Ptakovina

When something with a strange name and no visible author appears under your keyboard, you know it's going to be either genius or exactly the mess it sounds like. Ptakovina is decidedly the latter, but not without charm.

It's a simple arcade game where you control some kind of flying creature and try to survive an onslaught of obstacles. Without proper documentation, it's hard to say exactly what the setting is supposed to be and what should make sense, but the principle is as old as Flappy Bird — you take off, you fall, you try to navigate through gaps and avoid crashing. The game runs at a resolution that would pass for a mockup these days, and the sounds are more part of the atmosphere than something you'd want to listen to.

Playability sits on the fence between pleasant frustration and pointless torture. The physics respond exactly as they're set, without explanation — which can be inspiring on your first attempt and frustrating on your twentieth. The controls work, the game doesn't cheat, but I'll admit that after a while you start understanding the game better than comprehending it. That's actually the appeal of these things that grew out of the nineties without any ambition to be too professional.

Ptakovina belongs in the category of games that are interesting mainly as a curiosity — something someone made for themselves or for the community without grand pretensions. In this age of hyper-polished indie projects, this unrefined charm of something raw has its place. Technically it has room for improvement, gameplay too, but that's exactly where its charm lies.

Today I'd play it more out of nostalgia for simple things than because I'd call it a grandiose experience. If you love experimental old games without polish and sales ambitions, Ptakovina is exactly what you're looking for. Everyone else can stick with Flappy Bird, which is better and knows what it wants.