Angry Birds Flock Party: Classic Birds, New Tricks

Angry Birds Flock Party is now available to Prime members and Luna Premium subscribers on the Luna game streaming service!* The classic Angry Birds games conquered the world with their unmistakable characters and intuitive gameplay. Now the Angry Birds are aiming to conquer sofas everywhere with their first ever couch co-op experience that players can share with their friends and family – or even complete strangers, depending on who is in your living room.

We recently talked to Sami Ronkainen, game lead of Angry Birds Flock Party, to chat about the game. In this article, we’ll dive into how Angry Birds Flock Party brings a whole new multiplayer experience to the classic Angry Birds gameplay, offering a fresh way to enjoy the world’s most beloved bird-flinging pig-popping game.

Angry Birds Flock Party is a multiplayer twist on the Angry Birds Classic remake from 2022. It takes that familiar foundation and layers in an entirely new way to play: couch co-op for up to four players.

Here’s how it works. You fire up the game on a TV or streaming device, then scan a QR code with your phone or tablet. That link loads a controller interface right in your phone browser. No downloads, no extra hardware. Your phone becomes your slingshot.

From there, the action unfolds in two different modes:

Story Mode (Co-op): The classic Angry Birds levels you know and love, reimagined for team play. Here, up to four players take turns smashing the piggies’ towers to smithereens. You’re working together, discussing strategy, and deciding who should take the next shot.

Tournament (PvP): A faster, more competitive option where levels are served up at random, and it’s all about high scores. When the dust settles, only one player walks away with bragging rights.

Both modes keep that signature Angry Birds satisfaction: blocks tumbling, pigs popping, and high scores rolling in, but now the fun is multiplied by the people sitting next to you.

To bring Angry Birds Flock Party to life, Rovio tapped an internal team who are no strangers to flinging the Birds in new directions. Looking at what they’ve accomplished, Sami Ronkainen and his team might just be the ultimate champions of the classic Angry Birds experience. The team has brought Angry Birds to platforms as varied as Apple Arcade (Angry Birds Reloaded) and the dashboard displays of Mercedes Benz cars as well as cars running the Android Automotive OS system, and they’ve never done it without adding a bit of innovative flair.

Did you know Sami also worked on Angry Birds Action!, an Angry Birds Movie tie-in that listened for an inaudible sound in the movie’s end credits to unlock in-game extras? Pretty wild. Or that his team produced Angry Birds Isle of Pigs VR and AR with Resolution Games, which not only brought slingshotting into 3D worlds but also added a level designer? That’s pretty cool too. Now with the first couch co-op Angry Birds game in the wild, Sami and company can put one more feather in their cap.

“Our team’s main design goal for Angry Birds Flock Party was just to create a fun party game that allows people to play the classic Angry Birds experience together,” says Sami. “We focused on the interaction between players by allowing them to take turns and play co-operatively, and by adding a few gameplay twists that work well with a multiplayer experience and aren’t found in the original Angry Birds games.”

Angry Birds Flock Party adds one dynamic that changes the strategy completely. “Angry Birds Flock Party adds another mechanic to the gameplay, which is giving players the ability to choose which bird they fling. This has never been done in a classic Angry Birds game,” says Sami. In the original Angry Birds, the order of the Birds was fixed, you had to play the birds as they came. Angry Birds 2 introduced the idea of choosing birds, and now Angry Birds Flock Party brings that power to the original Angry Birds levels.

This means that you and your friends can plan ahead, debate options, and argue a little about what to do next so you can choose the perfect moment to drop a perfectly aimed egg with Matilda, blow everything up with Bomb, or do… whatever it is that Hal does. It’s your choice! It’s a simple change, but it opens the door to real teamwork, strategy, and laughter when someone’s “brilliant idea” doesn’t quite work out.

The team also added some extras and Easter eggs to look out for, including a collection of levels that pays tribute to Angry Birds Mystery Island: A Hatchlings Adventure, an animated series available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Kids+.

In all, there is enough here to keep the game interesting for even the most seasoned bird flingers at the party.

Anything can happen at a party, and that was a major concern for the Angry Birds Flock Party team, who had to design around all of that uncertainty. “Designing a game for a party environment meant that we had to build systems that could handle someone going AFK to grab a drink or chat with a friend, a browser crashing, or a player suddenly disappearing mid-game,” says Sami. “So we did a lot of testing across different phones and browsers, and added some features like turn-skipping and rejoining so the fun wouldn’t stop just because someone’s battery died for example.”

That extensive testing meant that some features were dropped also. “Initially we also had an idea to create a system that let players vote on which bird to use next or if they wanted to restart the level, but during the development we realized that it’s actually pointless because you’re sitting in the same room. You can just talk it out.”

By considering the context where people will be playing and taking into account all of the chaotic possibilities of what can happen at a party, the team reached an end result that is smoother, more human, and true to the party atmosphere the game is designed for.

Angry Birds Flock Party continues a long Rovio tradition of bringing Angry Birds to new platforms in creative ways. From VR headsets to car dashboards, from streaming services to movie theaters, the franchise has proven its adaptability again and again.

This time, it’s about something different – sharing the fun. The first ever couch co-op Angry Birds game presents players with a chance to rediscover the joy of slingshotting together. So get you flock together, grab your phones, and get ready to take turns flinging. Angry Birds Flock Party is available now to Prime members and Luna Premium subscribers on Amazon Luna!*

* Cloud-delivered games are currently available in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, and Luxembourg.