When driving to your neighborhood park at 11 p.m. you may expect to see a few people, maybe a couple of people playing a game of late night tennis or pickup basketball. What I did not expect to see, was 50+ people milling around aimlessly with their heads entrenched in their phones. Some people in groups, some walking around solo. All races, all ethnicities, all ages. All brought together by one game, Pokémon Go.

For people who are unfamiliar with the game here’s how it works, when you download the game you become a Pokémon trainer. From there you are given Pokémon balls in which you are tasked with the objective of “catching them all”. Them refers to Pokémon; in short, you’re a Pokémon hunter and you catch Pokémon by throwing virtual Pokémon balls at them. Once caught, the Pokémon are added to a collection. Such collections can prompt major bragging rights to other Pokémon trainers. Some Pokémon are rare, some are higher level, and some are just plain weird. This variety gives players the motivation to get up and move. In order to catch a Pokémon, you must find it. To keep it simple the main server will give the app GPS locations of different Pokémon and the user will walk around until a Pokémon is in range, and from there the user must find it themselves. Rarer Pokémon are harder to find and common Pokémon are easier. Once found, the Pokémon trainer uses their phone to flick an animated Pokémon ball at an animated Pokémon. Some higher level Pokémon are harder to catch which add a difficulty to the game. All in all, the user experience is something that has never been created before, which why the game is hugely popular and successful.

A month ago your local park should have been deserted by 1 a.m., but now, such is not the case. My friend and I came across a group of 12 Pokémon Go trainers and asked to tag along for the night. What I experienced with them into the early morning was as much scary as it was mind bottling.

We walked around the two square mile park catching quite a lot of Pokémon, some rare, but most of them were common. After an hour or so, the group seemed to grow content with tonight’s hunt. As I thought the night was coming to an end, the group wanted to hit another place to catch Pokémon. As they drove, my friend and I followed, and contemplated where they might be going. As the road narrowed it soon became clear, they were headed to a local cemetery.

Now before you cast hate and judgment towards us Pokémon trainers, I’ll give you a little more information. The game has generated “Pokémon stops” those stops are created where Pokémon trainers are meant to meet and Pokémon hunt. There was a Pokémon stop at the cemetery, and going to the cemetery supposedly means you can get rare ghost Pokémon. This was the motive behind their actions.

I, being raised in a humble Christian household, was utterly freaking out. I have never been to a cemetery for anything other than to mourning the loss of a loved one, so the very idea of a game promoting unnecessary foot traffic in a cemetery screws with my moral compass. But I digress.

When we came to the cemetery we parked, walked in side, looked at some graves, and moved on. The fact that we were in a cemetery didn’t seem to faze anyone. To them, it was all about the Pokémon. We checked in at the “Pokémon stop”, and continued our merry way around the whole cemetery until they were set on leaving. For anyone wondering, no we did not catch any rare ghost Pokémon, I think it’s just a myth. I thought to myself that this might have been the craziest thing I have done in my life. it was almost 3 a.m. and I was in a cemetery playing a game that meant absolutely nothing to the real world. But as I was walking away from the cemetery, thinking angry thoughts towards Nintendo and Pokémon GO, I received a medal on my phone. The medal said congratulations you’ve walked 10 km.

I said my good-byes to my newly acquired friends and walked to my car with the buddy I came there with. As we sat in silence I expected my friend to condemn the group of people for their actions, but instead, we started laughing. It was now around 4am and we just went Pokémon hunting. When normal are supposed to be sleeping they were congregating. We laughed at them and their silly rhetoric back and forth talking about the pros and cons of specific Pokémon. We laughed at them, casting judgement on them, saying stuff like “they had nothing better to do that night” “look at these losers”.

But after a few days passed I felt the urge to play again. I called up my friend and without hesitation, he was ready to go. I realized that Nintendo and Pokémon Go has created an all-inclusive addicting game that requires gamers to be active. I have realized that the group of friends that I had met up with the other night were not, in fact, losers, but were just everyday people, playing for the love of the game and the love of the people they were playing with. The fact that Nintendo has made a game that makes a group of gamers mobile is revolutionary in the once stagnant gamer universe. This game will lead to others like it, and I believe with more games like these it will help aid people in losing weight and will eventually lead to a decrease in childhood obesity. Don’t believe me? Just look around they’re everywhere playing this game.