The inevitable marriage of crowdsourced gaming phenomenon Twitch Plays Pokémon and mobile sensation Pokémon Go is here. Twitch Plays Pokémon Go, where Twitch viewers can play the game as a group simply by typing into Twitch chat, is happening right now — and it seems to be working.
Using a series of text-based inputs, players of Twitch Plays Pokémon Go can choose to move the player character in a cardinal direction, tap a section of the screen, throw a Pokéball and more. Twitch Plays Pokémon Go's creators say they're simulating all touchscreen inputs — the screen is divided into more than 200 sections in a grid — and GPS location coordinates. Currently, the game appears to be taking place somewhere in New York City.
"We're running Pokemon GO on a real iPhone and simulating touch events to control the screen," the developers say. "The location is spoofed. We capped the max movement speed to keep it as 'realistic' as possible."
Twitch Plays Pokémon Go appears to be unaffiliated with the original Twitch Plays Pokémon channel, which launched in early 2014 with the original Pokémon Red/Blue and is still going strong.
If you'd like to take Twitch Plays Pokémon Go for a spin yourself, head over to Twitch chat right now.