Flappy48 Combines the Two Most Addictive Games Ever Into One

When Dong Nguyen released Flappy Bird last May, I don’t think he—or, for that matter, anyone else—could have predicted the game’s spectacular rise and abrupt flameout. Even after Nguyen pulled Flappy Bird from app stores (because, remember, it “ruin[ed] his simple life”), the game lived on in an absurd number of clones. And life–somehow–went on, too.

The next game to similarly capture the public’s imagination was the game 2048, itself a sort of clone of the iOS title Threes!. Though 2048’s 19-year-old developer, Gabriele Cirulli, hasn’t so much as hinted that he wants to take the game down, someone’s had the bright idea to mash up the birds and the bricks. Enter Flappy48, the best of the unholy spawn.

The game takes Flappy Bird’s mechanics and adds a 2048 twist: you begin life as a 2 tile, and, as you flap through the course, you gather differently numbered tiles in a tail behind you; if the bricks are the right multiple of 2, they’ll merge to form a higher numbered one. Naturally, the challenge is keeping everything afloat until, presumably, you reach the 2048 tile. It’s addictive in all the right ways. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Personally, I think winning Flappy48 is impossible. But that wasn’t the point of Flappy Bird, either—like life, the glory, as it were, lies in the striving.