Fish Plays Pokemon

Fish Plays Pokemon is a live-Twitch stream in which a Betta fish controls the movement of Ash in Pokemon Red by swimming around different portions of his tank. The stream has become popular amongst TPP fans as the human-controlled stream is currently in an extended intermission while awaiting the release of Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire.

Conception
The stream is the work of two developers, named Catherine and Patrick, both from the HackNY Fellows Class of 2014. Grayson was purchased in early July of 2014 after brunch one day, and was named after Grace Hopper, a Navy admiral and pioneer of computer science. Since at the time both Catherine and Patrick were working full-time tech internships, they felt that they were not spending enough time with their new friend, so they set up a webcam and a livestream that they would watch on breaks at work.

The idea for the addition of Pokemon as a new dimension to the livestream came to Catherine one night in a dream. The next few days after that were spent coding, and the project was soon presented at the HackNY 2014 DemoFest.

The fish
Grayson Hopper is the name of the Betta fish who ultimately controls the in-game character Ash. He is a Halfmoon male with purple and red coloring.

How it works
The motion tracker is written in Python with OpenCV. It then uses the command-line xdotool utility to send the key press corresponding to Grayson's location every 10 frames of video capture. It runs on a DigitalOcean droplet.

Differing Opinions on the Stream within the TPP Community
Fish Plays Pokemon's growing popularity has caused a split amongst TPP community members between those who enjoy the new stream and those who feel it either threatens TPP's continued success or feel it is only an imitation of sorts.