Angry Birds' Score Rules - Is It Fair?

"Angry Birds" is arguably the most successful game to date based on a mobile platform. People love to play Angry Birds, from young to old. The game's rules are fairly simple, and it serves well as a time-wasting entertainment.

Here is an interesting question/thought I have, solely based on my experiences with the game - are Angry Birds' score rules fair? I think not.

Well, for one, in order to judge something "fair" or "not fair", one needs to know the contents of the rules. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time and celebrity-significance of getting that information from Angry Bird's developers. Let me summarize the "rules of principles" (read NOT the entire ruling algorithm), based on my experiences, as the following:

- All Angry Birds players should know that the game has two related scoring systems. One is the actual "score", which is mathematically calculated based on how the game is played - how many pigs are killed, how many blocks are destroyed, and how many birds are used, etc. Once the level is completed (i.e. all pigs are killed), the 2nd system rates the player's overall performance and assigns a Star level out of three. Three Stars (3-Star) is the best.
- I claimed the above two systems are related because I think people would generally agree that, playing in the same episode at the same level, the higher the final score, the higher the Star level.
- The game awards a "Total Destruction" achievement if a player achieves 3-Star in all levels in each episode. In order to achieve 3-Star for all levels, players are addicted of coming back and improving their performances or scores for each level.

So far, I think most readers would agree with what I said above. But I think there are two additional ruling conditions that make the game's score rules "unfair". Based on my guess, they are the following:
- In order to achieve 3-Star for a particular level, the player must get a score higher than the previous record. For example, if the player got 160,000 points and 2-Star at a particular level, the player must get higher than 160,000 points for the possibility of winning a 3-Star when the level is played. In addition,
- the level has to be "played" in a particular way, (possibly) pre-defined by Angry Birds developers.

The last point above makes me drawing the conclusion that Angry Birds score rules are not necessarily "fair". Let me explain.

First, I don't believe the game assigns Star based on the final score in a level. I said the score and the Star are related, but the Star levels are not assigned by score ranges. For example, if the score is below 120,000, 1-Star; if the score is between 120,001 and 150,000, 2-Star; and if the score is higher than 150,000, 3-Star. This is NOT the case. I have not compared my scores with my friends for a particular level. However, I think it's possible that the game gives 2-Star to me and 3-Star to another person for a particular level, even if my highest score for that level is higher than the other person's. If I play the same level over and over again, and if I had achieved 2-Star for that level before, there is no guarantee that I would get a 3-Star no matter how much higher my new score is compared to my previous record. Getting a higher score than the previous record is one of the required conditions for getting a 3-Star, but it's not the only condition.

For the second condition, I think the game assigns Star level based on play patterns - how well the player executes the physics of the birds, and at what sequences the birds are used. In my experience, it is much easier to achieve 3-Star for some levels, even at the 1st attempt. I believe I can improve the scores for these levels (e.g. destroy more blocks, etc.) should I spend more time. However, I think I was given 3-Star because I "did it correctly" at the first attempts. In the opposite scenarios, the game simply refuses of giving 3-Star no matter how much "destruction" is made in a level, or how high the score is. In one particular example, Episode 1, Level 2, I attempted but failed many times for the 3-Star. My score record kept growing, but I always received 2-Star. When I finally "got it", I realized that I must over-shoot the red bird and let it kill a pig after bouncing from the wall. The game finally gave me the 3-Star because I think I followed "the right way". In another example, Episode 17, Level 7, I was able to kill all pigs using only two birds (many attempts and a little luck), with a total destruction of most concrete and wood blocks. I got bonus for the yellow bird and red bird I didn't use (10,000 each), and I scored 122,580 as a record for that level. I thought that was pretty high and pretty good, but I was given 2-Star (maybe the game thinks I was too lucky?). And I have not figured out how to achieve 3-Star for that level yet.

The above is perhaps read as boring and random. I wonder if there is any die-hard Angry Birds players ever paid attentions to these details. Too me, Angry Birds' Star-assignment is like a little black magic. The game rules are simple, but the scoring rules are not. When a product is defined, it is always important to strategize how the customers will perceive the final product. Some times, some perspectives of a product is designed to be "confusing" to customers (e.g. is there a correlation between the material cost of a skincare product and its retail price). In this case, I wonder if Angry Birds developers purposely made the Star levels difficult and relatively random, so that people would keep coming back and spend more time on the game.

Either way though, whether its score rules are fair, Angry Birds is still an excellent, entertaining, well designed mobile game.