Twitter overcomes sabotage to beat Pokémon Red
90k comments later.
After 40 days and more than 90k comments, Twitter has beaten Pokémon Red while playing it through someone's tiny display picture.
Last month we reported on how creator Constantine Liétard had hooked up a copy of Pokémon Red to his Twitter avatar. It would take a screenshot of the game and upload it every 15 seconds, while waiting for people to input a button control via a Twitter comment.
Well, people have continued to play this bizarre version of the game - and have now beaten its Elite Four and captured Mewtwo. Hurrah!
Success was far from assured. Last week, a group of players intent on sabotaging the project managed to wrestle control of the game in the middle of the night. This collective, which named itself Team Rocket, deliberately released the best Pokémon caught and trained so far. It was a big setback, though Twitter carried on.
The full playthrough has now been uploaded, if you want to see how Twitter did it. Right at the end you can see Twitter even having some fun, and flying to Cinnabar Island for an encounter with the legendary glitch Missingno:
What's next? Pokémon Gold and Silver may seem the obvious choice, though perhaps Diamond and Pearl would be more timely.