Twitch Plays Pokémon - Where Are They Now?

It’s been some time since I wrote about watching Twitch finish Pokémon Red. The eager anticipation as they struggled through the Elite Four and eventually, painstakingly, defeated the champion.

But surely with Fish Plays Pokémon and Rock Plays Pokémon, the internet has gotten tired of Twitch playing it. You’d be wrong. Twitch has successfully captured, trained and won Pokémon across seven generations, hitting one game from each release. It’s turned into a religion for some people. There are the games that make up what’s being referred to as Season One of TPP (Twitch Plays Pokémon):

Season One

• Pokémon Red
• Pokémon Crystal
• Pokémon Emerald
• Pokémon FireRed
• Pokémon Platinum
• Pokémon HeartGold
• Pokémon Black
• Pokémon Black 2
• Pokémon X

That is, as I said, one game for every release. They also intend on doing a Pokémon Omega Ruby run in November, then a full Pokédex run on Pokémon Red. For those unfamiliar, every generation of Pokémon has multiple versions, spreading all of the pocket monsters between the two so you have to trade to Catch ‘Em All™. Usually a third version follows, for little reason other than money.

In between each game, they have also played other games, some Pokémon and others not. Some rom hacks to make them Pokémon games. Luckily there is no shortage of rom hacks for games from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance. A number of them are under consideration for upcoming games in Season Two:

Possible upcoming games:

Pokémon Diamond (hacked version of Telefang)

Moemon (FireRed hack with the Pokémon anthropomorphised)

Touhoumon (Various hacks with Touhou characters)

Pokémon Brown (Red hack)

Pokémon Prism (Gold hack by Brown’s creator)

Pokémon Quartz (Ruby hack with no official Pokémon)

Pokémon Marble (FireRed hack sequel to Quartz)

Pokémon Blue

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

What’s more, while you wait for the next game to begin, there is a large community of devotees. There is a subreddit over on Reddit, you can read up on some of the history of the religion while you’re there. You could always re-watch the entire thing thanks to the Internet Archives agreeing to keep a copy of every broadcast. If reading is more your thing, you can read the comprehensive Google Docs of every game played. And, of course, you can take part in the betting scene currently in progress through random matches in Pokémon Stadium 2 on the Twitch channel.

But you’ve had enough of TPP? Well there are many Twitch channels that have taken or adapted TPP’s script to play other games, such as Tetris. If you’ve been converted to one of us, there are also other TPP-related projects such as a Windows and Mac visual novel in the shape of Twitch Dates Pokémon. May Lord Helix watch over you.