Take to the sky and fly as far as you can in Rocketbird on Facebook

BeTomorrow first launched Rocketbird, a simple "survival" game on the iPhone, back in 2009 and it has gone on to become a fan favorite (especially with children), to the tune of over three million downloads. With such a simple premise, one wouldn't think that the game could find a following on Facebook, but the port of the game has done just that and currently sits at over 500,000 monthly active players.

As we said before, Rocketbird has an incredibly simple premise, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You'll play as a cute yellow chick with a rocket strapped to its back. Each time you play, you'll guide the bird around the screen (from a behind the back perspective), avoiding obstacles and picking up lightning bolts to give yourself more "fuel" to continue on. In terms of interaction from you, the player, you'll need to do little more than move your mouse left and right to avoid trees, fences, buildings and rocks. Hitting one of these items will end your game instantly, while running out of fuel ends the game slowly, over time.

As you play, you're forever racking up distance points for how far you've traveled. The game is level-based, with the level system being similar to titles like Angry Birds, to give you an easy comparison. That is, each level has three stars possible, with the more points you earn (the farther you travel) earning you more stars. You'll need to earn a specific amount of stars to unlock subsequent levels, and you'll also unlock an additional power-up early on: a teleportation bubble that instantly launches you to a fairly close distance to where you last failed so you can hopefully increase your high score.

If all of this sounds simple, there's an added element of challenge thrown in as your bird increases in speed as you travel farther and farther through each level. Once you're going fast enough to have trees and barns whipping by in a blur, you won't be stuck thinking you're playing a "kids" game. Luckily, you can also activate Bullet Time by pressing the space bar, which slows the game down allowing you to avoid obstacles.

In terms of social features, these are understandably pretty light, but do include two leaderboards for tracking how many stars your friends have overall, and your scores for each individual level (with two whole worlds of levels still marked as "coming soon").

All in all, Rocketbird may not be the game you come back to each and every morning and spend countless hours on, but it's a fun little distraction from the real world with cute graphics and a charming premise. That's worth at least a few moments of your time, right?

Play Rocketbird on Facebook -->

Have you tried Rocketbird on Facebook or on iOS? How do you think the Facebook version of the game compares to its iPhone predecessor? Sound off in the comments.