Angry Birds VS Kitty Cannon

***

Chrome is advertising Angry Birds. I don't have a smart phone, so I gave it a look and it's even less than what I expected. If this is what people want, I really need to find another planet. For me, Kitten Cannon was far better conceived and much more entertaining, long ago.

Angry Birds for Chrome

http://chrome.angrybirds.com

Kitten Cannon

http://www.burststudio.com/kitten.html

After someone showed me, I played Kitten Cannon a few times, showed a few friends and got the joke. But it was free and I didn't lose time over it. It was about like passing along a funny email, or showing someone a JibJab cartoon. It would be fun to MAKE.

Kitten Cannon is now available on iPhone, but possibly the gore prevents it from reaching the success level of angry birds, which is almost the same concept. Not sure which made it to market first. It's like the Christianized retelling of the Arthurian legend, or maybe equates to when Gary Larson took B. Kliban's approach and went after syndication. Kitten Cannon is funny in the same vain as Don Martin cartoons. And the actual game play in Kitten Cannon is much more straight forward. Angry Birds strips down the ballistic concept using innocuous symbols, so there isn't much of a reward in terms of a gag. Yes, I read that the pigs were inspired by swine flu. So what.

It's all about sharing - iPhone is a mobile, viral medium for a highly captive, social audience. He with the best party trick wins. Perhaps the key for a creator is to target with niche conversation pieces.

Similarly, the iPad is now a market place and destination for interactive children's stories, exactly what Broderbund was making for personal computers in the early 90s. Nothing new but the medium, and the accessibility of the price point. These interactive games cost a dollar or two compared to $40-60 for software. This is also how direct publishing on Amazon gives writers a way to make a lot of money.


***