

• Almost the same as Flappy Bird
• Even more frustrating than Flappy Bird

 

Conclusion

Dong Nguyen did it again. Not only did he “improve” the idea of Flappy Bird by making it more frustrating and much more difficult, he also has designed a new superhero in the process. I can see Ironpants having many frustrating sequels, while the style and difficulty will always remain the same. It probably won’t be long until Ironpants will disappear from the App Store as well, as it’s nearly more addictive than Flappy Bird and definitely more difficult. Ironpants is developed for both iPad and iPhoen, and is approximately 11 MB, which is a lot larger than its predecessor.