Dev Log
What's been built, when it shipped, and what's coming next. Birdle is a labor of love — here's the receipts.
Birdle is born
The very first build! Daily mode and Flocks mode both went live with 174 bird species. The core guessing engine launched with a 6-attribute comparison grid (Type, Habitat, Size, Diet, Colors, Flight) and snarky one-liner hints after every guess.
- 174 bird species across 3 difficulty tiers
- Daily mode — one mystery bird per day, same for everyone
- Flocks mode — three themed collections (Easy, Medium, Hard) to play at your own pace
- 6-attribute hint system with directional arrows for size and flight
- Snarky quips that react to how close your guess was
- Dark mode support from day one
- Share your results with friends
The Birdledex arrives
Every bird you identify gets added to your personal Birdledex — a collection tracker showing all 174 species. Browse the full encyclopedia to learn about each bird, or check your collection progress across difficulties.
- Personal collection tracker across all game modes
- Full bird encyclopedia with species details
- Individual bird detail pages
- Progress tracking per difficulty tier
Welcome mat & polish
New players now get a proper welcome screen instead of being dropped straight into a game. The daily page also got a hero section refresh to make the first impression count.
- Welcome state for first-time players
- Refreshed daily page hero section
Play past puzzles
Missed yesterday's bird? Now you can navigate back to any previous daily puzzle. All puzzles use UTC so everyone worldwide gets the same bird on the same day.
- Date navigation arrows on the daily page
- Play any past daily puzzle
- UTC-based puzzle selection for global consistency
Real bird photos
Replaced placeholder icons with real photographs for all 174 bird species. Every image is self-hosted and license-verified so the birds look as good as they deserve.
- Real WebP photographs for all 174 species
- Self-hosted for fast loading and reliability
- All images license-verified
birdle.dad goes live
Birdle has a home! The share text now points to birdle.dad so your friends can find the game when you flex your bird knowledge.
- Custom domain: birdle.dad
- Updated share text
The origin story
Added a "How Birdle Was Born" section to the Settings page. The story of how a car game between a dad and his youngest became an app — featuring my son's legendary hint: "less KFC."
- Origin story in Settings > About
- Credit where credit is due: my son coined "less KFC"
Launch prep & bug fixes
Squashed a handful of bugs found during the pre-launch audit. Streaks are now honest, mobile touch input works properly, and sharing looks good on social media.
- Fixed streaks not resetting when you miss a day
- Playing past puzzles no longer nukes your active streak
- Fixed mobile touch selection in bird search dropdown
- Real PWA icons (bye bye 1x1 pixel placeholders)
- OpenGraph & Twitter card meta tags for social sharing
- Fixed data migration skipping keys
- Share text now shows the date instead of puzzle number
Birdedex opens its doors
The collection tab now shows all birds — photos, names, and types — even the ones you haven't found yet. Unfound birds appear in greyscale so you can study up before your next guess.
- All 174 birds visible in the collection with real photos
- Unfound birds shown in greyscale with names and types
- Every bird is clickable for full detail pages
Locked down puzzle stability
Fixed a sneaky bug where adding new birds would scramble every puzzle assignment — daily AND flocks. Both modes now use pre-computed sequence files instead of runtime math, so your progress, streaks, and stats survive when we grow the bird roster.
- Daily puzzles locked via static sequence file (no more hash-based selection)
- Flock bird order locked via static sequence file (no more runtime shuffle)
- Adding birds now only affects future puzzles — past assignments never change
- New extend scripts to safely grow both sequences when birds are added
Different Animal Games
Birdle now proudly credits its maker. The Settings and 404 pages show "Hatched by Different Animal Games" with a contact email for feedback and inquiries.
- Studio credit on Settings and 404 pages
- Contact email: birdle@differentanimalgames.com
200 birds!
The roster grew from 174 to 200 species. New additions include Black Swan, White Stork, Baltimore Oriole, Turquoise-browed Motmot, and 22 more birds across all three difficulty tiers.
- 26 new bird species added (8 easy, 9 medium, 9 hard)
- Hit the 200-bird milestone
- New types represented: more corvids, waterfowl, and hummingbirds
- All new birds have license-verified photos from Wikimedia Commons
- Daily and flock sequences extended — existing progress preserved
Bluesky bot & social cards
Birdle now posts a daily teaser to Bluesky at 00:15 UTC — a spoiler-free hint about each day's bird generated from its attributes. Also upgraded social sharing: links to birdle.dad now show a proper branded card, and every bird in the encyclopedia gets its own social card with its real photo.
- Automated daily teaser bot on Bluesky via GitHub Actions
- Branded 1200x630 OpenGraph image for the main site
- Per-bird social cards on encyclopedia pages (photo + fun fact)
- Upgraded to summary_large_image Twitter cards for bigger link previews
More to come. Got ideas? Let us know.