Level Ball Logs

Welcome to Safari Ball, a field guide series that explores how Pokémon evolve through behavior, emotion, and environment. “It lets out billows of steam and disappears into the dense fog. It's said to live in mountains where humans do…

What if the rarest thing you find at GO Fest isn’t a Pokémon but peace? New York City hadn’t changed, but I had. GO Fest 2024 marked my return, but this time, I did it differently. I stayed in the city, not across the river in Ne…

Have you ever felt completely invisible until someone finally saw you? New York City is loud. It’s layered. It moves fast and it never waits for you to catch up. New York City felt like a pure Electric-type with high energy, unpredictable…

By 2022, I’d already been to three GO Fests in Chicago, and while I loved the city, I was ready for something new. When Niantic announced that GO Fest was coming to Seattle, I knew it was time. It was my first time ever heading west, and after…

When BrandonTan91 came to visit, we talked for hours. About Pokemon GO, about the grind, but more importantly, about the people. I remember opening up to him about my hopes for rebuilding the Pokémon GO community in Dallas after the pandemic.…

By the time GO Fest 2019 rolled around, I felt like a veteran. It was my third year attending and the second time back at Grant Park. But for once, I wasn’t going alone. This year, I was joined by friends, some of them experiencing GO Fest for…

In 2017, I left GO Fest Chicago sunburnt, disappointed, and emotionally exhausted. But I also left determined. If I ever got another chance, I’d do it differently. That chance came in 2018. Tickets were once again hard to get, and I was lucky …

Welcome to Safari Ball, a field guide series that explores how Pokémon evolve through behavior, emotion, and environment. This time we journey high in the mist-covered mountains and see something move. Not with stealth, but with purpose, a rh…

Starting a podcast felt a lot like stepping out of my front door in Pallet Town for the first time. It was exciting, terrifying, and full of unknowns. I was scared of exposure, scared that putting myself out there would be seen as selfish or attenti…

I still remember the excitement that buzzed through the Pokémon GO community leading up to the very first GO Fest in 2017. It was the first-ever GO Fest, and somehow, it belonged to me. I almost didn’t get a ticket. The event sold out i…