PoGoBlr hunters are back to ‘catch ‘em all’

NT Correspondent
Bengaluru:

The community of Pokemon Go had been silenced due to the pandemic but is now back to hunting virtual creatures in the nook and corners of the city. The game had not lost its popularity but was restricted to individuals. With the pandemic assumed to be put to sleep, the Pokemon Go community can now interact and socialise in person.

PoGoBlr, a community in Bengaluru, has made a comeback and has already held two meetups. The next one will be held on the 25th of this month in the premises of Cubbon Park. “A lot of the aspects of the game cannot be played by yourself. You need to be social and meet up with other people to play, where you raid and trade pokemons. So discord became the central server for players to connect,” said an admin, who likes to be addressed by his game username alRad and added that the community has now been extended to Instagram and Twitter.

There are also 20-25 area-specific groups on Whatsapp where players coordinate to catch pokemons, may it be Indiranagar or Koramangala. To rekindle your memory, US based Niantic launched ‘Pokemon Go’ in July 2016. Using augmented reality and GPS coordinates, the game allows the players to locate, capture, train and battle virtual creatures, called Pokemon which appear as if they are in the player’s real-world location.

“Once Cubbon Park was locked and there was a Pokemon that we really wanted. The seven of us jumped into the premises and ran back out as soon as we caught our creature,” alRad said giggling when asked about trespassing incidents. There have been incidents of catching Pokemons amid rains and the flood water swaying away from the slippers of many too, he added. Police also tend to question the crowd, who they assume to be aimlessly walking while being deeply invested in their phones.

“The game is mostly played while walking, and the player must take caution because the infrastructure of roads and footpaths isn’t very reliable,” alRad advised responsible play. Phones being snatched while playing a game has also been documented. There are about 1000 active players in the community spread across the city. It has people coming from all age groups, kids with their supervising parents and 50-year-olds with their unsupervised phones. Leaving aside the game aspect, the community has led to new friendships. There are cases of professional connections being made too.