FlagonBird is a port of the briefly released but insanely popular, Flappy Bird game created by Vietnamese programmer Dong Nguyen. Dong released it on iPhones in May of 2013, and he meant it to be a casual, quick time killer type of game; but by January of 2014 it had completely taken off, by then also being ported to Android, and at one point making Dong $50,000 a day from sales and advertising revenue, and people were becoming obsessed and addicted to it. Dong felt guilty about creating an addictive game, and ended up pulling both versions from their respective stores on February 10, 2014 for that reason.
Steve Bamford, a Dragon user from way back, got nudged back into the Dragon scene by his friend Michael Simonds, who himself was getting back into 6809 programming with the Vectrex home console. They both ended up porting Flappy Bird to their respective machines (Veccy Bird was the Vectrex version).
The game features very simple game play like the original - hit any key to flap the wings of your bird, which causes the bird to fly up. Gravity starts immediately taking affect, so you have to keep flapping to stay airborne... but the faster you flap, the faster you fly up, and the longer you wait between flaps, the faster you fly down. The game scrolls to the left, and you have to avoid hitting the large pipes (that appear both at the top and bottom at varying heights) or the ground. You only have one life, so as soon as you hit something you die, and you get 1 point for each pipe pair that you manage to fly through. Like the original game it is addictive, and monumentally frustrating. It features good sound effects and smooth multi-plane scrolling graphics, and the first ML game it's author ever wrote. It was released on both the Dragon and the Coco.
One unique thing on the Coco/Dragon version is that your score gives you a ranking - most of which are based on the names of dragons (from places like Lord of the Rings, from the Atari 2600 game Adventure, etc.). While this idea was borrowed from Mike's Vectrex version, Steve is the one who decided on the "Dragon Name" motif. One of rankings (for a score of 33) has the ranking of "RainRabbit". This was from a screenshot by a user of that name with that score (a very high score at the time), so Steve added that as a ranking name in tribute.
The attract mode also features a lot of thank you's, including a who's who of the active Dragon community who openly supported Steve's efforts, although Steve programmed the game completely on his own. These include the above mentioned Michael Simonds, Steve Evans, Stewart Orchard, Ciaran Anscomb, Tormod Volden, Pere Serrat and Roberto Fernandez (some under their forum handle names). There is also a thank you to his family (Cindy, Felix, Oscar and Naomi), a nice tribute.
It should be mentioned that Darren Atkinson has ported FlagonBird to the MC-10 as well.
Below is list provided by Steve of all 65 possible rankings, and also their origin. If you ever need to learn about fictional dragons... FlagonBird could be considered an educational game!
Rankings |
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| Score | Ranking | Source |
| 0 | FAFFY | Dave The Barbarian |
| 1 | NORBERT | Harry Potter |
| 2 | YORGLE | Atari Adventure |
| 3 | GRUNDLE | Atari Adventure |
| 4 | RHINDLE | Atari Adventure |
| 5 | CHORLTON | Chorlton And The Wheelies |
| 6 | SINGE | Dragon's Lair |
| 7 | GROLIFFE | The Ice Dragon, Noggin The Nog |
| 8 | IDRIS | Ivor the Engine |
| 9 | NIDHOGG | Norse Myth |
| 10 | FAFNIR | Celtic Myth |
| 11 | JABBERWOCK | Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky |
| 12 | SMAUG | The Hobbit |
| 13 | GLAURUNG | Silmarilian |
| 14 | GRANYMYR | Masters Of The Universe |
| 15 | SMIRKENORFF | Knightmare |
| 16 | BUB | Bubble Bobble |
| 17 | BOB | Bubble Bobble |
| 18 | FANGORA | Kirby |
| 19 | KING TIRRA | Bomberman |
| 20 | TAMAGON | Devil World |
| 21 | BONETAIL | Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door |
| 22 | SOUP DRAGON | Klangers |
| 23 | TARRAGON | Parsley And The Herb Garden |
| 24 | TRORG | Hordes Of The Things Radio Comedy |
| 25 | ABRAX | Golden Axe: Beast Rider |
| 26 | VERMITHRAX | Dragonslayer |
| 27 | FALKOR | Never Ending Story |
| 28 | EBORSISK | Willow |
| 29 | GHIDORAH | Godzilla |
| 30 | BAHAMUT | Final Fantasy |
| 31 | HAKU | Spirited Away |
| 32 | DRACO | Dragonheart |
| 33 | RAIN RABBIT | * Internet Player's Username * |
| 34 | SAPHIRA | Eragon |
| 35 | GLAEDR | Eragon |
| 36 | IGNEEL | Fairy Tail |
| 37 | NETTLEBRAND | Dragon Rider |
| 38 | FIREDRAKE | Dragon Rider |
| 39 | TARO | Sinbad |
| 40 | ZENITH | Dragon Quest |
| 41 | GORBASH | Flight Of Dragons |
| 42 | RIDLEY | Metroid |
| 43 | SPYRO | Spyro The Dragon |
| 44 | EMBER | Spyro The Dragon |
| 45 | ASH | Kameo: Elements of Power |
| 46 | YOWLER | Dragonworld |
| 47 | TOOTHLESS | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 48 | WINDWALKER | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 49 | HORRORCOW | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 50 | FIREWORM | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 51 | STORMFLY | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 52 | WODENSFANG | How To Train Your Dragon |
| 53 | RHAEGAL | Game Of Thrones |
| 54 | HYDRUS | Shadow Of The Collosus |
| 55 | KUROMORI | Shadow Of The Collosus |
| 56 | PHALANX | Shadow Of The Collosus |
| 57 | ALDUIN | Skyrim |
| 58 | FATALIS | Monster Hunter |
| 59 | TEOSTRA | Monster Hunter |
| 60 | LUNASTRA | Monster Hunter |
| 61 | CEADEUS | Monster Hunter |
| 62 | RATHALOS | Monster Hunter |
| 63 | TIAMAT | Myth |
| 64 | FLAGON LORD | * Flagon Bird Highest Rank! * |
Title: FlagonBird
Author: Steve Bamford (original mobile phone Flappy Bird by Dong Nguyen)
Publisher: Steve Bamford
Released: 2014
Requires: Color Computer 1,2,3, 32K RAM.