When an anonymous streamer wrote a Python script that allowed Twitch viewers to enter in commands through the chat and control a game of Pokémon Red, they inadvertently created one of the most amusing social experiments in recent memory. The Twitch community eventually beat the game together (somehow) and then later beat a game of Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, but now things may have been taken a bit too far. Starting last night, Twitch banded together yet again to beat a game that is known as one of the most difficult and punishing games out there: Dark Souls.
Dark Souls may be the first challenge to halt the Twitch Plays phenomenon in its tracks. Twitch Plays Dark Souls is – well. It’s a train wreck. Twitch Plays is always a bit of a train wreck, because that’s kind of the point. Viewers spam commands both helpful and unhelpful at the chat screen and a bot translates them into inputs. Sheer persistence and the miracles of random chance have helped this fascinating experiment conquer a string of Pokemon games, among other challenges. Can Twitch Plays ever master a 3D action game? Debatable. Will it master Dark Souls, a game requiring careful character progression and split-second timing? I feel like the answer is “no”, but as I was watching they managed to light the first bonfire, which is already pretty impressive feat of co-ordination, and had dispatched a few grunts on the way. Stranger things have happened, probably, although I can’t think of one right now.
