UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON

Angry Bird
Critical Evaluation Report
Muhammed Alageili

Table of Contents
1

Overview............................................................................................................................1

1.1 Genre...........................................................................................................................1
1.2 Target Users.................................................................................................................2
1.3 Venue...........................................................................................................................2
1.4 Purpose........................................................................................................................3
1.5 Subject.........................................................................................................................3
1.6 Content........................................................................................................................3
2
Analysis..............................................................................................................................4
2.1 Features........................................................................................................................4
2.2 Structure......................................................................................................................5
2.3 Screen Descriptions.....................................................................................................5
2.3.1 Screen Layout.......................................................................................................5
2.3.2 Multimedia Assets................................................................................................5
2.3.3 Navigation/Functions...........................................................................................5
2.3.4 Comments............................................................................................................5
3
Design Review...................................................................................................................6
4

Conclusion..........................................................................................................................7

References..........................................................................................................................8

1 Overview
Mobile phones are enabled to play games since 1997 when Nokia 1 st time introduces games
in their mobiles. Within next 10 years smartphones introduced in the market and during 2007
they smartphones were reaching critical mass. In start mobile phones companies hired mobile
application developers to develop mobile applications and games that come with the
operating system of the mobile while nowadays almost every developer can develop mobile
application or game and publish it to earn revenue. However it is believed that mobile phone
games are only developed and deployed in recent years. (Reisinger, 2011)
Now a day with mobile and smart phones, most of the mobile phone companies reaching the
critical mass in this field and as resulting the mobile form are much accessible to almost all
ages of the people including young and old, men and women. Today mobile phones are
having many extra features more than just calling texting and receiving calls and texts. The
mobile phones come with core functionalities for internet access and surfing, apps and
playing games with many other wide applications. (Wright, 2008)

Angry bird was released in December 2009 by the Finnish company Rovio, 1 st time for IOS
operating system which is one of the most powerful operating systems for apple smartphones
and tablets and became the bestselling game in the app store during 2011. During 2011 it is
observed that more than 500 million of its copies have been downloaded and Angry Bird is
played on different platforms included Android, IOS, Window mobiles, Mac OS, PlayStation
3 and many others. The approach to play this game is very simple and very easy to
understand for a new user and player controls and hold a slingshot to make a target and shoot
different birds in given structure that hold evil pigs who actually stole eggs from different
birds. The goal of the player is to destroy the pigs as revenge in different stages of the games.
The player of the game is facilitated with different powers that can be used to destroy various
kinds of materials. The more optimistic way a player play game to take revenge the more
points he got in the game. In each of the stage the method to measure the performance of the
player is associated with the stars that are assigned to player with respect to its performance
in the game.

1.1 Genre
Angry Birds lie in the genre of games in multimedia applications more specifically to the
puzzle video genre of the games. Puzzle video games put more emphasize on solving a
puzzle by playing different stages of a game. Many problem solving techniques like logic,
strategy, approach, sequence, word and pattern recognition are used in this type of puzzle
solving games. Angry Bird is an integrated form of different media which includes the sound,
graphics, video, texts etc. The presentation of the multimedia game application is represented
in quite interesting patterns with the professional approach of the colours, layout designing
and adoption of other supporting contents.

1.2 Target Users

In order to identify the targeted users of any multimedia game application gaming companies
tends towards the technique which is called segmentation which define the nature of the users
who are actually targeted by the company. According to this technique the players of
multimedia games are divided into three different categories which are known as hard-core
gamers, cool gamers and mass-market gamers. Hard-core gamers are the superior players of
the games who have more deep knowledge of multimedia games and its current position in
the market. They use to play the demo versions of the games and they are biggest in average
that use to paly such puzzle games. Hard-core gamers use to discuss game on ever forum
including social media and other channels and discuss it each other. Cool gamers are the

audience who buy a game on advice by the hard-core gamers and group of these gamers are
actually influenced by the other gamers. Mass-market gamers are those who use to play the
games which are on top 3 % of chart and advertised over different channels. Angry Birds
target all of these three types of users who belong to different age group as well as different
gender. (Boon, 2006)

1.3 Venue
According to the market analyser GigaOm the Rovio entertainment is keen to take Angry
Birds local to the whole world with the help of location based integration concept which will
be helpful to increase the game play for gamers in the sense of their actually visit to the real
world locations. This feature is called magic places which are based on the concept of nearfield-communications (NFC) feature which was introduced previously in Nokia phones. The
magic places will allow a small number of users to access and unlock the extra levels of the
game when users tap NFC phones together. On each venue the gamer will be able to trigger
new powerful game contents like Might Eagle which is one of the most powerful features of
the game through GPS enabled phones. Game leader board will be localized to facilitate the
users to compete with other players sharing same resources. (GigaOm, 2011)

1.4 Purpose
The preliminary purpose of the development of Angry Birds by the developers of the Rovio
was to introduce the company for development of gaming applications specifically for IOS
operating system. The game was released for IPhones only available to download from the
apples app store. However by time company release it on app store more than 12 million of
its copies are purchased from the app store that make company a big revenue in this sort of
business and company decided it to launch on other smartphone and tablet operating systems
like android and windows etc. The company further keep releasing its updates to the game to
facilitate and satisfy its customers with their services to set a good quality of standards in the
market. (Freak, 2010)

1.5 Subject
Angry Birds cover the subject of multimedia application, mobile application development,
mobile games programming and many other relevant designing and development subjects
which are taught widely to support the field of mobile engineering and mobile application
development. Angry Bird also lie in the designing and programming fields which is more
specific to the integration of multimedia and used to teach as an example multimedia mobile

game application in more of the educational and other organizations. Angry Bird also subject
to the set business trends in the market with the brilliant policy of the Rovio Company to
launch their game in market with the full support of all new trends in market such as digital
distribution.

1.6 Content
Angry Bird is the sequence wise integration of multimedia contents like animated video with
the support of relevant sound, effects, texts and personalization of the game with the facility
of status sharing over social media websites such Facebook with the help of internet contents.
Game is also supported with the special star base ranking of the players which is awarded to
the gamer on the base of his performance during game levels. The configuration of the game
is set with respect to the screen resolution of most famous smartphones, tablets and other
hand help devices as well as computer systems. The contents of the game seem to be an
optimistic approach with mix and match of multimedia contents for gaming.

2 Analysis
Popularity of the Angry Bird make it more interesting and hot topic in the history of games
and question arise that why more than 50 million individual entities have download such a
simple game as well as more analysis on this game shows that almost each day more than 200
million minutes (approximately 1.2 hours a year) people spend to play this game. Research
and analysis are made in this regards to measure facts and figures of Angry Bird which
conclude the following simplistic approach of answers for the popularity of the game in the
market.
The very 1st thing is the concept of the which based on the very simple approach of
interaction of the player with the game that engage user with great interest and gamers go
deep in playing this game through its different levels. According to Neomi management of
the response time of games contents make it a perfect in the way a player get slow
movement of the birds, the death of the pigs in slow motion as well as the collapse of the
structure enable the game player to think, reflect and adjust his game plan and strategy. The
third optimistic approach is the short-term memory management in which game actually help
the STM (Short time memory) with its ability to breakdown the structure of the game by
scrolling down the screen. The 4th interesting thing about the game is its mystery through
which includes different items in the various levels of the game such as some got bananas

other got water melons during the different levels of game. These small components game
does not relate to any logic of playing Angry Birds but only make game more attractive and
interesting to play for user. The 5 th main factor is the supporting sound of the games that
represent the different behavioural effects while playing the games and make user more and
more interactive with the interface of game. The last thing is the graphic of the game that are
more meaningful to the game with cute arranged structure and simple reorganization of the
objects and patterns of the game. (Twigg, 2011)
The detail analysis of the game is done under this section with respect to its features,
structure and functional description.

2.1 Features
Angry Birds is an integrated from of different features that are commonly used in multimedia
application such as sound, image, video, effects and texts. The game is a customized form of
the multimedia objects where several different types of the birds are used in the game during
different levels with different colours like shown in the following picture.

The basic red coloured bird is available in the 1st level within the advancement in the game
levels user unlock more levels with new birds. Some of these birds that are available through
different levels or stages of the game has more power to destroy some difficult structures
inside the game e.g. a blue bird is further generates three smaller bird while throwing them on

a particular structure. Some of the birds drop eggs to collapse the structure of the game. In
same patterns some pig are harder and need more efforts to collapse them and some comes
under the protection of a helmet. Each level of the game starts with a number and order of
birds that are pre-determined in the case of defeated all pigs and last bird of the game is used
by time, a level is finished and the next level of the game is unlocked. The point in the game
are calculated based upon the performance of player to destroy each structure, defeat each pig
as well as bonus points are allocated to the user for the unused birds during a level. One, two
or three stars are given to each player on the base of his performance during each level of the
game. A player can also repeat any level completed or un-completed before to gain more
points in the game. (Murphy, 2012)

2.2 Structure
The game structure of Angry Birds is adoption of very simple approach to design a very
interesting type of game. In the structure of the game an angry looking birds are held by a
slingshot on a certain targeted position. These angry birds are launched on the pigs which are
inside a safe structure. Structure of the game in which different type of pigs are residing are
composed of different type of material which includes wood, glass, concrete, snow and
others. The reliability of structure is different in each stage that gamers play and break it
through different directive techniques. The developers of the angry birds make these
structures in extreme way. Following is the screen shot of the structure of the game which is
used in a level. (Huerta, 2012)

2.3 Screen Descriptions

Angry bird very simple to play and easy to understand which is a key aspect of multimedia
applications. The game is fully customize and personalize with the multimedia contents
according to the specifications of smart phones, tablets and many other hand held or
computer devices. Resolution of the game is different for each device and game is labelled
for different smartphones and tablets that mean different versions are specified for I pad or
iPhone. The further description of the game with respect to the screen and layout is given
under following sub headings.
2.3.1

Screen Layout

The screen layout of the angry bird is different for different devices according to the screen
layout of a particular smartphone or tablet. For example the resolution of I phone 4 is 640 in
width and 940 in height. The game angry bird which is specified and designed for I phone
will be run by covering all screen of the system. Same wise the screen size of I pad is
different and the version of angry bird for I pad will give best result only on I pad. With the
same pattern the version of the game is designed for different devices. Following are the
screen shots of Angry Bird from different devices.

The above picture represents the game while playing it using I pad.

The above picture represents the screen layout of the game in HTC mobile.
2.3.2

Multimedia Assets

Multimedia assets defined the channels of communication or information sharing which are
used for the development or designing of any multimedia application. Angry Bird is a
dynamic development in multimedia applications that is played with the help of different
pictures, video and create effects on run time while playing the game like sound, effects of
successful achievement of level, assigning of stars and many other effects like introducing
golden bird and bonus points. Gaming multimedia is always rich in its multimedia assets and
angry bird is a fine example of this type of multimedia applications. (Arone, 2005)
2.3.3

Navigation/Functions

Angry bird is personalized with different function that specifies the different levels and their
difficulty to defeat a pig. The game is also associated different powers to different birds
having various colours so that enable a user to break the structure to take revenge in game.

Red colour of angry bird represents the most basic weapon which is available in very early
stage of game. Blue birds are advanced angry birds that are used to break glass structure
while playing the game. This type of bird is consist of three angry birds but represented as an
individual during the levels of Angry Birds. White colour bird is superior to black it goes
forward to attack the structure and drop a white egg on the structure or pig area. This egg
works as a bomb to collapse structure. Yellow bird is used to collapse structure by covering a
very long distance in the area. This type of bird is indeed when target is far away to hit. Black
bird is used to destroy a structure with a massive heavy attack. It actually damage more than
any other bird discussed previously. The function of the green bird is to do intense damage by
launching it on a structure. Green bird is also known as boomerang bird with boomerang
function in it to destroy a structure. (Wehner, 2010)
2.3.4

Comments

3 Design Review
4 Conclusion
5 References
1. Arone. (2005, March 23). Multimedia Assets in Angry birds. Retrieved September 12,
2012, from Dries Buytaert's website: http://drupal.org/project/multimediaassets
2. Boon, B. a. (2006). 21st Century Game Design. Hingham, MA: Charles River Media.
3. Freak. (2010, October 22). The Supremely Addicting Angry Birds Hits 42 Million Free
and Paid Downloads. Retrieved September 4, 2012, from Symbian Freak's website:
http://www.symbianfreak.com/news/010/12/angry_birds_hits_42_million_free_and_paid_downloads.htm
4. GigaOm. (2011, June 14). Angry Birds Seeks NFC Magic in Location. Retrieved
September

4,

2012,

from

BLOOMBERG's

website:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2011/tc20110614_042683.htm
5. Huerta, C. (2012, May 3). The Structural Engineering of Angry Birds. Retrieved
September

12,

2012,

from

Keymark

Enterprises:

http://www.keymarkenterprises.com/_bpost_5791/The_Structural_Engineering_of_A
ngry_Birds

6. Murphy, S. (2012, August 20). The Latest Angry Birds Features Green Day as the
Pigs.

Retrieved

September

10,

2012,

from

Mashable,

Inc's

website:

http://mashable.com/2012/08/20/green-day-angry-birds/
7. Reisinger, D. (2011, December 8). Angry Birds, Adele Top This Years iTunes Rewind.
Retrieved September 2, 2012, from CNET's news: http://news.cnet.com/830113506_3-57339626-17/angry-birds-adele-top-this-years-itunes-rewind.
8. Twigg, N. (2011, March 24). A Cognitive Analysis of Angry Birds: What Makes the
Game So Successful? Retrieved September 5, 2012, from Forever Geek's website:
http://www.forevergeek.com/2011/03/a-cognitive-analysis-of-angry-birds-whatmakes-the-game-so-successful/
9. Wehner, M. (2010, April 8). Angry Birds Tips and Tricks. Retrieved September 14,
2012, from Game Yum's webiste: http://www.gameyum.com/angry-birds/81120angry-birds-tips-and-tricks/
10. Wright, C. (2008). A Brief History of Mobile Games: In the Beginning, There Was
Snake. pocketgamer.biz.