Submitted by Frank Macey on
Angry Birds has met its match, and it's another bird game for the iPhone. Tiny Wings was launched one week ago with little fanfare and has managed to become the top paid app in the iTunes App Store. The overnight success of previously unknown developer Andreas Illiger is earning him $0.99 per download.
The app itself is small enough to download over a 3G connection and features graphics that change every single day. Gameplay only requires one finger and a desire to beat your previous high score. The object of the game is to fly for as long as possible in one day before night comes and you're forced to sleep.
Touching the screen will make your bird fold its wings in, dropping down quickly. There are hills everywhere in this side-scrolling game, and by timing your drop carefully you can use the hills as a ramp and launch yourself into the air. Of course there are coins and other bonuses to be collected along the way, but don't slow down or else the sun will set. Since the hills are drawn using procedural generated graphics, they will have different shapes every day the game is played.
Tiny Wings has a great design and is full of light-hearted fun, along with simple but interesting graphics and matching music. The game requires iOS 3.1 or later and runs at 60 frames per second on all devices. Currently there are 3,046 ratings in iTunes for Tiny Wings and the average rating is a solid 4.5 stars. Although OpenFeint is already included, the developer plans to add Game Center support in the next release.
Angry Birds has been temporarily bumped from it's number one slot for a few days at a time over the past year. Time will tell if Tiny Wings can keep its momentum and hold the top spot for any length of time.