In recent days you may have seen us directing your attention to TwitchPlaysPokémon and the mayhem it's caused, attracting tens of thousands of gamers at once. It may be a chaotic mess, in practice, but it's hit a nerve and, for those invested in the idea, become a highly enjoyable hobby.
As it's the Flappy Bird of Twitch, however, streams with the same idea are starting to pop up; so we present Twitch Plays Zelda, which is applying the same principles to the original The Legend of Zelda. If we say that item switching was added after it started as a "new feature", you can form an idea of how well it's going.
It currently has around 250 players confusingly jabbing keys as Link generally faces walls, fidgets around and drops bombs at his feet. As an acknowledgement of how impossible the task is in sane terms, the page creator is utilising a ROM in which Link has infinite health and weapons. In theory the game can be beaten, but with over 20 hours passed and progress slow it'll take a long time; directing Link by numbers of frames highlights how tricky it is.
Is this a fun continuation of the emerging craze of extreme online co-op via Twitch, or a silly copy and an idea that's too flawed to be worth the time? Check it out and let us know what you think.
[source twitch.tv, via destructoid.com]
Comments 30
Ugh, can't wait till people stop referring to everything that's popular as 'Flappy Bird'...
go away Twitch.
Why is this still a thing?
@Monkeh You may be waiting a while...
I'll try not to use it again We are in an odd phase where the most peculiar things go 'viral', though.
@Monkeh thank you someone who shares my opinion on flappy bird references
This sounds like a horrible idea...Pokemon at least is a turn based RPG, so one could feasibly pull it off eventually, but Zelda?
They should do this with a game of chess.
I'm surprised at the negativity here. It's a novel idea for chaotic, innocent fun. Lighten up people.
Twitch plays: Mario bros I think the entire internet might just explode
No... The horror of a bunch of people struggling to walk 3 steps forward...
@TeeJay No it is not. I refuse to find that this is entertaining in the least, at most what those morons are doing is insulting.
It's not really a surprise that a game that requires reaction time isn't really doable as a "TwitchPlays". I would say it's a given. Yes, he hacked it so you're can't die or run out of ammo, but I'm not sure how much excitement there is to a game where you can't lose.
See, Pokemon was perfect for TwitchPlays. It practically works out of the box, one of the biggest reasons being, that there is no actual death, defeat just places you back in the nearest Pokemon Centre. Yes, being turn based, and requiring no simultaneous button presses also helps. You couldn't do something like Mario without automatic running or something, plus that requires pretty precise timing, and the 20 second delay would destroy that.
I saw a Twitch Plays Street Fighter II, but that was set up such that calling Attack Names worked, which is just a bit silly, and just not the same as TPP's choas of trying to press each right button…
Final Fantasy you might think would work, but when you die, you need to select a save to continue, assuming that the players ever managed to save at all. You would get nowhere.
At least with Pokemon you're always making at least Some progress, as your Pokemon will be levelling up, so each try you make you're a little bit stronger. Perseverance is practically one of the underlining principles of the game, which make the Twitch play feel so fitting.
@siconlolz hahaha, do you think they would ever get through a level?
Darknuts are frustrating enough to defeat in normal play.
Can't imagine trying to win in Twitch Play.
@Klimbatize So much yes
I just love these due to how chaotic they are.
@bezerker99 @Monkeh +1 Both "games" are equally worthless.
don't compare Twitch plays pokemon with flappy bird please.
@ChessboardMan Agreed 100%.
@JtotheY i wonder if they would be able to get past the first Goomba xD
I just checked it and they have full health, seem to be invincible, and have 255 rupees and 255 bombs... ???
TwitchPlays... needs to go away. I'm a huge Twitch user and yeah, they need to do something different with these bots.
I tried this out for 15 minutes or so. There were only 15-20 people in the chat so the game was relatively stable, but still very hard to coordinate, especially with about a 30-second delay on inputs. Nevertheless it still felt way too good when we finally guided link into the first dungeon after 8 minutes of aimlessly wandering around the screen.
Is this the greatest new way to play games? No. Is it a fun experiment just to see what happens? Absolutely. Give it a spin for a few minutes.
I went over there and tried to help. Me and everyone else there beat the first dungeon!
@Monkeh haha, yeah... Even one of my teachers referenced flappy bird when he said what we should try in making a game should be original and fun rather than monetizing. He said NOT to make a flappy bird though so it's fine, because that's just running with a trend and not being original for the sake of money.
We need Twitch plays Punch-Out!
@ThomasBW84 Wasn't an 'attack' at you btw, just gotten tired of the reference in general, especially since I see it EVERYWHERE (not just gaming websites). Plus me and almost 90% off the people who now know about Flappy Bird, didn't even know about the game before the 'controversy' about it being taken down. But yeah, you're most likely right in saying it's going be a while before people stop using it.
To be a bit more on-topic: Dunno if this works as well as with Pokemon. I personally don't find it very enjoyable to watch.. though Twitch Plays Pokemon also isn't worth watching more than 5 min. for me.
@PrincessEevee9 You must be great at parties. The ability to form such negative emotions about something so inconsequential is a popular character trait.
As for twitch, rock on.
@Plutonian So popularity equates a good decision? Allow me to tell you the tale of Twilight. And why thank you yes I am.
I think @ChessboardMan is on to something. Twitch Plays Pokemon works because the underlying themes of Pokemon are friendship and perseverance (and making cute fuzzy animals get into pit fights with one another, but I digress). So having 70,000 people cooperate to see if they can collectively beat it together is in the spirit of the game. At the same time, Pokemon never takes itself too seriously (see: pit fights with cute fuzzy animals). So TPP just works.
Zelda has varying levels of taking itself seriously, and also isn't really about persevering so much as going off on a grand adventure to save the kingdom/princess. While trying to get hundreds or maybe even thousands of people to cooperate is a grand adventure, of a sort, it's not a Zelda-esque one. At least imo.
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