Calling all old-school Pokémon fans out there: Now you can re-live the fun via your computer and play the largest multiplayer game of Pokémon Red/Blue with more than 12,000 other players.
Twitch, a live-streaming website, is playing host to this massive crowd-sourced game, called "Twitch Plays Pokémon," which began on Valentine's Day. Anyone can join — just type in your command (up, down, left, right) in the chat sidebar on Twitch. Those commands are then translated into an actual moves by JavaScript, Python code and the Game Boy emulator, VisualBoyAdvance. Users are also welcome to just watch the game unfold on their screens.
See also: 20 Pokémon GIFs That'll Make You a Better Friend
Despite the huge lag time in playing and issuing commands, gamers everywhere are amazed that more than 12,000 people have already beaten three of the eight gym leaders needed to advance to the last segment of the Pokémon game. Gym leaders test Pokémon trainers and need to be defeated in order to gain a badge. These badges are needed by the Pokémon trainer to defeat the best gym leaders — the Elite Four.

Image: Twitch Plays Pokémon

The creator of "Twitch Plays Pokémon" is just as surprised by the attention. "I didn't really have any plans for it from the beginning," the anonymous creator told Polygon. “I just wanted to put it up to see how people would respond. I put it together and put it up on a dedicated server all within a few days."
Over three million people had viewed the page as of this writing. Twitch's experiment is sure to continue for the next couple of days, if not weeks, and gamers will definitely be keeping an eye out to see how far this crowdsourced game of Pokémon can actually go.
Look below to watch the game unfold:

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