🐦 Flappy Bird Clone – Unity Edition

A polished and faithful remake of the original Flappy Bird, built using Unity 6000.1.1f1 as a solo project. Designed to explore Unity’s 2D systems, Shader Graph, C# scripting, and optimization techniques such as object pooling. The game features fluid controls, sprite-based UI, and efficient performance on both desktop and mobile platforms.

🎮 Project Type: Solo
🛠 Engine: Unity 6000.1.1f1
💻 Language: C#
🎨 Assets: samuelcust/flappy-bird-assets
📦 Key Systems: Object Pooling, Shader Graph, Sprite-Based UI, Rigidbody2D

🎯 Gameplay Overview

Players control a bird that flaps upward each time the player taps or presses space. The goal is to navigate between randomly spaced pipe gaps for as long as possible. Score increases as the player successfully passes through pipes. The game ends when the bird hits a pipe or the ground.

🧩 Game Architecture

🐤 Bird Controller

Handles player input and flapping movement
Uses physics-based upward force with Rigidbody2D
Manages bird rotation and death conditions

🚧 Pipe Spawner

Spawns pipe pairs at regular time intervals
Pipes move horizontally across the screen
Vertical gap positions are randomized for challenge

🎮 Game Manager

Controls game states: Start, Playing, GameOver
Manages score, high score storage, and restart flow
Coordinates with UI and audio systems

🌄 Background & Floor Movement (Shader-Based)

To simulate forward motion without moving the bird through space, the background and floor sprites are scrolled using a custom Shader Graph:

UV scrolling is driven by time
Parallax effect can be achieved by using multiple layers
Reduces CPU/GPU load by eliminating GameObject translations
Enhances performance and visual fidelity

🔁 Object Pooling System

A generic, reusable Pool Manager was developed to manage:

Pipe instances during gameplay
Digit sprite objects used in score display

This pooling system minimizes runtime instantiation, prevents garbage collection spikes, and improves frame stability — especially during longer sessions or high score streaks. The pooling logic is flexible, allowing for expansion to other objects if needed in the future.

🖥️ UI & Score Display

The UI is entirely sprite-based, mimicking the original game's aesthetic:

Score is shown using individual digit sprites
Start screen, Game Over screen, and High Score panels are layered using Unity's Canvas system
Built-in support for localization-ready layout and sprite swaps

🔊 Audio & Visual Feedback

Sound effects include flap, score increment, and death
Optional background music loop available
Visual feedback includes flapping animations and a responsive camera system
Particle and visual effects used for collision or death states

✅ Features Implemented

✅ Physics-based flapping movement
✅ Procedural pipe generation and randomized gaps
✅ Shader Graph-based background and ground scrolling
✅ Fully sprite-driven UI and score system
✅ Object pooling for pipes and score digits
✅ Game states and reset functionality
✅ Local high score tracking
✅ Mobile and keyboard input support

🧪 Playtesting & Feedback

Tested on:

🖥️ Desktop (Windows build)
📱 Android (test APK)

Feedback Highlights:

Controls are responsive and tight
Shader scrolling feels smooth and optimized
Game resets quickly for minimal downtime between sessions
Visual style is faithful to the original game

🚀 Planned Features

| Feature | Status | Notes | | ------------------------ | ----------- | --------------------------------------------- | | 📱 Mobile polish | In Progress | UI scaling and safe area integration | | 🏆 Leaderboard support | Planned | Integration via Google Play or Unity Services | | 🐤 Unlockable bird skins | Planned | Alternate sprite skins | | ⏱️ Dynamic difficulty | Planned | Pipe speed and gap size scale over time | | 🎁 Power-ups | Concept | Optional gameplay modifiers | | 💬 Localization | Concept | Using Unity’s Localization package |

📦 Assets & Licensing

All game assets (sprites, backgrounds, sounds) are used from:

🎨 samuelcust/flappy-bird-assets
📄 Licensed under the MIT License

Includes:

Bird sprites (multiple colors)
Pipes, base, background images
Score digits and banners
Sound effects from original Flappy Bird

🧠 What I Learned

Building reusable and optimized gameplay systems in Unity
Using Shader Graph for background scrolling and performance improvements
Designing a generic object pooling system for scalable reusability
Working with sprite-based UI systems instead of traditional text
Managing 2D game physics and collision systems
Creating clean project structure and modular scripts for future expansion

🔧 Build Targets

🖥️ Windows (.exe) – complete
📱 Android (.apk) – complete

📬 Contact & Next Steps

This game was built as a self-directed learning project and portfolio piece. I'm eager to apply these skills to more complex games and collaborate with other developers or mentors.

🚀 I'm constantly learning and enjoy solving game development problems. If you're building something exciting or want to collaborate, I’d love to connect!