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Twitch Plays Pokemon is really frustrating

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28

This is actually a thing

Do you remember Pokémon Red and Blue on the original Gameboy? Well now thanks to the wonders of Twitch streaming, you can play it along with 50,000 other people.

The way it works (or moreso how it truly doesn’t) is you input controls into the twitch chat, then the input is registered by the emulator on the stream. There are two major problems with this, one, there are thousands of people typing controls, and two, there is considerable input lag of about 20 seconds.

“TwitchPlaysPokemon is a social experiment, it is a stream of the Gameboy version of Pokémon Red (151 romhack) running on an emulator. An IRC bot translates buttons said in chat into keypresses (simulated in software, no fancy typist robots).”

The biggest problem is that people are jerks and constantly spam the start button to delay progress, and since there is no combinations or throttling of inputs, all the actual helpful moves may be lost fidgeting on the start menu. Despite that, in just four days of streaming, the collective chat has managed to win four badges and make considerable progress in the game. I don’t know whether I’m impressed or just infuriated watching it.

Watch live video from TwitchPlaysPokemon on www.twitch.tv

I will drop the link to the stream, but be prepared for the most dyslexic collective effort of humankind ever conceived. I would love to see this keep going until all 151 Pokémon are caught and the story is complete. I don’t think any of us would live to see the day. 

Last Updated: February 17, 2014

28 Comments

  1. slow news day geez.

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      February 17, 2014 at 13:07

      Nope, just slow pokemon game play.

      Reply

      • TiMsTeR1033

        February 17, 2014 at 13:08

        The day feels slow to me, either that or I am just old.

        Reply

        • VampyreSquirrel

          February 17, 2014 at 13:09

          You’re just old 😛

          hehe, nah, it’s dragging now. This morning went pretty quickly tho.

          Reply

          • DrKiller

            February 17, 2014 at 13:56

            Blame the heat!

    • Stephen Snook

      February 17, 2014 at 13:14

      Aw, I thought it was interesting =(

      Reply

      • VampyreSquirrel

        February 17, 2014 at 13:29

        You hurt the Aussie’s feelings @timster1033:disqus …. how could you?

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          February 17, 2014 at 13:30

          He’s a grumpy old Tim today isn’t he?

          Reply

      • VampyreSquirrel

        February 17, 2014 at 13:34

        In Tim’s defense… I can’t watch it anymore… it’s too infuriating… and I’m not even participating!

        Reply

        • Stephen Snook

          February 17, 2014 at 13:35

          It is really a test of will!

          Reply

  2. VampyreSquirrel

    February 17, 2014 at 13:06

    lmao! that’s just the worst thing I’ve EVER seen!

    You’d never move more than about 3 spaces… gotta wait for all the idiots to piss off to get somewhere

    Reply

  3. TiMsTeR1033

    February 17, 2014 at 13:11

    I suddenly want to make fried chicken…

    Reply

  4. Hammersteyn

    February 17, 2014 at 13:19

    They should do this with Double Dargon,Street Fighter 2 or Contra

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      February 17, 2014 at 13:28

      The game would have to be restarted too often.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        February 17, 2014 at 13:31

        Zelda or FF7?

        Reply

        • VampyreSquirrel

          February 17, 2014 at 13:31

          FF would definitely never be final then…

          Reply

  5. Hammersteyn

    February 17, 2014 at 13:24

    LOL Evee fainted.

    Reply

  6. Hammersteyn

    February 17, 2014 at 13:31

    This is probably what hell is for a gamer. The devil says you can play games for all eternity but…….. It’s the same game at the same time with 50 000 other people!

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      February 17, 2014 at 13:31

      At least it’s not voice activated…

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        February 17, 2014 at 13:36

        hehehe

        Reply

  7. Daniel Keevy

    February 17, 2014 at 13:34

    I watched this for about 2 hours yesterday. It was beyond excellent.

    The best was watching the chat fight against committing suicide, because all the Pokemon were basically fainted, or to carry on.

    Reply

    • Stephen Snook

      February 17, 2014 at 13:35

      It’s at the very least an interesting experiment.

      I reckon they’ll get really stuck at Safari Zone

      Reply

      • Daniel Keevy

        February 17, 2014 at 13:42

        For a few hours, at least. But they’re on a decent clip. Plus, once the numbers fall, it’ll get easier. Less trolls spamming start.

        Reply

  8. Gerhard Davids

    February 17, 2014 at 13:46

    omg this is BRILLIANT!!
    Wahahaha

    Reply

  9. DrKiller

    February 17, 2014 at 13:56

    Just play the game on an emulator on your PC 😉

    Reply

    • Stephen Snook

      February 17, 2014 at 14:07

      That kind of misses the point, but sure.

      Reply

  10. Michael Smith

    February 17, 2014 at 17:18

    They may never get out of Celadon city, after getting eevee there has been a war over evolving it. Somehow they managed to get a fire stone. There has been nothing but battle over using it. So much so that a group of them tried to release eevee in but instead ended up releasing charmeleon and a rattata instead. There is still a chance that the fire stone will be used I think either that or eevee being released will make the game actually move foward lol.

    Reply

  11. The D

    February 17, 2014 at 17:56

    Man, this game is going to go nowhere once they hit the Team Rocket HQ in Saffron City.

    Reply

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