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"Flappy Bird" developer releases new game, "Swing Copters"

Get ready to enter a love/hate relationship with your cellphone again. The video game that inspired fits of rage, anger and frustration among its legions of fans now has a sequel.

The new game "Swing Copters," designed by developer Dong Nguyen, was released Thursday. Its predecessor, "Flappy Bird," achieved soaring popularity earlier this year -- becoming the most popular app downloaded in the App Store and Google Play only to, just as quickly, disappear.

Nguyen took to Twitter earlier this week to announce the new app was coming.

Available on both the App Store and Google Play, "Swing Copters" is free. It is currently only available in some countries, but Nguyen assured his fans that it will be coming to other areas soon.

Similar to Nguyen's earlier game, the player must tap the screen to maneuver the avatar with a propeller left or right, avoiding obstacles. A gaming site, TouchArcade, previewed the game and reported that it was going to be much harder than "Flappy Bird."

Players already seem to agree. Commenting on the game's Google Play page, one said "This game is incredibly frustrating and utterly difficult to the point that it sucks all the fun out of it." Others said it was "challenging" and "frustrating, but fun."

When the developer abruptly removed the popular "Flappy Bird" game from the app stores in February, rumors began to swirl. Some speculated that he had been threatened by Nintendo for the game's similar look to the game-maker's "Super Mario Bros." franchise. Others suggested that use of fake accounts inflated the downloads count.

Before taking the game down, Nguyen addressed the allegations, saying that it was "not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore." Nguyen, who lives in Vietnam and developed the game on his own, wrote on Twitter that the Internet sensation caused by the game "ruins my simple life."

In the weeks that followed, some fans who had the popular game on their phones tried to cash in by selling their smartphones on eBay. For a Samsung Galaxy S4 that was loaded with the game, the asking price was reportedly $255,000, and an iPhone that was listed for $99,989 had over 1,100 people viewing it per hour.

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