Now you can play Pokémon Red through Twitter

A programmer on Twitter has created a method for users to play Pokémon Red without closing the Twitter application or leaving the website. That said, it takes a fair amount of updates to actively see what's going on in the game. So “Twitter Plays Pokémon” is indeed a rare case of gamers enjoying a game at four frames per second

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 Liétard (@screenshakes) January 8, 2021

Players collectively control the game by responding to a post that states: “Comment on one of those buttons in this tweet: Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, Start, Select ". Every fifteen seconds, a program reviews the comments added since the last revision and records the most popular comment as an entry for the game. According to further instructions, button entries must be followed by a space and another word other than one of the buttons listed. To find out what is happening in the game, the user's avatar is updated with the most recent position.

This activity is reminiscent of the “Twitch Plays Pokémon” social experiment in 2014, which used collaborative input via a Twitch chat to navigate through Pokémon Red. Users can still blaze their way through Pokémon games on the Twitch channel “Twitch Plays Pokémon“, but the whole concept has generated a series of spin-off projects like the one on Twitter.

Source: Twitter