Saturday 3rd October 2020

It’s been a long time since I’ve traveled in the back of a car.  It’s been a long time since I traveled, period.  But today we did some Pokemon Go and I had the opportunity not to drive.

Over the last few years, my Pokemon Go playing friends and I have developed routes around town that maximise Pokestops and Pokemon spawns.  We’ve even gone so far as to get extra Pokestops and gyms put in along the route, so to maximise the opportunities further.  Because we have players with disabilities we drive.

But the problem is that I’m usually the one driving.  And that means, either I’m auto-catching or -spinning with a Gotcha device, or someone else is operating my phone.

Driving is stressful.  People communicate with you as though what they can visually see on the screen is in front of you.

“Let’s do the raid”

On the phone it’s obvious because only one gym has a raid.  Me driving:  I’m unsure of which gym they are talking about and – because I’m concentrating on whether the driver ahead is going to cut out in front of me – I can’t think which gyms can be seen at this point.

It makes driving a bit challenging.

I’m going too fast because there’s no time to check all the spawns, when I’m doing less than 30 in a 40 zone with no clear space to pull over.  And when I do, it’s too far to still see the spawn.

And because I can’t play the game – relying on other people or devices – I feel I never come away with such a good haul

As a result, I don’t like driving.  I’ve actually been glad for the pandemic in some ways – as it’s made going out and playing Pokemon around town nonviable.  I’ve much more enjoyed going to our local park for a short walk or playing from home.

But Niantic has changed the play at home bonuses.  For a company that adapted so much at the start of the pandemic to turn the game into something that could be played at home, they’ve now reverted those changes… right at the start of a second wave.  There’s no way to describe it other than fucking irresponsible… and it’s really put me off the game.

There’s also a new event with a load of new shinies and rares which means I feel my back is up against the wall.  Either go out and play or stay at home and don’t.

C loves the game though, I don’t want to deny them – even if they are at higher risk – so I was grateful when our friend Webby offered to come and take us playing… and drive.

Don’t get me wrong, I miss the social element of that game play.  It was always fun going out and around town in a car as a group… but the actual Pokemon Go experience was always a bit suboptimal.

However, today, I didn’t have to drive.  All I had to do was sit in the back of the car and play the game.

So naturally I developed travel sickness.

I didn’t want to ruin the experience for C so I suffered and tried to play.  I even turned down a drink when we went through the McDonalds drive-thru  – a tradition we always used to do when playing in town.

I caught 2 shinies, C got 5 so he’s proper happy.  Despite the travel sickness I enjoyed myself – if only because I didn;t have to drive.

Still, I’m really salty towards Niantic and their irresponsible attitude to player safety.

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