Official Angry Birds Space Announcement

We have all been waiting anxiously for more details about Angry Birds Space, which is set to be released on March 22nd for iOS, Android, Mac, and PC. If you missed our original post on the topic, along with many teaser trailers, be sure to check them out here.

On to the new stuff. Rovio’s official announcement came in many portals, but most information can be found on the official app page at space.angrybirds.com. The video comes live from the International Space Station and includes a very nice introductory physics lesson about how gravity acts on projectiles. In space, however, the effects of gravity are significantly less. In fact, gravity is nearly zero unless near an object with significant mass. The Angry Birds even landed the cover of National Geographic, which looks like a very interesting edition!

Angry Birds Space will feature a clever mixture of zero and low-gravity situations. As the birds fly through “open space”, their trajectory will be perfectly straight. However, objects such as planets and asteroids have their own gravitational field, which will pull the birds inward! This will result in very nifty, looping, spiral shots to pop the piggies! (Important lesson about gravitational forces: The closer two objects are, the stronger the attractive force between them. This appears to hold true in Angry Birds Space as well.)

The announcement also gives a preview of a few new birds (for a much more detailed breakdown of the new birds see, “Meet the Birds in Angry Birds Space”) — and a few old birds with makeovers.

• At first glance, the video suggests that the Red, Black, and Big Brother birds all have the same abilities as before, though newly-designed.
• The Blue birds have the same ability, though they seem a bit stronger than in the original apps.
• There also seems to be a purple-colored bird (we are not going to speculate as to its name right now), whose ability is to redirect and accelerate. Personally, I believe this is a new ability of the existing Yellow bird.
• There is also a new “icy” bird (again, no speculation as to name), whose ability is to freeze its contact area on a structure.

The following statement is per Rovio’s Press Kit:

Angry Birds Space features 60 interstellar levels on planets and in zero gravity, resulting in spectacular gameplay ranging from slow-motion puzzles to lightspeed destruction. With regular free updates, new in-app purchases [iOS only], brand new birds, brand new superpowers, [hidden bonus levels,] and a whole galaxy to explore, the sky is no longer the limit!

A few other interesting tidbits:

• If you pop the helmet or air-bubble around a pig, it freezes and drifts. It is not clear if a frozen pig counts as popped, or if it will eventually pop on its own.
• This will be the first time in the Angry Birds series where you must target a bird’s ability: Where you tap on-screen determines the new trajectory line for the purple-colored (revamped Yellow?) bird.
• The first two episode names were revealed on NASA’s website: Pig Bang and Cold Cuts will each feature 30 levels. The scroll bar at the bottom of the image could mean that more names will be known, or perhaps more than 60 levels will be available in v1.0.0, but we aren’t sure exactly.
• Introductory videos for each of the birds will be released between the 10th and 16th. Click here to see that post! Note that the White, Orange, and Boomerang birds are not featured (if we assume the purple-colored bird is simply a revamped Yellow bird).

So be sure to check out the video above (it really is a must watch). If you just can’t get enough of Angry Birds Space? Check out these other fine articles, each containing some awesome tidbits about what is to come:

• Official Angry Birds Space Trailer
• Massive Angry Birds Space Background Set
• Angry Birds Space Gameplay Footage
• Meet the Birds in Angry Birds Space