ChatGPT Can Turn Pokemon Emerald Into A Text-Based Adventure Game

If you thought Pokemon would be fun as a text adventure game, someone has used ChatGPT-4 to turn Pokemon Emerald into one.

As spotted by Polygon, Twitter user Dan Dangond has recently been using the newest version of the AI language model to turn Pokemon Emerald into a text-based adventure game. Dangond shared the discovery on Twitter, noting how you can just ask the software to play the game, and in a thread, observed how well it worked–and sometimes, how well it didn’t work.

The first tweet starting the Pokemon journey is almost like a speedrun, putting you right into the action where Emerald’s Professor Birch is being chased by a Poocheyena, prompting you to choose from the three starters. Dangon couldn’t have made a wrong choice with which starter, but did opt for Mudkip, and battle options came out as numbers to choose from.

It all looks like it works pretty smoothly, Dangond even tested out using Water Gun, but ChatGPT-4 knew it is a move Mudkip can’t learn until level 10, so didn’t use it. Interestingly, for those that hate the grind, you can just ask it to do a training montage, boosting Mudkip to level 8.

Later on, Dangond asked the software to head to a particular route and just simulate what would happen there, leading his Mudkip to become level 10, and automatically catching a Ralts, which does make catching ’em all a lot quicker, but removes a lot of the challenge. There were some other problems along the way, like the software not knowing the position of certain routes and towns. At one point it also didn’t know that Nincada is Bug/Ground type, and didn’t account for extra damage when Mudkip used Water Gun, but it did take these things into account when it was corrected.

ChatGPT is being used in a variety of ways at a point in time where AI-driven software is becoming more popular, and more powerful. Recently it was used to solve a Fortnite mystery, but ultimately its use in games won’t produce anything like a GTA-killer any time soon.