Earlier this year, a user on the Twitch game streaming site made a figurative splash when he created a system that allowed all of the users in the stream’s chatroom to play
Thousands Of People Are Watching A Fish Play Pokemon—And So Should You. And people used to say fish were stupid. Well, now look who's stupid! We all know fish aren't stupid because they can talk, as Finding Nemo demonstrated so well—and now it looks like they can play video games too. What you’re going to see first is “Fish Plays Pokemon.” This beast of a public display was made public back earlier this month. He’s made quite a bit of progress for a gamer with no hands.
Pokémon Red.The “Fish Plays Pokemon” stream is manned by Grayson Hopper, a fish who can make button presses by swimming around in a webcam stream split into a three-by-three grid. Each square is mapped to a specific Game Boy button, and when Grayson swims into a square that button is pressed. According to the stream’s creators, the project was created in about 24 hours for hackNY, a “hackathon” for students organized by NYU and Columbia faculty members.
So far Grayson has been playing for more than 130 hours, in which time he has chosen and named a Charmander (an interesting choice, since Grayson is most likely a Water-type) and defeated his rival’s Squirtle. Given the fish’s totally random button inputs, the length of the game, and the average lifespan of every fish I’ve ever owned, it seems unlikely that Grayson will ever make it to the end of the game.
The Twitch Plays Pokemon stream that started all of this nonsense became much more efficient after its initial burst of popularity died down, and it recently finished playing through Pokémon X after beating games from every other generation of the franchise. The stream is currently playing Pokémon Stadium 2.
If you have nothing better to do than watch a fish play a video game today, they by all means, read on. What two intrepid madmen have done over the past few weeks with their fish, a video control overlay, and two top-notch video games is create a couple of masterpieces. Games played by fish.
Fish Plays Pokemon Progress
What you’re going to see first is “Fish Plays Pokemon.” This beast of a public display was made public back earlier this month. He’s made quite a bit of progress for a gamer with no hands or fingers, that’s for certain.
Fish VS Fish in Street Fighter II is a slightly more expansive enterprise. You’ll see Fighter 1, Aquarius, take on Fighter 2, Robert the Bruce in a battle you’ll never forget. This battle has both fish in the same tank with advanced tracking, allowing each fish to have its movements roll with the punches and kicks.
Have we reached Peak Twitch? Or can we make something stranger? It’s all up to you!
Fish Plays Pokemon Progressive
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