Flappy Bird is coming back to the App Store

The creator of the addictive mobile game Flappy Bird confirmed on Twitter on Wednesday that the game will eventually return to the App Store.

After the game's rapid media rise, seemingly out of nowhere, last month, Dong Nguyen, the game's 28-year-old developer, abruptly pulled the title from the iOS App and Google Play stores. The Vietnam-based developer apparently took the game down because he'd been hounded by the press and had been uneasy about what the game was doing to its players. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he mentioned people who had lost their jobs, a mother who had stopped speaking with her children, and school children who had smashed their phones.

"At first I thought they were just joking," he told the magazine. "But I realize they really hurt themselves."

Still, he left the door open for the game's return, saying he was "considering" it. Wednesday's tweet gives us a definitive answer.

In its absence, a host of Flappy Bird clones have popped up. They range from Sesame Street's Flappy Bert to one of the stranger incarnations, Bird Jesus -- a mashup of the game with another bizarre Internet phenomenon, Twitch Plays Pokemon.

But folks who missed out on downloading the game while it was originally available will have to wait awhile before they can get their thumbs on the real thing. While Nguyen confirmed the game is coming back, he said the timing would be "not soon."

:story: c|net