Hey You! A Flappy Bird Lament is a game that reminds us to be good

Australian bitpop band 7bit Hero recently published a noteworthy musical meta-game about the trials and tribulations of Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen titled Hey You! A Flappy Bird Lament. 7bit Hero describes the game, developed in a week by electronic musician and 7bit Hero creator Hans van Vliet as part of the recent Flappy Jam game jam, as a "documentary-like music-video game" designed to inspire empathy for Nguyen. The game is simple: players guide a Nguyen look-alike through a dark apartment, dodging destructive Tweets -- copied verbatim from actual Twitter comments directed at Nguyen -- to get to his computer and delete Flappy Bird for good. "The goal is to remind other that indie gamedevs are friendly and supportive; envy and teasing should not belong to our community, nor be a cause of suffering," reads a statement published on the game's website. "7bit Hero is hoping to encourage people to simmer down before you say something you’ll regret. It’ll be OK." It's rare to see a game that attempts to address the day-to-day challenges of life as a game maker, though not unheard of -- Mattie Brice's Mainichi and Will O'Neill's Actual Sunlight both address autobiographical themes, for example. It's even rarer to see a developer build a game to evoke empathy for the situation of a fellow creator. Hey You! A Flappy Bird Lament can be played right now for free in your browser, and you can check out many more Flappy Bird tribute games on the Flappy Jam website.