Quick and agile, Aquarius has an aggressive fighting style

August 20, 2014 10:12 AM

On Twitch, two fish are playing Street Fighter II. It's unexpectedly entertaining.
posted by Bulgaroktonos (58 comments total)

Just turn the goddamn chat off on the right side because there's absolutely nothing of value going on there, unless you enjoy watching English-speaking kids reciting 80s Cold War propaganda they weren't even alive for the first time around simply because there's other people chatting there in Russian.

The fish, though, are completely awesome.
posted by Spatch at 10:18 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

One guy did use the chat to say "damn these pros are good," at a moment when both fish had their characters just staring at each other and jumping up and down. That made me giggle a bit.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:19 AM on August 20, 2014

Frankly, they are better at Street Fighter II than I ever was.
posted by The Bellman at 10:24 AM on August 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

This is surprisingly action-packed. They plotted out the control-fishtank mapping really well.
posted by naju at 10:24 AM on August 20, 2014

I KNEW IT WHEN I SAW YOU HAD A POST I KNEW IT WOULD BE THESE TWO FISH FIGHTING IT IS ALL YOU HAVE TALKED ABOUT ALL MORNING I HAVE GOTTEN BASICALLY LIVEBLOG UPDATES ON THESE EFFING FISH VIA EMAIL.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:24 AM on August 20, 2014 [27 favorites]

MISSING PLUGIN CCCCCCOMBO!!
posted by clvrmnky at 10:25 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

"twitch plays" stuff is pretty much the greatest thing mankind has ever achieved
posted by elizardbits at 10:27 AM on August 20, 2014

Robert really need to change characters. Taking Balrog vs. E. Honda is not going well.
posted by isthmus at 10:29 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

YES! He just switched to Ryu and won a match!
posted by isthmus at 10:31 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Honda and Balrog were doing some sweet footsies when I first clicked through. Certainly better than mine. Then the jumping on the spot resumed.
posted by comealongpole at 10:32 AM on August 20, 2014

Twitch is blocked for me at work but that's ok because imagining two fish playing a video game is still pretty damn awesome.
posted by bondcliff at 10:33 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

What's going on with all the Cyrillic in chat? Is the stream actually being viewed by a ton of Russians?
posted by Copronymus at 10:39 AM on August 20, 2014

This is the best thing I've ever seen.
posted by Brainy at 10:42 AM on August 20, 2014

What's going on with all the Cyrillic in chat? Is the stream actually being viewed by a ton of Russians?

Zangief fans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:42 AM on August 20, 2014 [13 favorites]

What's going on with all the Cyrillic in chat? Is the stream actually being viewed by a ton of Russians?

Yup, there's a lot of slang in there so it's definitely native speakers.
posted by griphus at 10:44 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Everything about this is perfect.
posted by capricorn at 10:54 AM on August 20, 2014

And this is why Twitch just sold for ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:55 AM on August 20, 2014

I cannot adequately express how much of a comfort it is to be watching a livestream this week that's actually making me smile.
posted by cortex at 10:57 AM on August 20, 2014 [19 favorites]

And this is why Twitch just sold for ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

We may have reached Peak Twitch just now. ;D
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:59 AM on August 20, 2014

Am I the only one who is bothered by the tank that they're in? It's so bare--doesn't seem like the best way for fish to live.
posted by TypographicalError at 11:01 AM on August 20, 2014

We may have reached Peak Twitch just now. ;D

Previously on Twitch Peaks--
posted by shakespeherian at 11:02 AM on August 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

The true martial artists rejects worldly things in pursuit of spiritual centeredness, man.
posted by cortex at 11:03 AM on August 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

What if it's their battle tank and they go home to untold luxury and many fancy bubbly divers?
posted by elizardbits at 11:03 AM on August 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

And this is why Twitch just sold for ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

That's been rumored for so long I feel like we would have heard some kind of confirmation by now if it was true. The recent content ID stuff seems like grooming for Google but the removal of long term archiving doesn't.
posted by kmz at 11:04 AM on August 20, 2014

Theoretically, given an infinite amount of time, one will figure out how to unlock Sheng Long.
posted by glhaynes at 11:05 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

What if it's their battle tank and they go home to untold luxury and many fancy bubbly divers?

i swear to god i was typing an almost identical comment what the hell
posted by griphus at 11:05 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

How do we know that it's not the Street Fighters who are controlling the fish?
posted by yoink at 11:13 AM on August 20, 2014 [10 favorites]

Pfft, I don't see what the big deal is. I could probably beat both these fish.
posted by Poldo at 11:14 AM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

One step closer to the dream of Boggle-playing chicken
posted by rollick at 11:18 AM on August 20, 2014

I could probably beat both these fish.

I think the term you want is "batter"--it's no doubt confusing for second language learners. And fish.
posted by yoink at 11:18 AM on August 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Poldo: You'd need a much bigger fish tank though
posted by aubilenon at 11:19 AM on August 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

One of the fish just picked Zangief and the Russians in chat went wild. I love the internet.
posted by sonmi at 11:20 AM on August 20, 2014 [15 favorites]

One thing I'd like is if they were sampling the input on offset downbeat/backbeat basis between the two fish instead of apparently sampling and processing both at the same time; would change up the rhythm a bit I think, and generate more of a call-and-response flow to the combat than the rock-paper-scissors feel of the current simul-mash approach.
posted by cortex at 11:23 AM on August 20, 2014

the current simul-mash approach.

Although it does also generate those sequences where it looks like one fighter is deliberately (and presciently) jumping over the other fighter's leg-sweep over and over and over again with uncanny precision.
posted by yoink at 11:26 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wanna pit these fish in SaltyBet now.
posted by ardgedee at 11:51 AM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wanna pit these fish in SaltyBet now.

So much. So very much. I still have $50,000 there, I think, and I'd blow it all on Robert the Bruce.
posted by Copronymus at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2014

cortex: you'd have to have a coinflip or something to decide who goes first though, in order for it to be fair.
posted by aubilenon at 12:36 PM on August 20, 2014

But wait! They already sorta do that part of it!

There is a tiny delay between one player pressing their key and the other one. To compensate, a player is chosen at random each loop to be the first to press their key, so it balances out.

posted by aubilenon at 12:38 PM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Pretty awesome. I just watch a nailbiter finish with an uppercut countering an aerial attack and then Rob finished off Aqua with a headbutt. That was intense! The chat panel went absolutely nuts.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:02 PM on August 20, 2014

Amazing thanks for sharing! And aren't twitch comments always useless?
posted by Carillon at 1:11 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this would be even better if there were human opponents. Who were also in tanks full of water. And also had to control their fighter by moving into different sectors of the tank.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:20 PM on August 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

7:30AM - Fish have breakfast, competitive Day begins
5:30PM - Fish have supper, competitive Day continues
10:00PM - Competitive Day ends, score summary is posted, Overnight stream begins, fish mostly just sleep

posted by threeants at 1:52 PM on August 20, 2014

Whenever I see one of these bits of repetitive internet randomness, the one thing that always comes to mind is Cartoon Network: Screwy, Ain't It?
posted by JHarris at 2:01 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I wonder what other applications this could extend to, both in terms of fish controlling something, or something controlling a game of SFII. For the former, I could see Strat-o-matic working.

Though this reminds me that as a kid, I made dice-based SFII and wrestling games, that were just as random as this.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 2:50 PM on August 20, 2014

I want to use like eight different fish connected to some synth loops to make some sort of aquatic random EDM generator.
posted by cortex at 2:52 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

cortex: The easy way is to just piggyback that off of other people's livestreams of their fish or kittens or turkey farms or whatever.

Though I guess from a copyright point of view that might be muddier than raising and exploiting your own animals.
posted by aubilenon at 3:37 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Actually what would be even better would be to piggyback off of various games twitch is currently playing.
posted by aubilenon at 3:38 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Investment portfolios. Each stock controls either a button or up/center/down, left/center/right using distribution analysis. Players compete in a tournament by picking their stocks; winners are judged on both win/loss ratio and capital gains.
posted by darksasami at 4:04 PM on August 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wanna pit these fish in SaltyBet now.

wtf i am so mad i missed this, what the fuck was i doing last august
posted by elizardbits at 5:11 PM on August 20, 2014

YOU MISSED NOTHING SALTYBET IS STILL ON
posted by chrominance at 5:19 PM on August 20, 2014

Next up: cats playing Portal.
posted by brundlefly at 5:50 PM on August 20, 2014

Certainly better than this poxy Pokemon - 19th day stuck in a corner [4,359,742 views].
posted by unliteral at 6:44 PM on August 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Certainly better than this poxy Pokemon - 19th day stuck in a corner [4,359,742 views].

That fish somehow evolved its Charmander into a Charmeleon, which is impressive as hell in its own way.
posted by Copronymus at 7:39 AM on August 21, 2014

YOU MISSED NOTHING SALTYBET IS STILL ON

It is still around, but I think they got rid of most of the dopey DragonballZ characters and other weird glitchy nonsense, plus the chat has calmed down some, so now it's more about actually betting correctly and less about watching dumb shit happen and laughing. I will always treasure that stupid Nail who was so poorly-made that his hitbox disappeared after being knocked down and those Ninja Turtles who would randomly decide to fly off into the stratosphere.
posted by Copronymus at 8:33 AM on August 21, 2014

Yes, precisely. I don't want something that functions correctly, I want ridiculousness and hilarity. and flying turtles.
posted by elizardbits at 9:04 AM on August 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have this nebulous dream project notion of some sort of extremely limited competitive programming arena where folks could write very small, very dumb AIs for robots/fighters/dudes/whatevers to then compete via in an arena.

Like, something like four lines of code. And it's not free-form programming per se, nobody has to learn to write compilable code; just a very simple set of building blocks or modifiable-with-dropdowns prefab set of instructions you can throw into an if-then loop and then just let everybody go crazy for a while until some sort of winner emerges.
posted by cortex at 9:19 AM on August 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Aquarius must have let that sponsorship deal go to his head. He's doing much worse today.
posted by ckape at 1:19 PM on August 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Aquarius must have let that sponsorship deal go to his head. He's doing much worse today.

He's coming up on a 10 day losing streak. Now that Robert the Bruce is apparently sponsored by Slim Jim (?), maybe we'll see if the weight of corporate expectations can drag them both down. Probably not, though, because as we all knew, Robert is just a better fish, with mastery of multiple characters and mind games to confuse and dazzle all aquatic comers.
posted by Copronymus at 12:32 PM on August 29, 2014 [1 favorite]