The people who made Angry Birds are back with a new game. This time, they’re publishing something that seems like it took a lot of inspiration from the viral megahit Flappy Bird.
Rovio has released Retry on iOS and Android worldwide today. The app is a free-to-play pixelated flying game that has players trying to dodge aerial obstacles in a plane that is difficult to control. If that sounds difficult, that’s because it is. You’re going to die a lot, and you’re going to retry a lot. That’s the whole point, and the experience is reminiscent of Flappy Bird’s short gameplay bursts — although Rovio and Retry developer Level 11 credit retro games with giving the studio the idea for Retry. While Angry Birds is still Rovio’s main franchise, the company has struggled to switch to a free-to-play business model — one that’s pushed mobile gaming into a projected $20 billion industry this year — and it’s likely hoping that experimenting with games like Retry will help it establish new lines of revenue.
“Retry is a tribute to the video games of the ’80s that a lot of us grew up with,” Rovio executive vice president of games Jami Laes said. “The fun 8-bit aesthetics, chiptune music, and the difficulty curve that hit you like a 2-by-4, which you still persisted and beat those levels. It was all the sweeter for the challenge.”
Retry actually debuted in May in a few test territories, but Rovio is now unleashing it on the rest of the world. This is the first commercial release from Level 11, which is Rovio’s experimental development team.
“Rovio Level 11 are ‘the guys next door to the guys making Angry Birds,'” said Laes. “We have at any given moment over 40 game prototypes in circulation, and some of them become a viral hit inside the company. Retry was one of these, and it was the perfect candidate to be Rovio LVL11’s first release.”