Angry Birds

Angry Birds, the incredibly addictive casual game for mobile phones, has become a smash hit with millions of players. The game is about some angry birds who are trying to get back their eggs, which have been stolen by a gang of pigs (bear with me).

(Angry Birds, the popular iPhone and iPad app, could become a movie and toy)

The pigs have taken refuge in a series of forts and the player must catapult the birds into the forts to destroy them and get at the pigs.

The game has become so popular that a range of toys is planned for next year and there is even talk of a film version. I recently went to Helsinki to meet Rovio Mobile, the makers of the game, and was given one of their prototype toys. A daft and amateurish video I made showing the slingshot toy in action has already had more than 20,000 views.

Here are ten things you might not know about Angry Birds.

1. Angry Birds was made by a team of four people and took eight months to finish because it was such a low priority for the company.

2. The game cost less than £70,000 to make.

3. Angry Birds fans include public figures as diverse as David Cameron, Paul Gascoigne, Kylie Minogue, Conan O’Brien and Jon Hamm, Mad Men’s Don Draper.

4. It has sold more than seven million copies on Apple’s iPhone.

5. An Angry Birds Facebook game is coming in 2011.

6. Rovio Mobile developed more than 50 games, with relatively little success, before finally striking gold with Angry Birds.

7. The Angry Birds beta for Android hit more than one million downloads in three weeks.

8. Twenty different Angry Birds toys will be released early in 2011.

9. Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio's official spokesman, has the job title 'Mighty Eagle’.

10. Speaking of unusual titles, one of Rovio's game testers was nicknamed the 'Rovio Killer' because he was so bad at their games.