Worms. A creature many wouldn’t associate with success but one that has become completely synonymous with one mans career. Andrew Davidson’s life has not followed convention. From creating video games at school to releasing one of the most successful British born games ever, to finally opening his I Bar. Andrew is a person not short of groundbreaking ideas.
I’m talking to Andrew in his latest brainchild. The I Bar located in Bournemouth his hometown. Opened this summer, the bar can boast many technical feats from web browsing to allowing customers to connect their phones to the bar via Bluetooth. Andrew himself is part of a new breed; he is the quintessential of ‘geek chic.’ Tall, well kept, he has the air of the IT crowd. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an artistically styled wolf, he is unassuming in the crowd of regulars which drink and occasionally play on their I macs around us.
At 34 Andrew’s career has already taken in unimaginable heights. Catching the tail end of the home-grown bedroom developers scene in the 1980’s, Andrew spent much of his youth reverse engineering computers. “I used to take apart calculators to see what I could make them do.” Worms was game he developed very much for himself and his friends. As a premise, the idea behind Worms is where worm shaped characters attempt to eliminate each other in time-based attacks, using an assortment of amusing weapons on randomly created 2-D maps. Working and playing it at school was often frowned upon, “My teacher banned us from playing it!”
Shunning university, for a lack of creative courses, Andrew started work. “I got a job working in a game shop for £50 a week, cash in hand.” Using the customers to further refine Worms, “I saw a kid playing my game and then his Dad came over and also played, so I knew it had mass market appeal,” he was able tighten the gameplay to chess levels of complexity. When finally confident he showed the game at a convention to British game developers. “I closed the shop for one day. I put up a sign ‘Sick!’ I showed it to Team 17 and within 5 minuets they said they wanted to distribute it!”
In 1994, Worms was finally released and became a huge commercial success. It’s a game, which has appeared, on every machine produced since, and its timeless gameplay and humour has been a hit with young and old.
Having had such a huge achievement at an early age has not dampened Andrews’s appetite for success. In a world where technology moves at lightning fast speeds consumers are demanding more from their town centres, coffee houses and bars. Andrew spied a gap in the market. The I Bar specialises with the sort of multi-media interaction that would seem more at home on a web site. Whilst providing all the drinks you would expect from a trendy bar, the I Bar also provides you with Internet access and WiFi for web browsing.
The I Bar’s atmosphere is relaxed and clean, the tables and chairs inoffensive in their simplicity. Downstairs sports an impressive screen behind a modest stage, providing an excellent platform for bands, DJ’s and VJ’s (Visual Jockeys) to perform. The bar itself contains a lot of technology which required Andrew to prepare before attempting to install it. “We had it all wired up in my flat. We didn’t know it was going to work!”
Music, a key factor in any night out, is completely under control of the customers. Andrew points out the flat screen TV. It provides a touch screen input to a dedicated duke box and LCD screens around bar display the track information. “How many times that I’ve been out and wondered what song is playing.” The bar is quickly becoming the technophile’s perfect choice.
Andrew is pleased with the success he has had, both making games and with the I Bar. “We’re already planning ‘Phase Two.” For a person such as Andrew, Worms and now the I Bar are examples of creativity with an edge. Not bad for a kid who played games in school.
You can find the I bar on Holdenhurst Road. For more information check out www.myspace.com/ibar
