Live action Angry Birds! With real exploding green pigs! Watch it. [Video]

If you thought the Angry Birds cake was impressive, you ain't seen nothing yet. Rovio and Deutsche Telekom, a German television network, teamed up to create the largest, most ridiculously awesome game of Angry Birds you've ever seen. The game took place in a pavilion area in Terrassa, Spain, and Spanish news site Hasta los Juegos caught the game in action. The event was accompanied by a jazz band playing, of course, the Angry Birds theme song as green pigs exploded in tiny piglet bits. Now, where's my life sized Bejeweled Blitz?

[Via Pocket Gamer]

Were you there to see the Angry Birds game, by chance? Where would you like to see Angry Birds go next?

Stadiums full of people become Angry Birds players with Uplause

Could the Angry Birds replace the proverbial demands of "Make Some Noise" at your next baseball game? Maybe not your next one, but soon you could be cheering to fling the irate winged beasts into their plump green enemies. Pocket Gamer reports that Uplause, a Finnish developer of crowd-based games, has rebuilt Angry Birds with its creator, Rovio, into a version controlled by noise.

The self-proclaimed "social game maker for big crowds" has created similar games for use in stadiums for ice hockey games, soccer matches and even music festivals. Over the past summer, Uplause worked with Rovio to create a version of Angry Birds that is controlled using noise as an input device. (Namely, cheering, clapping, stomping and perhaps even booing, we assume.)

"As in the original, there's about a four second period before firing," Uplause CEO Veli-Pekka Marin explained to Pocket Gamer. "For live events, we'd expect each gaming session to take a few minutes." But in that time, thousands of folks will play at the same time. If anything, it's terribly efficient.

While all we know about this seriously social version of Angry Birds is that noise generates power for the game's slingshot, Pocket Gamer guesses that aiming is done automatically. Rovio and Uplause will first test this massive version of Angry Birds at a Formula 1 race taking place in Singapore this weekend, and the company's CMO Peter Vesterbacka sounds excited for its imminent global expansion.

"Through social participation, our fans will get to interact with the Angry Birds in an entirely new way," Vesterbacka said to Pocket Gamer. "We think this new form of gaming will give fans a great opportunity to form a strong emotional connection with the characters." I think Vesterbacka is confusing "emotional connection" with "drunken, crowd-fueled stupor." Check out the video below to get an idea of how it might work. Who knows you might be doing the same thing at the next World Series.


What do you imagine a noise-controlled version of Angry Birds would be like? What other games come to mind when you think of this approach?

Angry Birds creator wants to publish indie games, Rovio exec says

It makes you wonder: Could Rovio be just a little bit scared that it might not strike gold again? Chief marketing officer for the creator of Angry Birds Peter Vesterbacka (pictured) said to Develop in an interview that the developer is planning to open a publishing label.

"We have some plans for this area, but not ready to announce yet," Vesterbacka told Develop. "If we do something in the publishing area, you can expect it to be a bit different."

However, it seems as if the maker of your favorite annoyed avians wants to keep things 1.) indie (independently developed) and 2.) mobile. According to Develop, Rovio has already approached several mobile game studios to form a foundation for the new business. While the Finnish company's other ventures have arguably been leaps of faith--cookbooks ... seriously?--it certainly has experience in the publishing business.

Well, at least from the other end. Angry Birds made it to the US in 2009 though Chillingo, a mobile games publisher that is now owned by EA. Of course, Rovio was able to back out of deal once the acquisition occurred, but the company is currently in another publisher relationship with Twentieth Century Fox, through which it nabbed the rights to create Angry Birds Rio.

And honestly, it would be a no-brainer for an indie game developer to team up with Rovio. For one, if the company claims to be worth at least as much as Zynga, it at least has considerable resources to offer. And seriously, could you go wrong with a team that has somehow successfully hyped up slingshotting birds into pigs for two years running? I think not.

[Via TouchArcade]

What do you think of Rovio potentially becoming an indie games publisher? Would you try a new iPhone game just knowing it was published by the creator of Angry Birds? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment