Twitch Plays Pokemon

Overview

Twitch Plays Pokemon^[1] is an ongoing live-stream event hosted by the video-streaming platform Twitch.tv in which any member of the site can participate in a massively multiplayer online co-op version of Nintendo’s 1996 role-playing video game Pokémon Red by inputting various commands in chat.

Background

Powered by a combination of JavaScript, Python code and the Game Boy emulator VisualBoyAdvance, the massively multiplayer co-op version of Pokémon Red was launched by an anonymous Australian programmer via Twitch.tv on February 13th, 2014.^[4] In the game, participants can crowd-control the movement of the main character by typing one of a series of commands (A, B, Left, Right, Up, Down, Start, and Select) in the channel’s chatroom. However, the high volume of input commands from tens of thousands of participants led to much confusion and conflict in gameplay, soon rendering the game almost unplayable. The viewer count has reached over 100,000 at its peak.

Notable Developments

Within three days of its release, twitch plays pokemon became a popular tag on Tumblr^[2] where various image macros were created about the events taking place in the game, and a dedicated subreddit was created for the stream.^[6] It became a controversial topic on 4chan when mods began deleting threads about the stream on every board, before eventually allowing threads on /vp/, the Pokémon board. Online news websites such as Kotaku,^[3] Polygon,^[4]CNET,^[5] and The Independent,^[7] published articles about the stream.

Derivatives

Inspired by the success of Twitch Plays Pokemon, many others on Twitch began creating similar streams. Many streams were made for different Pokémon games, such as Blue Version,^[9] Crystal Version,^[10] and FireRed Version.^[11] A stream was made where the actions in Twitch Plays Pokemon would control a game of Tetris.^[12] A stream known as RNG Plays Pokemon also had Red Version, but the character was controlled by an RNG randomly selecting buttons.^[13]

Memes and In-Jokes

Helix Fossil

Due to the many commands being input at once, it was common for items to be selected accidentally during battles. The second item in the player’s bag, the Helix Fossil, was selected so often that it came to be viewed as the player looking to it for guidance, and Twitch users began referring to it as a deity. Other items treated this way were the Moon Stone, Nugget, and S.S. Ticket.

The Ledge

Ledges are obstacles in Pokémon games which can be passed through on one side, but not on the other. At one point in the game there is a long ledge with only one unit of space to walk past it; thus, even a single person giving a “down” command would cause the player to go through the ledge, requiring the character to backtrack and go through again. Due to the large number of trolls in the stream, it took multiple hours to get past a single ledge, causing ledges to be viewed as a large obstacle by the viewers, even though they are usually minor nuisances in normal Pokémon games.

Trees

Trees are another type of obstacle in Pokémon games. In the first generation of Pokémon games, trees can be removed by going to the menu, selecting a Pokémon which knows the move Cut, and using Cut while facing the tree. Due to the large number of commands needed to achieve this and the lack of coordination among the Twitch users, trees became notorious for being extremely difficult to get past. One particular tree took multiple hours to remove.

Eevee Debate

There was a large argument in the chat about whether or not to get the Pokémon Eevee. Doing so would have been a risky move, as it would necessitate evolving it to Vaporeon in order to have a Pokémon which would learn Surf. This would require the viewers to successfully buy and use a Water Stone without wasting all the player’s money. If this failed, something would need to be deposited in the PC in order to get Lapras, another Pokémon which could learn Surf, which would risk accidentally releasing a high-level Pokémon.

Despite the obvious downsides to doing so, the majority of users chose to get Eevee. They then failed to buy a Water Stone, accidentally buying a Fire Stone and evolving Eevee into Flareon. After going to the PC to deposit it, they accidentally released “ABBBBBBK(” (a.k.a. Abby) the Charmeleon and “JLVWNNOOOO” (a.k.a. Jay Leno) the Rattata. They also put Pidgeot, the highest-level Pokémon on the team, and the Helix Fossil into the PC (although both were later retrieved). Because the source of all this was Eevee, Eevee began to be viewed as a “false prophet” and servant of the Dome Fossil, which was viewed as Satan. A day later, Flareon was released as well.

Team Rocket Hideout Maze

One of the areas the player must get through is called the Team Rocket Hideout. Inside the Team Rocket Hideout is a maze which involves tiles that when stepped on propel the player in a certain direction. In order to get past this maze, one needs to maneuver through spaces that are only one tile long, and moving outside this space would cause the player to walk onto one of the tiles which would move them back to the start of the maze. Due to the 80k+ people entering commands and the 20 second lag between entering the command in chat and it being registered by the game, the maze has proven to be even more difficult than the ledge. Twitch users spent a full 24 hours attempting to clear the puzzle before the streamer implemented a voting system on which actions to take, which finally allowed them to get through the maze.

Anarchy vs. Democracy / Start9

After failing to clear the Team Rocket Hideout puzzle after 24 hours, the streamer implemented a voting system where it would count up all the commands entered, and after 20 seconds take the action which was entered most often. It also included a slider for “anarchy” or “democracy” which could be influenced by entering one of the words into the chat. Anarchy was the mode it was in previously (all inputs registered by the game) and democracy was the new mode (most commonly-input action in 20 seconds is carried out).

The democracy mode was widely viewed as slowing down progress, taking away the excitement, and generally ruining the fun of the game. Because democracy mode allowed users to input several actions at once, supporters of anarchy mode began saying “start9”, which would open and close the menu 9 times. This was meant as a form of protest against democracy mode. Democracy mode was even opposed by the Twitch.tv staff: Twitch moderators began saying “start9” as well, and the official Twitch.tv Twitter account made a tweet in support of anarchy mode.^[14]