A Family has Started a New Lockdown Craze by Recreating Pokemon Go in their Local Park
A family living in Lewisham, London has started a new craze during this quarantine by recreating Pokemon in their local park.
A father’s imagination to keep his child happy doesn’t have an end. This time, Ben da Costa from Lewisham, creative director of Now advertising agency, has come up with the crazy idea which would keep his son Louie active and entertained, and decided to print out images of Pokemon, laminated them and went with his kids to hide them in Mountsfield Park.
“We played Pokemon Go on my phone and I quickly realized it would just involve him holding a phone the entire time, which sort of defies the point of getting them outside,” he said.
“We came back the next day and we found there were loads of kids out looking for them,” he said.
“This has given us something to do – it’s not just hanging them, it’s picking which ones we want to do, print them out, cut them out, laminate them, it’s given us an activity and a sort of craft as well.”
Soon, this new cool activity expanded to the whole neighborhood, and also fans of the game came to play in the park.
“More and more people seem to be going and looking for them. I guess it refreshes the park for lots of people with young kids.”
“It was purely a thing for us to do. He (Louie) enjoyed hiding them and then going back the next day to find them, and it’s spiraled into something slightly bigger. For other people, if their kids are really struggling I didn’t want them to be upset if they couldn’t find them so it basically says where they are,” he said.
It is interesting to see that grown-up people are enjoying this hunt too. Mr. da Costa said that there have been older people who have been messaging him that they have found a hidden Pokemon. It is safe to say that older Pokemon fans are using this as their exercise too.
“There’s a whole troop of young kids – four to seven or eight – that have been looking for them but then there are the older Pokemon fans using it as their daily exercise to go and find them all.”
Because of the increased popularity, the family has decided to hide a new selection of Pokemon in Ladywell Fields.
“In ideal world loads of people would start hiding them and it would be a lovely thing that grows on its own,” he said.
For everyone who wants to see how this game looks, check out Mr. da Costa’s Instagram account lewishampokemon. He also gives clues about the location of the Pokemon.
