Twitch Plays Pokémon facts for kids

See how commands from the chat (on the right) control the player in Pokémon Red (on the left)!

Twitch Plays Pokémon (often called TPP) is a cool online experiment and a special channel on the video game streaming website Twitch. It's all about a huge group of people working together to play Pokémon video games. How? Users type commands into the channel's chat room, and these commands control the game! It even holds a Guinness World Record for having "the most participants on a single-player online video game," with over 1.1 million people joining in.

An anonymous programmer from Australia created this idea, and it started on February 12, 2014, with the game Pokémon Red. The stream became super popular, with over 80,000 people watching at the same time. About 10% of them were even playing! On March 1, 2014, the game was finished after more than 16 days of non-stop playing. Twitch estimated that over 1.16 million people took part, and the stream got a total of 55 million views during this time. Twitch Plays Pokémon even won a Game Award for "Best Fan Creation" in December 2014.

Many news outlets and Twitch staff noticed this experiment because it was so interactive and often chaotic. Players faced unique challenges, and a strong community grew, creating many internet memes. Twitch itself used this experiment to learn how to make streaming more fun and interactive for viewers. After Red was completed, the channel continued with many other Pokémon games, including fan-made versions. The creator plans to keep playing Pokémon games as long as people are interested. The success of TPP led to many similar "Twitch Plays" streams for other games, and Twitch now encourages more interactive streams.

How Twitch Plays Pokémon Works

This whole idea was inspired by another interactive game on Twitch called Salty Bet. The anonymous Australian programmer, known as the "Streamer," built the system. It uses a special program called an IRC bot (written in Python) and a Game Boy emulator called VisualBoyAdvance. This program watches the stream's chat for specific messages like "up," "down," "A," or "start." It then sends these as button presses to the game, controlling the character. Another web app shows a live count of all the moves being made.

The Streamer chose Pokémon Red and Blue because they loved the old games. They also knew that "even if you play badly, it's hard not to make progress in Pokémon." The game's turn-based style was perfect because it didn't need super-fast reactions, which was good given the delay between the chat and the game. The Streamer even used a modified version of the game that was supposed to let players catch all 151 original Pokémon. However, this modified version wasn't finished and played just like the original.

Challenges of Playing Together

Playing this way made the game much harder and longer than usual. Imagine trying to walk in a straight line when thousands of people are all shouting different directions at once! The character, Red, often got stuck in corners, walked in circles, or kept opening his Pokédex. Commands came in so fast that it was hard to make any real progress. Some players, called "trolls," even tried to mess things up on purpose.

One big problem was mazes and ledges. Players would spend hours trying to get past ledges because trolls kept sending "down" commands, making Red jump off. Another issue was accidentally releasing Pokémon. This happened during an event called "Bloody Sunday," where twelve Pokémon were accidentally set free while trying to get a Zapdos. Players also kept pressing "start" to open the pause menu, often followed by opening the inventory and using random items. A system was later added to slow down how often the "start" button could be pressed.

Working Together to Win

Even with all the chaos, players tried to work together. They made helpful pictures and used special tools to hide chat commands so they could talk and plan. This teamwork was important because some parts of the game needed specific Pokémon with certain skills to get past obstacles. Without planning, they often missed important chances early in the game. Most players tried to stop the trolls who were trying to slow them down. Someone even made a computer program to find these trolls automatically!

The original Streamer later worked with others to create more tools for the channel. This group even added live commentary to the games. However, because of disagreements within the group, the Streamer stepped down on November 22, 2017, and gave control to another person.

Game Modes and New Adventures

On February 18, 2014, after getting stuck in the Team Rocket hideout, a new way to play was added: Democracy mode. At first, every move was voted on. All commands sent in over about 30 seconds were counted, and the most popular command was used. Players could even add numbers to their commands, like "right3" to move right three times. Many people were angry about this new system, saying it took away the fun chaos. They protested by using the "start9" command, which opened and closed the pause menu nine times to slow things down. This was called "The start9 protests."

The broadcaster later changed the system so players could vote to switch between two modes: "Anarchy" (the original chaotic way) and "Democracy." To switch to Democracy, a supermajority vote (most people agreeing) was needed. But to switch back to Anarchy, only a simple majority was required. This change caused arguments among players. Some felt Democracy mode ruined the original idea and the fun randomness that created all the funny stories and myths around the game.

More Pokémon Games

After Pokémon Red was completed, a new game, Pokémon Crystal, started on March 2, 2014. The developer set a deadline for Crystal because they planned to start Pokémon Emerald on a specific date. The players finished Crystal much earlier than expected! With Crystal, the voting system changed again: Democracy mode automatically turned on at the top of every hour.

By March 14, 2014, players reached a big battle on Mt. Silver against Red, who was the main character from Red and Blue. The game was changed so Red's team would be the same Pokémon that beat the Elite Four in the Twitch Plays Pokémon Red playthrough. The developer said he did this on purpose because Game Freak (the creators of Pokémon) originally wanted players to face Red in Crystal with the Pokémon they finished Red with. Crystal was beaten on March 15, after more than 13 days of playing. Even though fewer people watched Crystal than Red, the developer said he would keep the stream going with other Pokémon games as long as people were interested.

Pokémon Emerald started on March 21, 2014. For this game, Democracy mode was completely turned off at first. Emerald was restarted many times because of a "soft reset" ability, but the broadcaster later fixed this.

When Pokémon X (the first game for the Nintendo 3DS) was played, the stream setup changed. Since there wasn't a computer emulator for the 3DS yet, the stream used a real 3DS with a special modification. This allowed commands to be sent directly to the device and showed the screens' content. Using a real 3DS also meant the stream could use Wi-Fi! Other Pokémon X and Y players could interact with the stream's player through Nintendo Network for online battles, trades, and O-Powers. After X, Pokémon Omega Ruby was also played.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the original run, Pokémon Red was played again in February 2015. The goal was to finish the main story and catch all 151 Pokémon, which they did in about 39 days.

For the project's fourth anniversary, the channel played both Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue at the same time! Players could choose which game their command was for. When Democracy mode was on, the chosen command was used in both games.

As the experiment entered its fifth year, having played all the official Pokémon games, the channel started using more fan-made versions of the games. For its sixth anniversary, the stream played 6 games in a row!

How Many People Watched?

The stream started on February 12, 2014, as a "proof of concept" (a way to show an idea could work). For the first day and a half, not many people watched. But then it went viral very quickly! By February 14, about 175,000 people were watching, and players had beaten the first Gym leader. By February 17, the channel had over 6.5 million total views. By February 20, it had over 17 million views, with 60,000 to 70,000 people watching at the same time, and at least 10% of them playing. By then, players had caught 12 different Pokémon species and passed the fourth gym.

When Red was finished, the channel had reached 36 million total views, with a peak of 120,000 people watching at once. An estimated 658,000 people had participated. The Red stream was later recognized by the Guinness World Records for having "the most participants on a single-player online video game" with 1,165,140. All this activity put "huge (and unexpected) stress" on Twitch's chat system. Twitch engineers had to move the stream's chat to a special, high-capacity server usually used for big e-sports events. The developer himself said, "I didn't think it was going to be this popular. I thought it would only get a small group of dedicated viewers."

The Community and Its Stories

A "Bible" created by the community for their "Helix" religion.

A very active community of players formed on websites like Reddit. They would write live updates about what was happening and create memes and other fun things based on events in the game. One item in Red's inventory from the very beginning was the Helix Fossil. It was later used to bring back a Pokémon called Omanyte, but it didn't do much else. However, the Helix Fossil was selected so often that it became an inside joke among players. They jokingly called it a deity (a god) that the player character was always asking for advice. It quickly became the players' "religion"! Fans even made "bibles" for the Helix religion.

Players went as far as seeing the Helix Fossil as a symbol for those who supported Anarchy mode. Its opposite, the Dome Fossil (which revives Kabuto), became a symbol for those who supported Democracy mode.

Certain Pokémon caught by Red also became fan favorites. Two Pokémon caught early on, Charmeleon ("Abby") and Rattata ("Jay Leno"), were accidentally released later. The team's Pidgeot, a strong Pokémon often winning battles, was called "Bird Jesus" by the community. Their Zapdos was nicknamed "AA-j" but also called "Archangel of Justice" or "Anarchy Bird." Their Flareon was called the "False Prophet" because players accidentally got it instead of Vaporeon, which was needed to learn the "Surf" move to travel on water. This Flareon later caused the release of Abby and Jay Leno. On February 23, the eleventh day of the event, players accidentally released twelve captured Pokémon, deleting them from the game. This event became known as "Bloody Sunday." Nicknames continued in Crystal, with a new Pidgeot called "Brian" and a Feraligatr called "Lazorgator."

What Came After: The Legacy

Twitch Plays Pokémon inspired many other similar streams for different video games. These included Pokémon Blue, QWOP, Tetris, Street Fighter II, Halo: Combat Evolved, Dark Souls, Fallout 3, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pokémon Go (which used fake location data to move a person in response to commands), and Microsoft Flight Simulator. There were even "Twitch Plays" streams for taking care of a virtual pet Tamagotchi and installing a computer operating system!

The term "crowdplay" is now used for games where a crowd's actions directly control the gameplay. Game developers like tinyBuild used the "Twitch Plays" idea for their game Punch Club. They held back the game's release until it was completed by a public "Twitch Plays" stream. Punch Club later added a feature where viewers could bet on in-game fights using virtual Twitch money. Telltale Games added a "crowd play" feature to their adventure games, starting with their 2016 Batman game. This allowed stream viewers to vote on decisions within the game.

In January 2016, Twitch created a special section for all the "Twitch Plays" streams. Kathy Astromoff, a Twitch executive, said the company saw how popular these experiments were and wanted to make them easy for users to find. In March 2016, Twitch announced a "stream first" plan to help developers create games designed for streaming and chat integration, based on the success of Twitch Plays Pokémon. Amazon.com, which bought Twitch in 2014, developed the Amazon Lumberyard game engine. This engine directly supports Twitch streaming, allowing viewers to influence games through chat, inspired by the popularity of "Twitch Plays."

Another fun tribute, Fish Plays Pokémon, appeared in August 2014. This stream used a fishcam where the position of a betta fish in a fish bowl controlled Pokémon Red. It had about 20,000 people watching at one time!

A special Helix Fossil picture, called an emote, with the shortcut "PraiseIt" was later added to Twitch chat to celebrate the original Pokémon Red run.

Game Completion Records

From Platinum to Black 2, the stream also showed a second game, Pokémon Stadium 2, next to the main game. Commands for Stadium 2 were chosen randomly and not controlled by the chat. Instead, players in the chat could use virtual money to bet on the results of Stadium 2 matches. After Pokémon X finished on August 1, 2014, a similar system was put in place with Pokémon Battle Revolution replacing Stadium 2, as it had better graphics and more features. This time, commands weren't completely random. Players who bet on the current match could vote on which move their team would use each turn. The system would randomly pick one of the bettors' choices, but players who bet more had a better chance of their move being chosen. The developer created a modified version of Pokémon Battle Revolution called Pokémon Battle Revolution 2.0 to fix glitches and add improvements. During breaks, the stream showed games like Harvest Moon GB, Pokkén Tournament, and EarthBound.

Also, an extra game is shown next to whatever main game is being played. This game is a modified version of Pokémon Pinball called Pokémon Pinball Generations. It adds two new boards based on the second generation of Pokémon. This means all Pokémon from Generation II can now be caught in the game, and Pokémon badges are given randomly when a Pokémon is caught during a Pinball playthrough.

See also

In Spanish: Twitch Plays Pokémon para niños