x Pokémon | GeekGirlCon

Celebrating Pokémon GO Community Day at GeekGirlCon 2019

Description: A young GGC attendee shows off their stuff dressed up as Pikachu!

The theme for our Con this year is ‘Share Your World,’ and I wanted to take this opportunity to share a bit of mine. I am a huge Pokémon fan, and I have been an avid Pokémon GO player from the very beginning. Coincidentally, Novembers Community Day happens to coincide with day one of GGC! It is a true melding of my worlds.

For any who don’t know what Pokémon GO Community Day is, for a few hours on one day a month, a specific Pokémon is featured and spawns more frequently in the wild. The game also offers other bonuses during this time, such as increased instances of shiny Pokémon, experience boosts, and special moves for evolving the featured Pokémon.

Todays featured Pokémon was Chimchar!

Description: A shiny Chimchar jumps in an attempt to avoid capture.

Living in a suburb north of Seattle, I generally have my preferred Pokémon hunting grounds near to my home. Today, however, I had the chance to hunt in the city around the Washington State Convention Center. Just walking around the Con, I could tell that the love for Pokémon was strong, which is great because the area surrounding the convention center is chalk full of gyms and pokestops.

Description: A Pokemon GO map displaying a plethora of pokestops, gyms, and Pokemon to be caught.

Hunting for Chimchar in downtown Seattle was a new experience for me this time because I set out on my own. Usually, I go out in my neighborhood haunts with my boyfriend to celebrate Community Day. The environments are familiar, the best spawn places are well known, and I have the company of my partner. Today, he was out of town visiting a friend, and I hit the crowded and less known streets of Seattle to catch as many Chimchar as I could.

At first, I was scared. I’m very shy by nature and I also deal with bouts of extreme social anxiety from time to time. The area wasn’t what I was used to, and I didn’t have my partner to lean on if I felt uncomfortable. The people around me were not those I had come to know by sight in my own neighborhood through many Community Days together, but strangers.

Despite these facts, the spirit of the day began to wash away my fears. I saw three people meet on a corner (holding two phones each) and begin to discuss their goals for the event. As I continued to walk, I would make eye contact and exchange a friendly nod with my fellow players. Con goers in full cosplay were out and about playing. At one point, and older woman stopped me to ask for some advice. She was a newer player and wanted to know how to tell a shiny Pokémon from a regular one, and I was more than happy to share my knowledge with her.

Description: GGC attendees in full cosplay out on the streets of Seattle to participate in Pokemon Go Community Day.

This is why I love this game. It encourages people to get out, see their community, and make friends. I have seen all types of people out playing at any given time—kids and their parents, couples, friends, and even the elderly. In my experience, there is not any one “type” of person who plays Pokémon Go. People of all genders and ages are able to find enjoyment in the game, and it gives us all a common bond.

In my everyday life, I won’t really go out of my way to talk to people. But on Community Day, that all changes. I almost become a different person. I will go up to groups of people and ask if they want to become in-game friends. There are people gathered around gyms to take down whatever featured legendary Pokémon raid is happening, excited at the prospect of having more people in their raid groups to give them the best chance to catch a rare Pokémon. After raids, people will congratulate or console complete strangers on their luck (or lack of) in catching the raid Pokémon. Children will come up to me to show off their best catches. Pokémon GO creates a safe place to enjoy something fun.

By the end of the three-hour event, I had caught right around 100 Chimchar, which really isn’t a bad haul. Within the first hour I had already obtained a three-star shiny Chimchar, which made the entire day a victory in my book. All in all, I walked away with three three-star Infernapes, including my shiny, with candies to spare to train them up. I ventured outside of my comfort zone to play a game I love, and I feel that my efforts were rewarded.

Description: An in-game stat sheet for a shiny Infernape.

I’m looking forward to the announcement of next months Community Day! Check in game for details and play safely!

Rebecca Anglesey
“Rock On!”

What are the kids playing this summer?

by Adrienne M Roehrich, Manager of Editorial Services

If you haven’t guessed by now from my previous blog posts on Geeky Gifts for Kids, Video Games for the Family and Board Games for the Family, my family is just a little into games.

It’s summertime, which means that besides doing family chores and playing in the pool, the tweens are enjoying their free time by playing games. I asked my kids and their friends about some of the games they are playing this summer. They are going under the names Mei, damage6, Haruhi, and Boyzsuckjkjk*.

LoLLeague of Legends (LoL) came up as the game to play this summer by several of these just-into-and-out-of middle school kids.  The worst part of the game? “The players can be toxic, and will hate you forever if you do something that they don’t like,” reports damage6 about LoL. This sentiment was shared by all the kids playing LoL. Haruhi and Boyzsukjkjk both said, “The people are mean.” Even though damage6 plays League of Legends, he said he has no favorite games right now. He just likes to play, stating, “I play with people I don’t know and real life friends.”

animal crossingOther games that were brought up included TFL, Pokemon, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Unanimously, the kids said their favorite part of these games is that they can play with their friends. A bonus of Animal Crossing is that you can customize, reports Mei. According to Gamersyndrome, characters, clothing, furniture, and interactions are customizable, giving a lot of individual play.

I also happen to know that Sonic and All Stars Racing: Transformers is being played nightly with one of these girls and her father. This is leading to family bonding and working together to reach goals of unlocking characters, mods, and more races.

What games are your favorites this summer?

*All names given in this post are gamer usernames or pseudonyms.

 

 

Eric Mack
“Rock On!”

Gotta Catch ‘Em All!

Today’s blog post comes from Jaden Blazier, a GeekGirlCon copywriter intern. Jaden shares her love for all-things-Pokémon!


For as long as I can remember, I have wanted nothing more than to live in a world where Pokémon exist. Pokémon, arguably the most amazing media franchise in existence, has truly sculpted me into the person that I am today. It all started with Pokémon Yellow for the Nintendo Gameboy Color, a role-playing game based in a fantastical world occupied by “Pocket Monsters,” or “Pokémon.” There is one simple goal: to become a Pokémon Master by catching them all!

At the time, I couldn’t appreciate the game for much more than the cute little critters and colorful Pokémon battles, but that simple fascination evolved into so much more. I began playing new versions of the game, collecting the trading cards, the plastic figures, the stuffed animals, and watching the anime — and to this date Pokémon is still my favorite show. Other kids my age seemed to be following a similar path, though maybe one a little less obsessive than mine… One of my greatest accomplishments was the memorization of all 151 first-generation Pokémon in numerical order!

By the time we reached grade 5, Pokémon was no longer considered “cool.” The trading cards and daily episodes became a thing of the past as other fads pushed it aside. New generations of Pokémon continued to be created, but as the new additions of monsters and characters became less and less personable, the popular love for Pokémon began to vanish. “That stuff is for little kids!” they would say, but I didn’t care. My love was unending; I never stopped my quest to collect them all.

Guest Contributor
“Rock On!”

Join The Discussion #GeekGirlCon

Skip to content
x  Powerful Protection for WordPress, from Shield Security
This Site Is Protected By
Shield Security