Just tested Bad Piggies with my family. I have to say it's pretty good.
Bad Piggies seems to be based on Amazing Alex, but adding two crucial elements: 1) a character to sympathesize with (the vocal reactions to the environment are priceless, similar to Porrasturvat / Stair Dismount) and 2) some realtime gameplay in "play mode". It's amazing how much the characters make me care compared to purely mechanical building games like Amazing Alex. Maybe it's just the mere exposure effect. Much like every parent of a three-year-old in Finland, I practically live in the Angry Birds transmedia world with the plush toys and playgrounds.
The bottom line is that getting three stars was never this satisfying in the birds empire - there's now clearly defined goals and the feedback has been amped up as well with manic partying to polka music. Having clear goals and feedback are preconditions of flow, and in hindsight it's easy to say that this is how it should've been from the start. In practice it's of course not easy to pull off. It's interesting to observe the progression from the first Angry Birds (just 1-3 stars, how to get all three left as guesswork), to Angry Birds Space (1-3 stars with a three-chord harmonic cadence so that having just two stars leaves you waiting for the resolution) and finally to Bad Piggies (a goal for each star, and the number of stars emphasized by both music and the facial expressions and body language of the piggy, ranging from "meh" to carnevalistic).
Just writing these thoughts down as a reminder of the smallest details making a huge difference.
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