Games like Flappy Bird

The game people are looking for is not in either app store, the game sold as its return is not that game, and in the United States the name is registered to a company that did not make the original. All three are checkable in public records, and together they change which alternatives are worth installing.

What happened to Flappy Bird

The developer’s own site still carries it. DOTGEARS, which trades as .GEARS and lists Nguyen Ha Dong as the representative of a Hanoi company, gives the release date as 24 May 2013 and the developer as Dong Nguyen. Its FAQ says the game was made in 2013 when the company was one person, that its creator wanted it enjoyed in a few minutes rather than for hours, and that he told customers by tweet one day before taking it off sale. Since then the original has not been updated or republished.

His timeline as it stood on 9 February 2014 is archived. He apologized to players and wrote that “22 hours from now, I will take ‘Flappy Bird’ down”. In the same run of posts he said it was nothing to do with legal issues, that he was not selling the game, and that he still makes games.

The rest of the catalog went for a different reason. The FAQ says the studio changed its in-house policy in 2021 and removed all of its apps from sale to update them, keeping in-app purchases intact for people who had bought them. We found no DOTGEARS game in the US App Store on 3 September 2026.

The game being sold as its return

The site presenting itself as the official return is flappybird.org. Its terms of use, last updated 22 October 2024, name the operator as Flappy Bird Inc., a limited liability British Virgin Islands company, and cover the website and a game published on Telegram Messenger through a bot. There is no iPhone app in the document and none in the App Store.

The rest are not a game’s terms. They require you to pay gas costs for interacting with a blockchain, warn that losing a private key will permanently deny you access to your digital assets, and prohibit what they name as rug pulls and wash trading. To claim an airdrop of any cryptographic token, you must represent that you are not a resident, national or agent of the United States. Total liability is capped at one US dollar, under British Virgin Islands law.

On 15 September 2024 the original’s creator posted that he has no relation to their game, that he did not sell anything, and that he does not support crypto. It is the account that announced the takedown in 2014, and that post is by a wide margin the most-read thing on it.

Who owns the name

The live registration was filed within days of the takedown, and its author lost his own application by default. A statement of use is the sworn declaration that a mark is actually in use, so three years after the third filing that declaration has still not been made. None of this is an accusation. It is why the name can appear on things its author did not make, and not on anything he did.

What the stores print about price

Flappy Bird was free and had nothing to buy. Most of what is recommended in its place is free and does sell something, which is not a criticism: a published price is the good case. Apple’s Information section has an In-App Purchases row that expands to list up to ten items with prices, and all four games below that sell something have one. Read on 19 September 2026.

The Qubasoft clone, last updated in April 2015, carries an Apple notice that it needs an update to run on current iOS, and still sells Remove Ads at $0.99. A store listing outlives the game inside it, and the shop outlives it too. The list has no billing periods and no claim to be complete. Apple also has a promoted-purchase slot above the privacy panel, but none of the games here uses it; Fruit Ninja does, at $9.99. Google Play shows a badge and, on most listings, no figure; Crossy Road is the exception.

Both stores itemize the other price in more detail. Apple’s App Privacy panel names the categories a game may use to track you across other companies’ apps and websites, and Play’s data safety page itemizes what may be shared and collected. RobTop Games sells both halves of the trade: Geometry Dash costs $3.99, shows no in-app purchases, and its panel reads “Data Not Collected”. The free Geometry Dash Lite also shows no in-app purchases, and its panel names location, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics as data that may track you. One game, two prices, and only one printed in dollars.

The ones with nothing to buy

These come first because it is the deal Flappy Bird made. None has an In-App Purchases row on its App Store listing.

• Geometry Dash Lite is the closest to the original in shape: one tap, one mistake, instant restart, and a difficulty curve that assumes you will fail a great many times. Free, 4+, 268 MB, iOS 13 or later, 4.3 stars across 261,000 ratings, number two on the Music chart. It is paid for in data, per the panel above.
• Flappy Nyan is a bird, pipes and one tap, published by isTom Games on 26 February 2014, weeks after the original came down, and never monetized. Free, 4+, 16.9 MB, iOS 7 onward, 4.6 stars across 15,000 ratings. Its last version is 1.9, dated 11 August 2016, and Apple shows no compatibility warning on it. Its privacy panel lists location, identifiers and usage data as collected but not linked to you, and nothing under tracking.
• Ours, last and not a flapper: Taco Rain is a sixty-second catcher, one thumb, fifty levels and an endless mode. Free, 4+, 65.9 MB, iOS 15 or later, on Google Play since 28 August 2026 for Android 7.0 or later, rated Everyone, and on macOS under the same App Store listing with no advertising. No in-app purchases, no currency and no rewarded video; the power-ups fall as pickups. One rating, five stars on the App Store, and none on Google Play, read 14 September 2026, which is no signal. If you want the bird and the pipes, Geometry Dash Lite or Flappy Nyan is the honest answer.

The one that asks for the money instead

Geometry Dash costs $3.99 once, and that is the entire transaction: no in-app purchases, no subscription, no ads, and a privacy panel that says no data is collected. 190.6 MB, rated 4+, iOS 12 or later, 4.6 stars across 271,000 ratings, number one on the Casual chart. It is the only listing of the eight that asks for money and then tells you how much.

The ones that are free with a shop inside

Good games run as businesses. Their prices are in the table above.

• Crossy Road arrived in November 2014 and was last updated in August 2026. Free, 9+, 256.4 MB, iOS 15 or later, 4.7 stars across 735,000 ratings, an Editors’ Choice badge and tenth on the Family chart. Its Play listing says the game contains ads and reports more than 100 million downloads. Apple lists location, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics as used to track you, and purchases as linked to your identity.
• Flappy Dunk is the most direct descendant with a big audience: one tap, a ball, and hoops instead of pipes. Voodoo published it on 16 May 2017 and still updates it. Free, 13+, 322.1 MB, iOS 15 or later, 4.6 stars across 768,000 ratings. Location, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics and other data appear both under tracking and under data linked to you, the heaviest declaration on the page.
• Flappy Golf 2, from Noodlecake, is a flapping game with courses attached. Free, 4+, 156.8 MB, iOS 13 or later, 4.3 stars across 2,700 ratings, and the lightest privacy panel of the three: identifiers under tracking, and nothing else.

The ones still called Flappy Bird

Searching the App Store for the name returns no DOTGEARS games and several clones from 2014. The most prominent is Flappy Bird: Cute birdie with tiny wings from Qubasoft, published 15 March 2014 and last updated to version 1.7 on 23 April 2015. Its App Privacy section reads “No Details Provided”, with a note that details will be required at the next update, which has not come in eleven years. Its own description says it was not created by the Flappy Bird creators. We list it as a warning rather than a recommendation.

All of them side by side

Store facts only, from Apple or the publisher, read on 3 September 2026 with prices re-read on 19 September, and linked at the foot of this page.

The last two columns are not a ranking and a shop is not a fault. Crossy Road has been maintained for eleven years and Flappy Nyan has not been touched since 2016: the games that sell something are the games that can afford to keep being made.

What these games do better than ours

• Geometry Dash asks for money and then leaves you alone. $3.99, no purchases, no ads and nothing collected. Ours is free because it carries a banner, and we cannot match that without charging you.
• Crossy Road is a far bigger game. Hundreds of characters, dozens of worlds, same-device multiplayer, offline play, and versions for Apple TV and iMessage, against our fifty levels and an endless mode.
• They have an audience. We have a listing. Crossy Road reports more than 100 million Play downloads and 735,000 Apple ratings; ours reports 5+ downloads on Play, no rating there, and one rating on the App Store, five stars, read 14 September 2026.
• Flappy Nyan is sixteen megabytes and runs on a phone from 2013. Ours needs iOS 15 and 65.9 MB to do less.
• All of them are flapping games, and ours is not. Taco Rain is a catcher. If you came for the bird and the pipes, we do not make that.

How to check any of this yourself

Before installing a free game, expand the In-App Purchases row under Information and read the App Privacy panel, then the description. Look at the version date: a game last updated in 2015 is a listing rather than a product. And when a game is missing and the internet cannot agree on why, go to the developer rather than the coverage. DOTGEARS answered the Flappy Bird question on its own FAQ page, and the trademark file at the USPTO settled the rest for free.