What started as a modded project is becoming something bigger as developers take note of fan obsessions.
In February of 2014, North America shivered through its coldest winter in decades, and Australia sizzled through one of its hottest summers on record. It was a good time for the world to stay indoors, so maybe it was a touch of cabin fever that caused “Twitch Plays Pokémon” to blow up into an online phenomenon.
“Twitch Plays Pokémon” is currently the name for player-driven Pokémon experiences on the Twitch.tv streaming service. But when people speak about Twitch Plays Pokémon, most of them are referring to the first social experiment that gathered millions of “players” into a Twitch channel and let them work through Game Freak’s Pokémon Red using chat commands. On March 1, 2014 — a little over two weeks following the channel’s inception — the Internet watched as Red, powered by millions of conflicting voices, somehow managed to defeat the Elite Four and take his spot in the Pokémon Hall of Fame.
Do you think player-driven games are popular enough to push this trend to the forefront of game development?
Author writes: "Six years after the explosive popularity of Twitch Plays Pokemon, streamers are still using similar code to try more Twitch chat plays games."
Alex writes:
"Pokemon rom hacks are everywhere, from the awesome Light Platinum to the strange Moemon there are plenty of new experiences developed by fans of the original games. One of the more prominent hacks back in the day was Pokemon Brown, a hack of Pokemon Red. Now, that same team has created a new hack from Pokemon Crystal, known as Pokemon Prism version. We've covered Prism briefly when it was first announced and being played on the Twitch Plays Pokemon channel. Now, the team is ready for a full release, sending out the patch file for free for the holidays."
Social media platform, Player.me uses Facebook Live to try and repeat the "Twitch Plays Pokemon" feat.
