By Combine an 18-year-old video game, thousands of people and the internet, and you get the nostalgic madness that is Twitch Plays Pokémon.
The interactive social experiment on the website Twitch, which is known for streaming live tournaments and gaming events, is an attempt to play and defeat Nintendo’s 1996 Pokémon Red.
What makes this experience different is that user comments in the live stream’s chat room serve as commands for Pokémon Red’s game play.
The game and concept became so popular that at its peak, upwards of 121,000 people were controlling the single-player game and it was not unusual for 80,000 people to be playing simultaneously. This often resulted in chaos, disaster and hilarity.
When the game is streamed live, players can see how many other people are participating at once. Watching the commands and comments scroll down the chat stream make it seem like thousands of inexperienced players were simply pushing buttons to add to the chaos.
Menus and items, like the Helix Fossil is an example of one such popular button among players. The Helix Fossil is an item obtained in the game which should be meaningless but has became an internet meme.
Events like the continuous clicking of the Helix fossil became a joke among fans of the experiment. They began to call it a “God” because of how often it is “consulted” throughout the game and during battle.
The simultaneous typing of commands was not only chaotic fun, but presented some obstacles for players.
An option in the PC menu, an in-game computer that allows withdrawal and storage of ones Pokémon collection, also allows Pokémon to become released, meaning they are virtually freed and can never be used again in battle or the game.
Withdrawal of a Pokémon is usually very simple when one person is playing the game, but with so many participants entering keyed commands even simple tasks can be very difficult.
Fans of the game now recognize Feb. 23 as Bloody Sunday because of the accidental release of 12 Pokémon in the attempt to withdraw the Pokémon Zapdos from the PC.
Surprisingly, despite the difficulties caused by a massive influx of players, the game was actually finished after roughly 16 days of continuous gameplay.
“The original generation one [Pokémon] games have always been the most famous and most popular of all of them,” said Sierra St. John, Pokemon co-captain of the CSULB e-Sports Association. “I love seeing how [the community] has been going through it.”
St. John said the game’s popularity isn’t a surprise because the Pokémon franchise has many loyal fans.
The event emerged rapidly via social media. Fans of the phenomenon took to the internet to create memes and expand on the story as it unfolded.
In a way the game has become more meaningful and fun because of the way people are able to share ideas, thoughts, fan art and mashups on the web, which has transformed gaming into a collective experience.
Although the first generation 1996 Pokémon Red game has been defeated, fans of Twitch Plays Pokémon will be able to participate in the second coming of the game.
The second generation Pokémon Crystal, which was released in 2000, went live today on streaming service Twitch.
