Lancashire pub keeps Flappy Bird craze alive with arcade game

The game, which was recently pulled from distribution by its Vietnamese creator, has been given pride of place on a wall at the Imperial in Chorley. Built by pub regular Paul Jackson, it is free for customers to play.

Jackson, who is a close friend of licensee Ivan Lynas, has also installed arcade versions of football game Fifa 2014 and ‘beat ‘em up’ game Street Fighter. He said all three were proving extremely popular with customers.

He explained: “Basically, they are just boxes made from MDF with a TV screen inside, attached to an Android dongle.

“For Flappy Bird, I added a controller and rewrote a new version of the game to include a high-score table, so pub goers can compete against each other.”

Themed-nights​

The Imperial plans to run themed-nights around the game, and customers have been challenged to compete for a highest score prize.

As to whether he could roll out the games to other pubs, Jackson remained open-minded.

He said: “It’s more than a hobby than something I do for a living. I co-own a distribution company, so if the interest in these games ever grew, I could incorporate them within that.

Flappy Bird, described as the game users ‘hate to love’, was removed from online stores earlier this month. After 50 million downloads, creator Dong Nguyen felt the craze had "become a problem" saying it ‘ruins my simple life’.