With the world stuck at home due to ongoing quarantine and shelter-in-place orders, Twitter has become an increasingly popular platform for collaborative games which foster a sense of community. Previously, the developers of horror game Stories Untold used Twitter to host a chilling choose-your-own-adventure in which users were given control over a hapless explorer’s fate. Now, a Twitter user is leveraging the social media platform to create a one-of-a-kind play-through of classic title Pokémon Red.
Programmer Constantin Liétard has created a method of playing Pokémon Red by gathering data from comments made by Twitter users. Starting with a single Tweet (currently pinned on Liétard’s account) players respond with one of eight button inputs – Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, Start and Select. Comment data is gathered every fifteen seconds, with the most requested input then sent to the game.
The progress of the game is reflected through Liétard’s profile picture. He intends to use these images to create a “video” chronicling the play-through once it has been successfully completed.
You can now play Pokemon Red in my avatar! 🥳
Comment one of those buttons on this tweet:
Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, Start, Select pic.twitter.com/9RV383BGjW— Constantin (@screenshakes) January 8, 2021
Although Liétard has restarted the game several times in order to improve performance and add new functions, his play-through has currently amassed over 30,000 comments. While the unfortunate Pokémon trainer which Twitter users are controlling has gotten stuck a few times, including in the Settings menu, some progress has been made. Squirtle was chosen as the starting Pokémon, and has been named AMAYBE. Users have also managed to catch a Spearow, although the poor bird has not performed particularly well in battle so far.
Liétard has also created a Discord server for the project so that participants can discuss it more easily. He has expressed interest in playing more games in this manner, suggesting a Super Mario title once Pokémon Red has been completed. However, at Twitter’s current pace, that’s still quite a long time away.
Have you been participating in this unique Pokémon Red play-through? Let us know!
