Angry Birds Roost broke on to the scene late last year and brought the famous flying birds to Lumia screens all over the globe. Recently, a new update to Angry Birds Roost hit the Windows Phone Store, bringing with it a tie in to the world’s top fan site for Angry Birds: AngryBirdsNest.com.

With the new version of Angry Birds Roost, there is a new leaderboard that’s powered by AngryBirdsNest.com. You can see top scores and ranking by each game that’s available in Roost and search for ranking by a user name.

Also, you can enter your top scores achieved in the game. Additionally, there are walkthroughs for each level that originates from AngryBirdsNest.com that provide a guide for when you get stuck.

To find more about Angry Birds Nest, I sat down with Greg Shepherd, founder of the site, who built it from the ground up.

Building the Nest

When Shepherd’s then two-year-old son discovered his mobile phone, he instantly became addicted to Angry Birds because of the fun sounds and engaging game play. As a result, Shepherd became addicted too and wanted to build a website dedicated to the Angry Birds game.

He then reached out to Rovio, and the Finish game company (then still only 10-15 employees) endorsed Shepherd’s efforts and even provided assets to help him get started.  Shepherd was driven by passing each level with the maximum amount of stars, finding all the golden eggs and building walk-throughs for the public.

Not being happy with just a static site dedicated to game play, Shepherd introduced the leaderboard and the community started to come to Angry Birds Nest as a result. Now, with Angry Birds Nest, players can compete with each other across platforms and across the board.

According to Shepherd, Angry Birds Nest has been online for a little more than two years. It’s evolved ever since it’s debut and there are now more than 30,000 registered users. It’s an active community, drawing millions of page views per month from across the globe.

“We’re a dedicated team that works hard to provide something different in the community gaming space – both for Angry Birds players and Nest members.”

Integrating with Angry Birds Roost on Lumia

Last summer, Rovio and Nokia approached Angry Birds Nest about integrating it with Angry Birds Roost application. As time marched on, we decided to enhance the experience by integrating the leaderboards and walkthroughs.

Shepherd built an API that enables the Angry Birds Roost app to integrate with Nest’s leaderboard. He also upgraded his site and optimized the leaderboard structure to accommodate the increase in traffic from Nokia Lumia owning Angry Birds players.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity to welcome new players even if it meant some investment was required to serve that.”

“We’re the only site that has coverage from A-Z in the Angry Birds Roost app. For example most of the walkthrough videos come from the AngryBirdsNest site – that’s pretty exciting,” says Shepherd.

Have you tried the new Angry Birds Roost?  Have you posted a new high score, yet?