Sawbuck Gamer

No, Birdie, No!

Get A Grip

No, Birdie, No! is a white-knuckle experience.

By Steve Heisler • November 9, 2012

No, Birdie, No!
Creator: Giovanni “Carnefrisca” Coli, Piero “W4nderlust” Molino, Giuseppe “Misbug” Longo
Platform: Browser
Price: Free

No, Birdie, No! is the perfect commentary on our technologically obsessed culture. To survive, you must literally cling to your keyboard, holding down the ASDF keys to hold onto the side of a mountain. A bird comes along and pecks at your fingers, requiring you to lift just the right keys to keep clinging without falling. The hands are mirror images of each other, too, meaning you sometimes lift the wrong finger and have a large red welt to show for your mistake. That bird might as well be the Twitter bird, sapping your attention span and requiring you to be particularly dexterous with your typing.

The game is unfussy and simple. The look is a moderate evolution of Apple II-era visuals, and your score is a tabulation of how long you stay on the mountain. No special powers, nothing fancy. It’s just you and your keyboard, the latter acting as a lifeboat of sorts in which you keep afloat rather than face the darkness of the game ending. Not that the ending is dark—it’s more about the void you feel when you close the tab and are forced to move on to nondigital pursuits, like reading a book or churning butter.

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