The Amazing World of Angry Birds Space

We’ve compiled a few fascinating facts about the game everyone’s talking about - Angry Birds Space. Keep reading to find out why!

Record Setting

Angry Birds Space has been downloaded over 50 million times since it was released, little over a month ago. It's officially the fastest growing mobile game to date - the smash hit game that started the franchise, the original Angry Birds, took a year to reach the same number of downloads.

Slow Burner

In contrast to their current record setting pace, Angry Birds wasn't an overnight success; its Finnish developers - Rovio (Finnish for "bonfire") - previously made 51 far less popular games. After creating successful games for other publishers like heavyweights EA and Namco, they decided to go it alone and, after eight years, finally worked up to the amazing success of Angry Birds.

Launched Spectactularly

Speaking of releases, in a far cry from the quiet launch of the original Angry Birds, the Space version was launched by creating a scene that evoked the famous bird-launching catapult from the game; except in this case, teaming up with the Seattle Space Needle to create a 600ft catapult holding a 35ft red bird. Local media were less than impressed to discover it was merely a static installation after camping it out for hours in the hope of a spectacular catapult launch.

Friends in High Places

Angry Birds Space has been officially endorsed by NASA, with the first footage of the game being released by astronaut Don Pettit, orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station at the time. NASA see an opportunity with the game to directly teach the concepts of gravity and trajectories - important principles for a young generation of would-be engineers to learn.

Educational

There’s even an official companion book, published in conjuction with National Geographic, ‘A Furious Flight Into the Final Frontier’ by Amy Briggs. Further pushing the educational potential of the game, it contains spectacular space photography and fascinating astronomical facts, while starting from the very beginning by explaining concepts like ‘planets’, ‘comets’ and ‘why there are floating space pigs’. Well, maybe.

In a Shop Near You

Not wishing to miss a trick, there is now a whole shop full of Rovio-approved Angry Birds Space merchandise available, ranging from T-Shirts, books, plush toys and playing cards to keychains, sweets and even pillows.
With the Angry Birds franchise expected to top one billion downloads in the next few days, Rovio seem to be going from strength to strength. Who knows how long Angry Birds’ impact will last, but for the moment, it seems to be here to stay!

This post was contributed by Sean, an Angry Birds fan who normally writes about the game Temple Run on his eponymously named fan site.