And it was glorious.
On February 13th, 2014, Twitch streaming set up an original Pokémon game streaming session that allowed users to control the character en masse via inputting commands in the Twitch chat.
Or was it all just a fever dream? Sometimes it feels like it. I’ve gone back and begun playing Pokémon Yellow myself, and so many memories have come rushing back like an acid flashback.
“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 on February 13th, 2014.” It truly was a wonder—so many people trying to play the same game at once. Even at its best, it was hilarious, frustrating chaos. “At its peak, the viewer count has reached over 100,000.”
Anarchy was the original game mode, however the implementation of democracy became a necessity after the community became stuck for more than 24 hours on the same puzzle area. Spammers and trolls made anarchy unfeasible (go figure!) and democracy was implemented.
The community was allowed to go back and forth between the two, spamming votes not for anarchy or democracy in addition to input commands: commands that would either be initiated because it was anarchy at the moment, or that would be put up against contradictory commands, and the most used command would be initiated. For example, if a hundred users said go left and only fifty said to go right in democracy, only one left input command would be used. If it was anarchy, the character would be moving around in a chaotic disco-dancing fashion, randomly opening the menu, randomly checking out items that can’t be used, and occasionally even setting free one’s Pokémon.
This was not your father’s video game stream. This was serious business.
And we didn’t know if we would be able to do it. So much backtrack. So much anarchy.
Bird Jesus
“But wouldn’t thousands of people giving contradictory instructions lead to a lot of wasted time, confusion, and even backtracking?” You’re not wrong. There were times when beating the game seemed literally physically impossible. But others had faith in their success. Others had faith in Bird Jesus. Others in the Helix Fossil. Bird Jesus was the moniker ascribed by the community to the Pidgey that TPP ended up using to great success in many battles. Pokémon Go players may now find Pidgeys solely a source of candy, but in Twitch Plays Pokémon, Bird Jesus was our savior and storyline progressor.
This was a very intense and trying time for the community, and you can’t blame them for building up a superstitious faith around it.
WE DID IT
It took a lot of trial and error, a bit of democracy, and a lot of anarchy, but we did it. Eventually, we beat the Elite Four and we succeeded in the first significant crowd-controlled completion of an RPG. Twitch played Pokémon, and we won. And it was glorious.
After beating the original Game Boy game, Twitch went on to beat even more Pokémon games. There is no shortage of memes and fan-art regarding the original and future attempts, but everyone who was there at the start will forever remember the significance of the S.S. Anne Ticket, the Helix Fossil, and Bird Jesus.
While most of esports are designed to pit player against player, there is something to be said for the experiment that was Twitch Plays Pokémon. It confirmed the worst of humanity and the best of humanity. Although some wanted nothing but to laugh and troll and obfuscate, eventually, Twitch Played Pokémon, and WE WON.
