Who says people just can’t get along and co-operate online? Against all possible odds, Twitch’s communitycontroller run of Super Mario Odyssey is motoring through the game.
The ‘Twitch Plays’ phenomenon has always been an interesting one. The platform, of course, primarily lends itself to players streaming games for their viewers’ enjoyment. There’s some audience participation, in terms of giving tips or otherwise talking with the streamer, but it’s an all-round passive experience for viewers. Twitch Plays broadcasts aren’t about that life at all, allowing the viewers to directly control the game through the chat.
Now, if you’ve ever played team-based games online, you’ll know that the average player isn’t big on working together and playing the darn objective. By extension, you’d also think that projects like Twitch Plays would be awful, hilarious messes. Well, they are, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t gradually, painstakingly work out in the end.
Take Twitch Plays Pokémon Red, for instance. Not only did viewers collectively complete the game, but they caught all 151 Pokémon to boot (they were playing a modified version of Red in which all of them could be caught without trading, and all of them had to be caught to finish). So, how’s the latest project, a playthrough of Super Mario Odyssey, coming along?
Well, it’s pure carnage, as expected. Trying to perform a sequence of complex jumps while a couple of hundred players type Up, Down, Backflip, X, X in the chat, after all, isn’t the most optimal way to fly. We’re not setting any speedrunning world records here, that’s for darn certain. Still, if there’s anything you’ve got to give the Twitch community credit for, it’s their persistence. Well, that, and their ability to create fantastic memes like the legend of Lord Helix.
As of the time of writing, our hero has made his way to the Sand Kingdom. He’s currently floundering around, replete in his sombrero and poncho combo, trying to open a treasure box in an otherwise empty room. He has entered and exited the room twice in the last ten minutes, and the chat is complaining that they have made absolutely zero progress in the last eleven hours.
So, all in all, it’s a Twitch Plays running as smoothly as a Twitch Plays can. Still, things may look bleak at the moment, but don’t doubt these guys. They managed to complete Dark Souls, don’t forget, even if it did take 43 days (and they suffered just over nine hundred Game Overs in the process).
Update (12:30 pm, EST):
Mario managed to open the chest in the golden room, revealing a moon that he had already collected. Chat, understandably, lost its collective mind.
We’ll be monitoring the situation as it develops.
