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Flappy Bird's been taken down - here's ten of the hardest games to break your thumbs on

You don't have to rely on mutated fowls to get your smartphone kicks

Joe Krishnan
Monday 10 February 2014 16:41 GMT
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Flappy Birds' gameplay.
Flappy Birds' gameplay.

Gamers were given a temporary reprieve last week after Flappy Bird - arguably the most frustratingly-addictive game in recent history - was removed from the iTunes App Store.

The creator of the app, Vietnamese developer Nguyen Dong, produced what can only be described as mass hysteria on a global scale with the fiendishly difficult pipe-navigating flap-a-thon. The game proved to be a surprise hit in the competitive app market, attracting more than 50 million downloads and luring users in with its mind-numbing difficulty.

But the sudden success of the app proved to be too much for Dong, who has since removed the game from the App Store, saying on Twitter: "I cannot take this anymore. It is not anything related to legal issues. I just cannot keep it anymore."

While its disappearance from the App Store might calm some exasperated players, there is nothing more enticing for a gamer than a challenge that is near impossible to complete. Some opportunistic individuals have even attempted to cash in on its disappearance, with an eBay seller attracting bids of over £50,000 for an iPhone with the game included.

To commemorate Dong's monumental achievement we've delved into the history of gaming - across multiple platforms - and picked out some of the most enduring and difficult titles. We can only hope that despite its untimely disappearance Flappy Bird will prove just as difficult to forget.

Here are our top ten picks:

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