Fact #1000: Back in 2003, three students of the Helsinki University Of Technology: Niklas Hed, Jarno Väkeväinen & Kim Dikert participated in a mobile game development competition at the Assembly Demo Party, which was sponsored by Nokia. (1/15)

They created a game known as "King of the Cabbage World," which caused them to win the competition. King of the Cabbage World was sold to Sumea and renamed to "Mole War," becoming one of the first real time multiplayer mobile games. (2/15)

Their victory in the competition caused the 3 to set up their own game company, known as "Relude." With them changing their name to "Rovio Mobile" in January of 2005.(3/15)

From 2003-2009, Rovio had created 51 games, with some of the most notable being Totomi and several games in the "Bounce" series. However none of these games could really be considered "major successes" (4/15)

At the start of 2009 Rovio suffered major financial issues, and was close to bankruptcy. They had planned to create a "blockbuster" title, one that would expand beyond a gaming franchise and use it to build an entertainment empire, but they didn't have a game to do that (5/15)

Rovio only had the money to make one game that would save their company, so they made several concepts on what their possibly last game could be. One day, Jaakko Iisalo, a designer at Rovio, sketched out a drawing of several flightless birds in front of a building. (6/15)

Rovio liked this idea the most and decided to roll with it. Hundreds of different concept sketches were made. Back then, the birds didn't have abilities and instead it was just a matter of size (in fact, abilities weren't added until late into development) (7/15)

When it came time for the prototype, many problems were faced. You see, originally you tapped where you want your bird to go instead of launching them, but the birds were very unresponsive and play testers had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to be doing (8/15)

The team decided they needed a more recognisable mechanism to launch the birds. The first idea was a slingshot, but it felt too predictable. They experimented with stuff like swings but after several failed attempts they just decided to go back to the slingshot. (9/15)

Eventually the designs for the birds were finalized but there was still one more problem, they needed an enemy. Time was running short so Jaakko chose to use a creature he used to draw since he was 10 (which eventually became a Pig later on) (10/15)

Usually when the team showed their other games to friends and family, the response they usually got was "OK, well, it's a phone game" but with Angry Birds they were hooked on it, and that gave the team the confidence they needed (11/15)

When the game released, it didn't do as well as they had hoped outside of Finland (as the market was small there). It wasn't until famous skier, Anja Pärson, told a newspaper that she played the game to relax before competitions when the game gained traction in Sweden. (12/15)

Not long after, Apple agreed to feature the game on the App Store. They gave the game a tiny banner on the front page of the App Store and suddenly the game went viral. Eventually the game surpassed the (then at the time) top App Store game, Doodle Jump (13/15)

Demand for an Android port was large, but the team encountered many issues when porting the game to Android devices. So they launched a beta version known as "Angry Birds Lite Beta," where you could report bugs to them. Eventually the Android port released as planned (14/15)

And you probably know the story by now, the franchise got immensely popular, a bunch of spin offs and sequels were released (and also a lot that weren't released), there was several shows, 2 movies, multiple theme parks and enough merch to fill up a black hole. (15/15)

Posted by @NotPK6
Sources: https://officechai.com/startups/51-failed-games-rovio-created-angry-birds-now-going-public-1-billion-valuation/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/23/how-we-made-angry-birds
https://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/03/tech/gallery/rovio-failed-games/index.html
https://www.pocketgamer.com/articles/024243/interview-rovio-on-the-origin-of-angry-birds-being-inspired-by-swine-flu-and-why-you-may-never-see-an-angry-birds-2/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.co.uk/article/how-rovio-made-angry-birds-a-winner/amp

Oh, and also Terence is round (submitted by @ScaredyFacts)

Thank you to @RobbyB3ll4s & @thefoster55555 for helping with this one! (The actual fact not the Terence thing)