Give a little whistle! Give a little whistle!
for Twitch Plays Pokémon SwordTwitch Plays Pokémon (TPP) is a series of social experiments in which commands representing buttons on an original Nintendo Switch (up, down, left, right, A, B, X, Y, L, R, ZL, ZR, +, -, L-stick, and R-stick) and touchscreen coordinates 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 Pokémon Sword is the seventh and final run of Season 6, which began on November 23rd, 2019, a week after the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and concluded on December 1st, 2019. This marked the first run to feature a Nintendo Switch game; as it used a physical unmodified console, data couldn't be read directly from the game, leading to certain features of the stream such as the party display and chat badges being handled through automatic screenshots and manual distribution respectively. It also introduced two new inputs, "STICK" and "SPIN", respectively used to press down and spin around the joysticks, and that the chat quickly learned to use and abuse.
The Host for this run is a girl named :::?89977re ("Rey"), notable for her constant twirling and whistling, along with her apparent fondness for unusually colored and/or shaped lenses; those quirks (difficulty to move around, apparent reliance on sounds, unusual and/or concealed eye color) led to the popular interpretation that she is blind. She defeated Leon in the record time of 4 days and 16 hours, making this the fastest main run so far to reach the Hall of Fame.note
See also here for the archived status of the run.
Twitch Plays Pokémon Sword features examples of:
- Blind and the Beast: Eternatus might be an eldritch horror for most people- but for Rey it's a team mascot, a lucky charm and a good boy.
- Crowd Chant: The chat becomes filled with chanting◊ as soon as it happens in-game.♫ └༼ຈل͜ຈ༽┐♫ ooooh oh oh oh! oooh oh ooooh oh oh! ♫ └༼ຈل͜ຈ༽┐♫
- Exotic Eye Designs: Near the end of Day 4, :::?89977re traded her rainbow-colored lenses for light-blue ones with star-shaped pupils◊.
- LOL, 69: Subverted; the chat tried to pick 69 as their Jersey Number, but this being TPP, they picked 965 instead.
- Goroawase Number: 965 may be interpreted as "黒衣" (kokui), or "black clothes".
- One-Letter Name: An early-game Rookidee that eventually evolved into Corviknight was simply named "z".
- One-Steve Limit: Averted thanks to the keyboard used for nicknaming being positioned to "1" by default. As a result, the name "1" was notably given to the Hall of Fame team's Hatterene, an Obstagoon from the first days of the run, and a Bewear from its final moments. The character that was initially picked was also named "1", although the console was reset due to a rule stating that the game had to be played in English, meaning he was ultimately not chosen.
- Technicolor Eyes: A few hours into the run, :::?89977re put on rainbow-colored lenses◊. They quickly became a trademark trait of hers, even after she switched them for light blue ones with star-shaped pupils near the end of Day 4.
- The Unpronounceable: :::?89977re is definitely up there with !12rtyhaszs, !!!0999 qq and d76o6yttr?? as one of the most undecipherable names ever used on TPP.
- We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Numerous game crashes occurred during the run, notably due to connectivity troubles, causing this screen◊ to show up while the stream operator rebooted the game and/or attempted to fix the issues, along with some appropriately-themed music.
- You Are Number 6: This occurred more often than usual, due to the game using the standard Nintendo Switch keyboard, which is positioned on the "1" key by default. This effectively made "1" what "A" was to previous runs.
- A white-skinned male character named "1" was almost picked as the Host for the run, but this was reverted due to the language having been changed to Spanish before picking him. He is usually referred to as "Uno" as a result.
- The team used when reaching the credits for the first time included a Mew named "1111" and a Hatterene named "1". "1" was also the name of an Obstagoon that was used during the first days of the run, before being replaced by another unnamed Obstagoon, along with the name of a Bewear that was part of the team when the run ended.
