Dundee games developer celebrates new Angry Birds launch

SCOTTISH developer Tag Games are celebrating another success following the release of Angry Birds Action, the next instalment in the Angry Birds franchise.

Angry Birds Action. Picture: Tag Games

The game, which hit Apple and Android stores on Friday, ties in with the upcoming cinema release of The Angry Birds Movie.

Acting as a companion piece to the film, Angry Birds Action! ties the two together in a way that has never been attempted before. Through the inclusion of cross-media capabilities, players are able to interact with the film to unlock extra features, as well as play AR mini-games activated by scanning codes in the real world.

“Angry Birds Action! takes the popular 2D Angry Birds game-play and takes it into 3D for the first time, with visuals that reflect the new style of Angry Birds seen in the movie”, Tag CEO Paul Farley explains.

“The fast-paced pinball action mixed with the familiar Angry Birds game-play provides a gaming experience which provides something new, whilst still remaining familiar for fans of the series.”

The game’s development was supported by a large team at Tags Dundee office, with additional help provided by Rovio in Finland. The launch is likely to be the company’s biggest to date and comes as they celebrate their 10th year in the industry.

Shipping a product for such a huge franchise represents a major coup for Tag and the Scottish games sector as a whole, which is largely concentrated in Dundee where about a third of the industry’s companies are based.

Farley said: “Dundee has been a hub for game development for over 25 years and was the birthplace of such iconic games as Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown, Bloons and Lemmings.


“Today there are dozens of development studios operating in the city and Abertay University is regarded as one of the best in the world for game design and technology.

“Games are an integral part of Dundee culture and we have a huge pool of creative, talented people working in the sector.

“This release further cements our position as a studio capable of delivering high class free-to-play games and managing live service operations at the largest possible scale.”

As a companion piece to the film, Tag worked closely with Sony Pictures to ensure the game’s style and content fitted with the overall vision for the movie.

“The ties between movie and game are in this sense closer than anything that’s ever been attempted before. The idea behind the game was to provide a fun and engaging companion piece for the upcoming movie, that also worked as a marketing tool for the Angry Birds brand in a general sense”, Farley adds.