🐦 Flappy Bird in C: APK Size < 100 Kilobytes! 🚀

May 15, 2026 · View on GitHub

🐦 Flappy Bird in C: APK Size < 100 Kilobytes! 🚀

📜 History:

It all started in 2021 when I stumbled upon rawdrawandroid. My goal was simple: to create a game with the minimal APK size, yet still be understandable and interesting. 🎯

The idea of making a Flappy Bird clone seemed logical, given that this game had already been ported to many languages. 🐤

In 2021, I also studied Raylib, but my first attempt to make a game in C++ using ImGui failed. 💔

The problems were everywhere: the APK size was around 1 MB, the game crashed, and the APK only contained the armeabi-v7a library (Google's 2022 requirements state that the arm64-v8a library must be included!). 🤯

💡 Motivation:

In September 2024, seeing Flappy Bird in C# in the Raylib Discord channel, I decided to try implementing this game in C for Android with an APK size of less than 100 KB. 🚀

The idea seemed crazy, but the competitive interest took over. 💪

🛠️ Implementation:

I started by compiling a "Hello World" in C and packaging the library into an APK. 📦

Sounds were compressed to MP3 format, and OpenSLES was used for playback. 🎵

For PNG file decoding, I chose upng. 🖼️

All of this was combined using OpenGL ES 2, shaders, and Android Native Activity. 🎮

🔧 Build:

Visual Studio Code (Windows)

Create .env from .env.example
Run build.bat

Linux and macOS (Makefile)

For Linux and macOS users, you can build the project using the provided Makefile:

Install the Android command-line tools.
Set up your environment variables in a .env file in the project root directory (see .env.example for an example).
Build the project:
```
cd FlappyBird
make
```

For more detailed instructions, please refer to BUILDING.md.

The signed APK will be generated at: FlappyBird/app/build/outputs/apk/FlappyBird-signed.apk

🐦 Flappy Bird in C: APK Size < 100 Kilobytes! 🚀

🐦 Flappy Bird in C: APK Size < 100 Kilobytes! 🚀

📜 History:

💡 Motivation:

🛠️ Implementation:

🔧 Build:

Visual Studio Code (Windows)

Linux and macOS (Makefile)

📄 Copyright:

🌟 Inspiration:

🌠 Star History