If you missed out on the Flappy Bird epidemic and didn’t download it before developer, Dong Nguyen took it down two weeks ago then you may be in luck.
As soon as news hit that Flappy Bird was going away developers immediately went to work on clones. Games that mimicked the popular game that had the user try and get the bird through very Super Mario-esque pipes. If you hit the pipe with your Flappy Bird, you died. Some people were awesome at it, scoring between 70-100 points, while others just suck at games like this. But they sure can be addicting.
As the clones started to surface both Apple and Google started denying games that used the word “Flappy” in the title, so half of the clones submitted, never made it to their respective app stores.
But Massimo Guareschi, an Italian developer, has created a new game called Splashy Fish. The game plays just like Flappy Bird, except with a fish and instead of flapping through the wind, you splash through the water. The pipes are decorated with seaweed and they aren’t that Mario green.
Sounds easy enough right?
Well people love Splashy Fish. According to Business Insider Splashy Fish exploded the day it went live. Splashy Fish had made it to the top spot in the free games category just fifteen hours after launch. Now it’s being played over 250 million times per day.
Guareschi says that while Flappy Bird was obviously the inspiration for Splashy Fish he had actually started development on the game because his nephews were playing the original game and thought that it could use more features. It took three developers three days to build Splashy Fish.
Guareshi told Business Insider that Google nor Apple has had a problem with the games name. The game was developed by his company redBit an established app developer and they have already filed for the Trademark, according to an interview with Business Insider.
You can download Splashy Bird here.