“Space…the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the Angry Birds. Their continuing mission: to slingshot around strange new worlds, to destroy new pig civilizations, to boldly go where no app has gone before.”
The latest installment in the Angry Birds franchise takes the familiar gameplay from the first few games and adds a great new twist. The birds are now in space and have to deal with a variety of gravity wells. Completing levels now sometimes requires a method of navigating space known as a “gravity assist maneuver” or “gravitational slingshot.” This technique is used in real space exploration, first by Mariner 10 and most notably by the two Voyager probes, in order to achieve velocities and trajectories that would otherwise require incredible amounts of fuel.
Because of this connection, NASA has embraced Angry Birds Space as an opportunity to educate people about space and gravity. According to NASA: “Not only does gravity play a vital role in the game but, in general, gravity is a force that governs motion throughout the universe.” In addition to sending iPads to the space station, presumably to play Angry Birds Space in space, NASA has also made a video of astronaut Don Pettit demonstrating the physics of projectiles in a microgravity environment using an Angry Bird toy and a makeshift slingshot. The video can be viewed here.
If learning isn’t your thing, that’s okay, because this game is also really fun to play. Your starting position and the number and type of gravity wells varies from level to level forcing you to constantly rethink your angle of attack and come up with some creative solutions to get pigs that seem impossible to hit at first glance. My favorite level (so far) is hidden and needed to be unlocked by getting what appeared to be a golden rock. When you hit the golden rock, you are warped to a game field that is an obvious homage to the classic arcade game Space Invaders.
Download Angry Birds Space for iOS here.