Timberman Is The New Flappy Bird

Gamers looking for a new way to spend time waiting in line or on a commute should go check out Timberman, the latest indie game to take the App Store by storm. According to App Annie data, the game has made its way to the top five apps overall in more than 20 countries and is the most-downloaded game in eight countries as of yesterday.

Timberman’s gameplay nails the recipe for addictiveness in a smartphone game. It’s easy to get into — all you’re doing is cutting down a tree by tapping on one side or the other, trying to avoid the descending branches as you progress.

After a few rounds where you frustratingly die because you can’t tell how close those branches really are to your character, the game clicks. As you get into the rhythm of the game, getting a good run becomes easier but improving your score gets harder. You’re thankful for rounds where the random generator gives you a tree that doesn’t require you to switch sides more than once a second, making you curse your phone when faced with a seemingly impossible run of branches.

Although Timberman has been on the App Store since May, it only really took off towards the end of last week. As you can see from its App Annie rankings history, it did fairly well upon launch, then steadily dropped down the charts through June. According to Timberman creator Paweł Kitajewski, Apple featuring the game as an Editor’s Choice led to the recent spike in downloads, with 1 million of its 2.5 million total downloads taking place in the last three days:

Timberman is free to download on the App Store and Google’s Play Store. There’s also a $0.99 Golden Edition for those who want more things to unlock and don’t want to see ads every couple of rounds.