Five and a half days, over nine million views and four badges later, the collective Pokémon journey of Red and Twitch.tv “continues.”
After successfully defeating the 4th Gym Boss, there has been some losses to the party. While at the Pokémon Center attempting to make room for a Pokémon that could eventually learn surf, Twitch.tv decided to “free” JLVNOOOO (“Jay Leno” the Bubblebeaming Rattata) and ABBBBBK ( (“Abby” the Charmeleon, and yes that is an open bracket on the end of the name) to the wilds.
Leaving Pidgeot to carry the team harder than ever before, Twitch plays Pokémon also failed to evolve Eevee into a Vaporeon, accidentally purchasing a Fire Stone and evolving it into Flareon. Due to the circumstances of it joining the team, there have been large factions of the player/viewerbase who view Flareon a harbinger of Doom that will bring nothing but destruction to Red and the rest of the Pokémon.
SOUNDS RIDICULOUS RIGHT?
It absolutely is ridiculous, and that is reason enough to make people love it. The person behind the stream, who has continued to stay mostly anonymous, has come out and said that Twitch Plays Pokémon is a social experiment as much as it is entertainment at this point.
The most recent developments of the stream have come after being stuck in the Game Corner spinner motion tile puzzle in Celadon City. After having Red being spun like a top for more than 24 hours worth of game time, the streamer of TPP has decided to step in and make the maze less intimidating.
Besides the trips to the Pokémon Center thanks to “Dig Rat” (A Rattata that knows Dig), this has been the gameplay of Twitch Plays Pokémon for the last literal day
In a somewhat “prudent” act, the streamer of Twitch Plays Pokémon has implemented a voting system that allows the controls to go into either “Democracy” or “Anarchy” modes. When in Anarchy mode, the stream is the classic, no holds barred free for all of inputs that cause some very… interesting results. The new-fangled “Democracy” setting allows people to vote (spam) for roughly 10 seconds to decide the next movement that Red will make, allowing for some slightly more precise movement when the situation calls for it.
The storylines behind this stream are already more complicated than most TV shows…
The beauty in the loosely organized insanity of Twitch Plays Pokémon is truly addictive. The massively-hyped Titanfall Beta was this weekend, but there was rarely a time that there was less than FIFTY THOUSAND people watching at any moment.
With the staggering amount of fandom, inside jokes and simply people enjoying the stream, if you haven’t joined in on Twitch Plays Pokémon yet, you’re missing out on possibly the internet event of the year! So unless you want to wind up as “that guy” who doesn’t know what’s being discussed at the proverbial Internet water cooler, go check out the stream and help Red and company escape from Team Rocket’s Wild Tile Ride!
…or you could let the ride go on forever, that’s the beauty of it all!
