Twitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Game Boy (up, down, left, right, A, B, start, and select) are entered into a chat on Twitch, and then translated into a game of Pokémon via an IRC bot. In short, hundreds of people are fighting over a controller. Throughout its life, Twitch Plays Pokémon has spawned hilarious characters, memorable moments, and even a few religions.
Twitch Plays Pokemon Dual Red & Blue is the first run of Season 5; it started at approximately 1:30 GMT on the 13th of February, 2018, marking the fourth anniversary of Twitch Plays Pokémon. Said run features a gameplay style not seen since Twitch Plays Touhoumon & Moemon back in Season 2, with two games being played at the same time, namely slitghly modified versions of Pokémon Red and Blue.
A key difference between Touhoumon & Moemon and Dual Red & Blue is that Touhoumon and Moemon shared their inputs, meaning a single command would affect both games at once; in Dual Red & Blue however, commands are split between Red and Blue by preceding it with "l" to move Pokemon Blue and "r" to move Pokemon Red. If neither "l" or "r" is specified, the inputs will automatically alternate between the two games. Another notable difference is that Red and Blue can actually interact through the in-game Cable Club, allowing both sides to partake in Pokémon trades.
The Hosts for this run were a boy named ((( on the Red side and a girl named XXWWNNᴾₖ on the Blue side, who were both presented as grandkids of Professor Oak and featured as The Rival of the other game. They respectively chose Bulbasaur and Charmander at the beginning of the game, but chaotic trading sessions meant that they soon enough found themselves in possession of the other's starter. On an amusing note, fan portrayals of ((( depicted him as a collected and rational bookworm, whereas those of XXWWNNᴾₖ showed her as more of an extroverted and rebellious hothead, yet each one eventually picked the Fossil opposite to that personality, with ((( picking Helix, the God of Chaos and Anarchy, and XXWWNNᴾₖ choosing Dome, the God of Order and Democracy.
See also here for the archived progress and here for the archived status of Pokemon Red, here for the archived progress and here for the archived status of Pokemon Blue, or here for live updates, which have been archived here. The ROMs have been released in disassembly form, and can be downloaded here.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Dual Red & Blue contains examples of:
- Alternate Universe: These games are considered in the main canon to be parallel universes of the 1st Generation. The rival of one game may have Professor Oak as their grandfather and Daisy Oak as their sister, however in the other game they are the silent protagonist with only their mother.
- Ascended Glitch: Mew was found by surfing up and down along the eastern coastline of Cinnabar Island, in a nod to the "Old Man Glitch" of the original games.
- The Bus Came Back: This is the first dual run since Touhoumon and Moemon. Only slightly different.
- The Azure sprite returns, this time as the protagonist of Pokemon Blue and the rival for Pokemon Red.
- DUX, a Farfetch'd obtained from an in-game trade, also returns and settles onto ((('s team. Unlike his predecessor from the the first run, this DUX stays on the team for much longer, doesn't get deposited until ((( reaches the Indigo Plateau, and never gets released.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Since Pokemon can be traded between the games, the party lists on the layout were updated to give each Pokemon a background color corresponding to its original trainer: Red for (((, blue for XXWWNNᴾk. Pokemon obtained via in-game trades have a different original trainer and are represented by grey.
- Early Game Hell: ((( took a while to get through Route 1 and had a few blackouts along the way - meaning he was stuck with Bulbasaur with no way to get any pokeballs.
- Subverted when ((( eventually got to Brock, as Bulbasaur swept the Jr. Trainer's Pokemon as well as Brock's team taking little damage in one try. While XXWWNNᴾk was having trouble with Brock - having to take 2 attempts as she chose Charmander.
- Glitch Entity: Something went wrong with the encounter tables and rates in Pallet Town, resulting in the ability to find 'M and Missingno. by surfing in the water closest to town. Blue managed to encounter these glitches, duplicate a bunch of Leaf Stones, and try to catch Missingno. before a developer stepped in and reverted Blue to a pre-glitch save state to prevent any permanent effects.
- History Repeats: A staple of TPP at this point:
- Both starters have featured before, with Pokemon Blue having chosen another Charmander - the fifth one chosen as a starter note and seventh overall note . Pokemon Red chose Bulbasaur, only used twice before note .
- As this is another Kanto run, the Helix and Dome Fossils return. Pokemon Red has the Helix Fossil while Pokemon Blue has the Dome Fossil.
- The fire-type starter is released once again, though it's much, much later than usual, not happening until the endgame Elite Four rematches.
- Level Scaling: The Gym Leader rematches and Elite Four battles scale their levels in relation to the party's strength, calculated as their "fitness" value. This lets each team face a fair challenge, and it prevents the championship fight from being completely one-sided if the rival team has fallen behind or just had a bad party shuffle. Once a game has beat the Elite Four once, all trainers encounter from then on will scale, including ones the players simply avoided until now... resulting in kids out in the middle of nowhere packing Com Mons at level 90-100.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted with two main team members who are both named A: ((('s Arbok and (XXWWNNᴾk's Charizard.
- Out of Focus: As with the Touhoumon/Moemon run before it, one game can get more of the chat to focus on it leaving the other with few commands. This can used both for good, or to sabotage the opposite run.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: In order to prevent the Pokedex from being uncompleteable when a catch attempt goes awry, special encounters respawn immediately after a battle if they aren't caught. This also makes it possible to defeat one repeatedly for experience without having to move around and wait for a random encounter, most notably the Moltres in Victory Road in preparation for an Elite Four challenge.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Complete with the games actually being modded versions of Pokémon Red and Blue. The exact ways the player characters' personalities contrast with each other is up to interpretation, although they tend to be inversions of the usual Red Oni, Blue Oni assignments.
- Ret-Gone: XXWWNNᴾk got a Charmander and made it to the first rival battle before ((( could pick his starter, resulting in his counterpart in Blue defaulting to using a Squirtle. ((( ended up choosing a Bulbasaur and all subsequent rival battles accurately reflected the other game's party at that time, leaving no trace of Squirtle.
- Sequence Breaking: XXWWNNᴾk struggled to defeat her rival on the S.S. Anne, preventing her from obtaining the Cut HM. Later, the two games did a series of trades that resulted in XXWWNNᴾk getting ((('s Venusaur that knew Cut. This allowed the players to continue with game progression and skip completing the S.S. Anne — they don't return to finish it until after their first Elite Four victory. No Mew under the truck, though.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: One game can be in a trainer battle and the other can be walking through town - yet you can hear the battle theme play, as it takes precedence.
- This run doesn't primarily use the Pokemon soundtrack for Pokemon Red and Blue, opting to switch it out to related soundtracks from later games in the Pokemon franchise or other franchises in general.
- Title Confusion: Like Touhoumon/Moemon, this run is considered by the stream to be a single run. This time the emblem utilized for new players introduced to this run use an animated striped Red and Blue Emblem with "28" on it. Also this is the second run of Pokemon Red with little to no modifications. Hence on the Archive page, it's under Red 4th and Blue 4th rather than combining the two runs.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: This happens when both games are playing simultaneously. Subverted when one game needs to get something done and chat focuses on it rather than the other game. Only this time commands are split, leading to the other game not wandering around while the game being focused on is being worked through.
- We ARE Struggling Together: This will happen when two runs are competing for commands and progress. Even on the first day alone, there have been instances where some members of one team try to get the other stuck in a corner. Unfortunately, this can also happen in reverse - meaning that both runs can come to a halt while each side is trying to restrict the other side's progress. However, both runs do share the same Pokedex and the same end goals, such as obtaining Mewtwo to enable Democracy options and getting the diploma for Pokedex completion. One of the developers specifically told "blue team" to help "red team" get their Championship too, because they're in this together.
