Tips for a higher score

These are not slogans. Each one comes from how Flappy Bully actually moves: a flap replaces vertical speed, gravity is constant, the gap never shrinks, and the chimneys never speed up. The how to play page has the full rulebook. This page is what to do with it when you want the next point.

1. One tap is the whole flap

A flap does not add to the speed you already have. It sets vertical speed to one fixed upward value, the same value every time. A second tap a moment later sets that same value again. It does not make a bigger jump, and holding your finger down does not charge anything. Mashing feels busy and mostly wastes the time between useful flaps. The climb you can buy is the climb of that one impulse, repeated when the last one has been spent.

2. Flap as the nose levels

Douglas’s nose follows his vertical speed. Upward speed tilts him up, a slow vertical speed holds him near level, and a fall points him down. On an 800-pixel-tall screen, gravity cancels the upward speed from one flap in about a quarter of a second, after a hop on the order of 60 pixels. Then he starts to drop. The efficient rhythm is to flap again as that hop tops out, when the nose comes back toward level. Flap earlier and you overwrite a climb that had not finished. Flap much later and you have already given the height back. Because gravity, the flap and the dog all scale with the height of the screen, that same rhythm holds on a phone and on a laptop. You are not learning a different game when you rotate the device. You are learning the same hop.

3. The opening tap always climbs

Before you touch anything, Douglas is bobbing near the middle. The first flap starts the run and sends him upward. There is no “tap to start, then fall” option. If the first gap is high, that opening climb is a gift: one more flap near the top of the hop is usually enough. If the first gap is low, the opening flap is already too much height. Take it, then wait. Let him crest and drop into the gap. A second tap there throws him over the upper cap, which is the usual death in the first two seconds.

4. A dive is cancelled by one flap, if you have room

Because a flap sets speed instead of adding to it, a steep fall does not have to be “braked” over several taps. The next tap puts him on the same upward speed as a flap from a hover. What it cannot do is return the height you already lost. If the lower cap is closer than the hop you are about to make, the flap is too late. Watch the nose. When it is pointing down and a cap is arriving, you needed the previous flap, not a heroic one now. Start the correction while the chimney is still on the right side of the screen.

5. The ceiling and the wall are both solid

Empty sky at the top of the picture is still a kill. The collision box dies if it crosses the top edge, and it dies if it meets the brick wall. Players who hug the top to “stay safe” above a low gap then clip the ceiling on the next flap. Players who rest on the wall between gaps have no hop in reserve when the next opening is high. Keep a margin. The gap itself leaves a margin when it is placed, but your own flaps can spend that margin in one tap.

6. Fly the caps, not the shafts

The shaft is the narrow column. The cap is wider, and it sticks out at the inner end of each chimney. Both are solid, so the opening you can see between the caps is the opening you have. Aiming at the wider-looking shaft and then catching the lip is a very repeatable crash. The gap between the caps is the same size all game: 236 pixels on an 800-pixel-tall screen, scaled with height everywhere else. It does not shrink at score 10 or score 50. If a later gap feels smaller, it is the picture (Fog, Storm) or the fact that you have less time to line up, not a tighter hole.

7. On a phone, decide while the chimney is still arriving

Douglas flies on a fixed line about 28% of the way across the screen. Chimneys spawn just off the right edge and scroll at a speed set by the screen height, not by its width. On a narrow phone the next cap is on you quickly, and you often see only one pair at a time. On a wide window you can see several pairs ahead and you have more horizontal distance in which to change height. Phone play is earlier decisions, not twitchier flaps. Pick the height of the gap as it enters. Do not wait until the cap is beside his nose.

8. The course tightens until about 24, then it holds

Scroll speed is constant. The gap size is constant. The only thing your score changes is the pause before the next chimney appears: 1.55 seconds at the start, 0.018 seconds less per point you have, and a hard floor at 1.12 seconds. That floor is reached at a score of about 24. The first 24 points are where the rhythm gets busier. After that you are playing the same spacing for as long as you can hold it. A run that falls apart at 30 did not meet a new hazard. It met the same spacing you already survived, one more time. Settle the hop before you chase a look that needs 40.

9. Day is for reading. Night is not a harder mode

Every visit starts on Day, even if you picked Night or Fog last time. Day and Night are both free, and they use the same chimneys, the same gravity and the same flap. Switch sky from Backgrounds before you start if you want Night for the sitting. Use Day when you are trying to see the caps cleanly. Storm and Fog unlock later and do not change the numbers either, but they hide the lip. Learn the hop on Day, then take the moodier pictures once the rhythm is boring.

10. Your best opens rewards, not the run you are on

Cape, White and Sunset all open at a best of 20. Lion, Fawn and Storm open at 40, and so on, in steps of 20. A run of 19, crashed, changes nothing if 19 was not already your best. A run of 20, even if you immediately hit the next cap, writes 20 and opens that first set. There is no need to “finish” a sky. You also do not wear a new look automatically. Open Looks, Colours or Backgrounds on the start screen and pick it. The plain Bully on Day remains there when you want the readable setup back. The full lists are on the how to play page.

11. Use the second after a crash

Fly again is locked for about a second, and a tap on the sky will not skip it. That lock is there so a dying flap does not start the next run. Spend the second looking at the cap you hit. Most crashes are one flap too many into the upper lip, or one flap too late for the lower one. Then press Fly again on purpose. If the run scored and you have no name saved, the button asks before it discards the score. Save the name if you want it on the board. The name is 3 to 16 letters or numbers.

12. Pause if you cannot see the gap

P, Escape, or the Pause button stops gravity and stops the chimneys. It is not a slow-motion trick and it does not move Douglas. It holds the frame. On Fog or Storm, or on a bright window where the cap blends into the picture, one pause is enough to see which side of the gap you are on. Resume and flap from there. Mute, if you want the screen without the chime, is M, and it sticks for next time.

When a change to these numbers ships, it is written up on the updates page. The dog in the middle of all this is Douglas.