Pi, the mathematical constant, is playing Pokemon in Twitch. After 25,000 hours of play it has already beaten two children and levelled up its starter but is still stuck in the first town.

It's gotten out-of-hand. They've got concept playing the games now. Twitch Plays, a long-standing genre where a swarming Twitch Chat competes to control games like Dark Souls and Pokemon, has evolved to the point where Pi is currently playing Pokemon Sapphire. It's actually been playing it for 3 years (via GamesRadar).

Pi is the mathematical constant. You probably know it as (at least), 3.14, but it can go on forever if you allow. It works like this: Each digit from 0 to 9 has been assigned a button on a Game Boy Advance. (Some buttons have two digits). The computer will then proceed through the digits of Pi in a sequential manner and make the corresponding input. For example, the first three digits -- 3.14 -- would correspond to a push on B, A, and then the left D Pad.

The game just reached its 86.452,000th digit. This is over 25,000 hours since the experiment began in October 2021.

Want to guess the result of all your efforts? You're only half right if you said 'not out of the beginning town'. Pi, or Seth as the character is called in the game, has made it out of Littleroot Town several times. Alas, maths' fickle finger has led Pi back to Littleroot Town, losing all the progress it made over the course of thousands of hours.

It has still accomplished some things. It managed to completely defeat rival trainer May, after finally reaching the first battle with her, uhm, May. What is the reason? All that meandering raised Pi's Treecko from level 1 to level 88. May's Torchic was turned into thin paste when the right digits were put in to allow Sceptile to make an actual attack.

According to the chatbot of the channel, Pi has only travelled as far as Petalburg forest where it destroyed Bug Catcher Lyle’s sextet level 3 Wurmples.

I'm sure that it will win the game one day, but whether or not this is before the last star in our universe goes out remains to be seen. Theoretically you can find all possible sequences of numbers in Pi. This includes several (or infinite, I believe) that could take our brave hero to the Elite Four. We need to find them and get out of Littleroot Town.