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| "You seen any eggs around?" |
With millions of copies sold, Angry Birds is undoubtedly one of the most successful casual games to be created so far. (Still remember Plants vs Zombies? Oh well)
I am yet to play Angry Birds, but from the testimonials of my friends I think I should refrain from touching this game lest I will be addicted to it.
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| Addiction to this? I can't fathom doing something this repetitive, but better to be safe. |
Anyway, I did some readings on the Internet about Angry Birds, and I found out that Angry Birds has a historical reference behind the whole idea!
Why, of course you would have never thought of that. You think this is just another mindless casual game, uh, well maybe the developers intended it to be, but I doubted it with the uncanny resemblance to one of the historical events in human (or animal) history. Do you know what it is? One word - Dodo.
What dodo?
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| This dodo. |
Let me tell you a story, if you haven't heard it already. Come, darken your lights, cuddle around, light a candle. Ready? Just kidding lah, not a ghost story also. Anyway...
Long time ago, there was a species of birds living in an island isolated from the whole world, living in bliss, ignorant of what is happening (guess this is why they said ignorance is a bliss). They never had to face any predators, so they never had the need to run very fast or fly. Evolution took their flight away, and directed their energy elsewhere (such as doing you-know-what all day, in numbers).
So they lived happily for thousands of years. They eat, they make love, they lay eggs. Such is the simple life of the dodo birds. Until one day in the 16th century (1500s ah, don't misread it), the Dutch came. Then you heard the rest of the story.
The island was named Mauritius, an island off the island of Madagascar. Over the next century, many sailors came. The dodo, living in peace for years, lost their natural instinct to escape from predators. They were fearless of the humans, so naturally, easy capture means easy food. Humans fed on these dodos by tons whenever they made a stop at this island. That is probably one of the reasons dodo became extinct within about a hundred years from the first encounter.
Then came one of the key factors that has a direct link to Angry Birds - pigs!
Allow me to explain. Dodos as you know, had no natural predators. They lay their eggs on the ground. But when the human came, they brought in other animals into the island ecosystem. One of them is - you guessed it - pig.
The pigs contributed as much if not more to the extinction of dodo, by eating their eggs. Lots of them.
This took the dodo too fast for them to have any evolutionary adaptations, and in the end, the last dodo was sighted in 1688 (date is being disputed, but its around that lah.).
That's it? You ask. That's all it took for me to link them together? Well, there are more to it. I think I should lay it out for you to see. I'm sure you will be convinced.
First: Angry Birds and Dodos can't fly
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| Slingshot is there for obvious reasons. |
Why of course. Why else? WHY ELSE? Slingshot?!
Second: Both lay their eggs on the ground.
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| Dodo with eggs. |
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Third: Pigs stole their eggs.
Like I mentioned for the dodo above, in the game the pigs stole and wanted to to eat the eggs too.
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| Pigs did it. |
It is no wonder the Angry Birds are real angry. It's extinction we were talking about for F's sake. So the next time you wonder "Angry Birds, Y U so angry lah?" You can think about this piece of event in history.
Oh yes. Don't mess with them. They'd rather explode and die than to let you steal their eggs, though I still don't know what is the historical significance in that.
I think I should end here. Till next time, happy Angry Bird-ing
Cheers~
