Skip to main content

Pokemon Go Revival with Generation 2

Pokemon Go has been getting steadily quieter in New England, as the craze of this summer hit critical mass then slowly as the weather got worse brought out only the die hard fans with unlimited data plans on their phone ::ahem:: Level 31 thank you very much. I still get beaten out of our library gym every few days and I still see some kids playing but it has not been on the tip of anyone's tongues since the holidays hit.  The holidays tried to keep the fervor up by offering special incentives during Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the lastly on Valentine's Day. Special Pokemon increased spawn rates, candies were doubled, lures lasted for 6 hours, etc. as long as you logged in during the week of the holiday and kept up with the app updates.

For those who need a refresher, look at this earlier blog post.  You may or may not know that Niantic released a huge update last Thursday, adding 80 new Pokemon called "Generation 2" that are available to catch. Most of them look like insects of some form or another. This is a huge score for the game as even the most seasoned players are getting tired of catching the common Pidgies and Weedles just for stardust or forever walking 10K eggs in hope of getting one of the elusive rare Pokemon they are missing.  

What librarians need to know: Trading is still not an option, but anyone with a Pokestop near their library can now drop lures for a crowd that is eager to catch all the new Pokemon. I walked 26 miles this weekend trying to catch as many new ones as I could. I'm not exaggerating. Plus I'm trying to get my 1 Chansey to evolve into a Blissy which is one of the biggest gym competitors in the game. If you hold a particular gym for 21 hours, you get coins and extra Stardust. This keeps going every 21 hours after redemption until you get kicked off by another team. Since Chansey's are rare, I have to walk the Chansey as my companion. For every 5 Kilometers I walk, I get another candy.  Needless to say, I have to walk another 200K for this end. 
Swinubs, Sentrets, Ledybas and Natus are common to find in most areas with an increased spawn rate (at least for now) in the wild. Think Pidgies, Weedles, and Spearows of Generation 1, they're everywhere. The catching screen has changed to make it easier to select which Pokeball to use as well as adding Nanab berries which can try to immobilize Pokemon (they can now zig zag around the screen to avoid being caught) and Pinap berries that will increase the amount of candy you get if you catch it while "under its spell". These new berries can be found by spinning Pokestops. Each Pokemon that you try to catch can only be fed with one berry. The Razz berry is still the one to go to if you really want to ensure a successful capture.

Some of the Generation 1 Pokemon now have an additional evolvement shown in pink that requires a "special item" like a sun stone in addition to a number of candies required from catching a certain amount of them. These are RARE. I must have spun about 100 stops this weekend only to get 1! They are completely randomly but having a stop at your library helps meet that end, and if you are lucky to have more than 1 stop, consider it time for another Pokewalk while the snow is melted.  I wish we knew Generation 2 was coming with a bit more notice because school vacation would have been a great opportunity for programming.

If you are curious whether special rare Pokemon are near you that you can advertise on social media, consider using the Silph Road, a website where players report on "nests". Every update changes what nest is currently in a certain area but it could last for a few weeks at least. I found myself driving around last night looking for Wobuffets after reported and confirmed sightings in a local field in Quincy using their Nest Atlas. Silph Road is actually a great resource for all things Pokemon and a perfect jumping off point from this article.  Happy hunting!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Our most popular makerspace/STEM/Library of Things

As of April 2018, we did a kit circulation report.  We had 106 kits which have circulated 1,047 times since it's inception in 2015.  Here is the top 10 list of most circulated. These include hobby kits, puzzles, cake pans, instruments, science robots/STEM, and American Girl dolls. The ukulele kits (we have one soprano and one concert kit) have been around the longest and have circulated 106 times total.  Just remember someone should change the strings yearly and definitely include a tuner (we like the snark) as new strings on a uke take a while to break in. Surprisingly our meditation toolbox comes in second with 51 checkouts.  It is just some CDs and a DVD.  This one has also been around since the inception of our kits. Next up is our virtual reality headset toolbox.  It is a Homido Virtual Reality headset. If that is too pricey, I recommend Google Cardboard.  Our sewing machine comes in 5th.  Knitting is a great idea for a toolbox and very popular but li

New ideas for Circulation-Library of Things/ Makerspace Kits

The DFL currently experiments with hobby, STEAM, and Technology kits that are housed both in the adult section and the kids room. These kits include musical instruments, video equipment, puzzles, cake plans, robots, looms, and more available for checkout.  The kits are bought using our Amazon prime account, under the supervision of the head of circulation using a special makerspace kit budget and backed up by a kit committee made up of various departments to streamline the process.  The kits with the most holds by far have been the Retro Nintendo  and Super Nintendo Classic which were small batch pre-Christmas releases for the last two years.  Rather than blowing the dirt out of your old cartridges, these consoles have games built in for your playing pleasure. According to Walmart, the Nintendo "classics" are on sale as of today.  Our kit contains a small palm sized console, 2 controllers (try to upgrade wireless ones if you can), an ac adapter, and, I recommend, a carr

3D Printing Signs for the Library Collection

Last weekend, I went to the annual Tee-Off mini golf event at the Brookline Public Library.  As a first time visitor, I was mini-golfing with my phone at the ready. Special thanks to the AMAZING librarian rockstar Robin Brenner for so many great ideas. It truly is worth a visit just to see her teen room. Here are a few 3D printing/marketing ideas to takeaway: Having a  3D printer filtration cart would be wonderful in our library.  Look at the price if you dare.  Right now I have to go downstairs to retrieve prints because we are concerned about the fumes and little hands touching anything while the printer is on.  I have a video camera set up downstairs using an iPad 2 and the free app called Presence  for monitoring but sometimes I do forget to keep checking the presence website while I'm on the desk especially since it makes this annoying beeping sound to say, "Are you still watching?!"..As the sign reveals on the cart, the propensity to want to lean or jostle the car