After the phenomenon Twitch Plays Pokémon took the Internet by storm in February, many wondered what could top thousands of people communally playing the beloved children's video game on the popular streaming platform, Twitch.
The answer seems to be a fish.
Fish Plays Pokemon Progressive
It's called FishPlaysPokémon, and — at the time of writing — more than 20,000 people are watching a Betta fish 'play' Pokémon Blue (the first title in the Pokémon franchise).
See also: Inside the Secret World of Competitive Pokémon
Despite winning his first Pokemon battle, the fish is now trapped in the player’s bedroom, repeatedly saving the game. Some Twitch users have expressed frustration with the slow progress of the. This answer is more sedate, less crazed, and even less likely to accomplish any of the game's actual goals. It is Fish Plays Pokemon, and everybody wants to watch. The basic concept is about what. So far the fish seems to be stuck in protagonist's house, and not making much progress. That fact hasn't stopped a boatload of gamers from tuning in, however; the stream has been running at roughly 20,000 concurrent users all day, proving definitively that entertainment is subjective – and that some people have way too much time on their hands. Fish Plays Pokemon takes the fish's motions in a tank and turns it into commands in-game. This, as to be expected, is pretty unproductive, and the fish is making very little progress.
Fish Plays Pokemon Progress
Two students, Catherine Moresco and Patrick Facheris, at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, respectively, built the entire setup in 24 hours as a part of hackNY's 2014 fellowship program, which is organized by NYU and Columbia University faculty.
A camera films the fish as he swims around his fishbowl. The camera screen is divided into nine sections, eight of which are assigned to a single button command — up, left, right, down, A, B, start and select. As the fish swims in one of those sections, a program registers the button command and inputs it into the game.
According to the FAQ, the Betta fish's name is Grayson Hooper. He's been 'playing' for about 135 hours.
It might sound like the concept could explode and become a pop culture phenomenon like Twitch Plays Pokémon — which created religions and mythology around completely random events. But a solitary fish who seems not to swim around much (in the FAQ, the students have noted that Grayson is not dead) moves at a much slower pace than thousands of frantic Twitch viewers spamming button commands in the chat.
For the sake of the gameplay, fans, who have congregated on the subreddit /r/fishplayspokemon, have offered suggestions to speed up the pace of the game by making it more random. Suggestions include randomizing the button commands on the screen and adding more sections with the same button commands to give Grayson more options.
Fans have also suggested ways to better care for Grayson, whose tank, they believe, could be better. In light of fan concern over Grayson's well-being, the streamers have set up a Paypal account to accept donations to upgrade the fish's digs.
You can join the thousands already watching Grayson play Pokémon at the FishPlaysPokémon Twitch channel.
The streamers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.