Pokémon Go's Halloween event

Although I haven't written about Pokémon Go recently (I haven't been able to write as much as I'd have liked overall), I have been catching pokémon whenever I could. I know the hype has died down a bit, but that's no reason for me to throw in the towel. Catching "wild pokémon" just doesn't get old for me. Despite my relative immobility, I have even managed to catch up to most of my friends - who became less fanatic over time - by sheer obsessing determination.

So when I heard there was going to be a Pokémon Go Halloween event, I was pretty excited... that is, until I realized I would be abroad in Sweden without mobile internet for the full duration of the event.

The reason for the trip to Sweden was my friend finishing her PhD at the university of Uppsala. Many friends that I had not seen for years came over from various parts of the world and I still had to work on surprise presents together with them, so I was not going to be bored. But I was secretly hoping to catch some cool pokémon on the go. Especially Gengar - one of my all time favourite pokémon (I always took him with me to the pokémon league) - was high on my COS list.* It was continuously taunting me from the Halloween event loading screen during the course of the event.

The first disappointment was on Arlanda airport, which had free wifi. No pokémon on sight. I didn't see any on Schiphol earlier either, so I guess pokémon suffer from flight fear. Or they are not allowed because of security reasons; I prefer the first explanation, though.

Pokémon shun the Swedish countryside (left); pokémon that I did manage to catch (middle & right)

The next wifi access moment was at my friend's farm house where I stayed. Unfortunately, I didn't see any pokémon at all for three days in a row. It became clear that pokémon simply avoid Uppsala's countryside. The only time I saw any wild Swedish pokémon was in Uppsala itself, during my friend's afterparty. Only Halloween pokémon showed up, though, so I still have no clue what usually resides there, whether it's any different from what I see back home in the Netherlands or not.

The complete absence of pokémon at the farm house granted the opportunity to test something interesting, though. There's this theory that if you're at a place where no pokémon live naturally, using an incense will force pokémon to spawn randomly from the complete pokémon pool, giving you an increased chance to encounter rare pokémon that you would usually not run into.

 Use incense in remote areas for rarer Pokémon by Trainer Tips 

(source: https://youtu.be/XZx5xrubsc8)

The video above introduced me to this theory. Since I can't travel around much to collect pokémon myself due to my health, I follow Nick's Trainer Tips vicariously. Not only are his videos informative and does he explain the math behind pokémon min maxing in comprehensible ways, he also really knows how to handle a camera, making all the places he visits to catch pokémon a visual joy to watch. But enough Trainer Tips fangirling.

In the above video, Nick and his girlfriend travel to a faraway island that is only inhabited by birds, in order to find a place that is void of pokémon. Unfortunately for them, even this remote island turns out to not be remote enough, because there are still pokémon about: too many tourists with internet on their phones. It seems Nick would've been better off on the Swedish countryside.

Using my incense in Uppsala county unfortunately did not give a decisive answer. Multiple meowths, cubones and a ghastly showed up, but they are all Halloween pokémon. It seems there's not much use of incenses during Pokémon Go events for this reason - unless you're me and you're in the middle of nowhere, because now I could at least catch something.

Gengar celebrating my departure to Sweden, where he is safe from my pokéballs

I managed to catch a lot of cubones and ghastlies this event, and some meowths. I have been very unlucky with evolutions, though, which is probably mostly because I had so little time to play. I did manage to catch a Haunter, but it only had a CP of 53 (see second picture). Although I have enough candies to evolve a ghastly and a meowth, but I don't have any suitable candidates. I am looking forward towards evolving that 589 CP cubone into a marowak, though.

When I came back home, I found my brother and his new girlfriend working in the kitchen, their cellphones on the kitchen table running Pokémon Go. "It's crazy, new pokémon spawn every three minutes or so", the girlfriend said. My brother: "I have enough candies to evolve three ghastlies. I'm getting pretty bored of it now; I want the normal pokémon back."

Do you still play Pokémon Go or have you given up on it? What's your coolest Halloween catch?

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*Catch On Sight list. But as a true pokémon trainer you knew that, of course.