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TPP Randomized Fire Red turned out to be a different experience than I was expecting. That’s not to say it was entirely bad or anything, but it ended up being pretty divisive among the community.

Since the beginning, my favorite part of the TPP experience has been the stories and memes and characters that have emerged from the flaming wreckage of accidental inputs and suboptimal play. If anything Randomized Fire Red seemed like it was going to be an even more ridiculous undertaking. Legendaries in the wild? Level 3 Pokemon with Aeroblast? Madness!

While the run certainly started that way, in the end, with a bunch of crazy Pokemon available (like Slaking without Truant as an ability for example), the team was the most balanced and powerful of any so far. That meant the Elite Four died in just eight attempts, as opposed to more than 100 in Emerald.

Having access to strong and popular Pokemon meant that some fan favorites, like a Skitty named Meow Zedong or a Quagsire with unlimited amounts of swag, got deposited and replaced by shiny new toys like a Mew. For people who liked the underdogs or some of the stories about those lesser Pokemon, this became something of a rallying cry. After all, with the democracy/anarchy system still in place, all it took was the slightest majority to command the stream — and even an extremely vocal minority could do nothing about it.

After a few days of bitterness and fighting about these changes (including a couple late-night attempts to access the PC in both democracy and anarchy by a small group of people fed up with optimization), a miracle happened.

Unlike the original version, in Fire Red, the puzzles on Victory Road reset whenever you leave or run out of useable Pokemon. That meant the collective was in for an uphill battle, and progress was slow.  At one point, the group actually made it near the end, only to run into a trainer with ghost-type Pokemon and only a Slaking with four normal moves to fight with.

After a few days of this frustration, even the people who care only about progressing through and beating the game were listless. And then, two opposing groups banded together to watch some Teachy TV.

See, the Teachy TV is an item you get very early on in the game. It’s meant for newcomers to the series, and helps you understand some of the basic concepts of Pokemon. I imagine Game Freak’s idea was that even though this was a remake of the very first game, some people might be experiencing the series for the first time.

On occasion, the Teachy TV was accidentally selected by the hivemind (as they do), but it was always canceled before anyone could watch the show. But this movement had other ideas. Taking a stranglehold of democracy, the stream methodically watched each of the seven episodes, starring Poke Dude (also known as Primo) and his upbeat, positive teachings. He told us about type matchups, and that cool-type trainers like him got along great with awesome-type trainers like us. He told us that it was important to treat our Pokemon fairly. He told us to keep our eyes glued to the super show, and we did.

It was the breath of fresh air the stream desperately needed. Anarchists and democrats alike kept it going for more than an hour and a half, with at least 90% of the inputs on board — a percentage of agreement that was almost unheard of for several weeks. Suddenly, the bitterness was gone, replaced by excitement and rapt attention and jokes about the lessons. And TPP was fun again.

The stream was so inspired by Poke Dude and Teachy TV that it registered the item for easy access later, and then went on a sidequest to go get the free bike, ride around on it for a while, and explore. And again, everything was positive. Instead of being focused on beating the game, people were reminded that it’s about the journey and not the destination.

I was getting pretty close to tuning out until Teachy Friday happened. After all, there’s only so much ground you can cover with thousands of people trying to control a video game. But this was a reminder that the experience — and the community — are what matters most. So I’ll probably at least keep tabs on what’s happening in the run through Platinum, which starts later this week.

And remember, as Poke Dude would say, “A good deed a day brings happiness to stay!”