Events | StudentsJanuary 22, 2026

UAFS Students Try to ‘Catch ‘Em All’

Written By: Ian Silvester

This year marks 30 years of children and adults playing with their favorite sprites—from trading cards and handhelds to consoles and phone apps, these memorable pocket monsters aren’t going anywhere soon…besides hopefully in a Pokéball. 

Students from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith kicked off the spring semester and Pokémon’s 30th anniversary year with an afternoon of exploring campus and playing Pokémon GO, an augmented reality mobile game. 

“Pokémon GO is fun because we can find Pokémon in 'real life,' and it makes us walk as if we were real Pokémon Trainers,” said César Brizuela Zelaya, a senior Spanish major and president of The Pokémon Guild, a registered student organization. 

César said the RSO was rebranded as The Pokémon Guild in Fall 2025, after initially being a Digital Lions eSports team in 2022, then the Pokémon Club and Competitive Team in 2024. He said the name change was to make the RSO easier to remember and to emphasize its more casual nature. 

“We’re a space for anyone who enjoys Pokémon, whether casually or competitively,” César explained. 

During Thursday’s two-and-a-half-hour Pokémon GO event, César said students met new people who shared the same interests while catching their favorite Pokémon, battling for control of gyms, exploring PokéStops, and completing in-game missions and quests while imagining the UAFS campus as the fictional regions of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kaloa, Alola, Galar, or Paldea. 

César said The Pokémon Guild hopes to host more Pokémon GO events monthly before leading up to the RSO’s end-of-semester event, Poké-Palooza. He said events will be posted on NUMALink and the RSO’s Instagram, @uafspg, or by searching The Pokémon Guild at UAFS. 

Pokémon GO is free to download from the Apple Store or Google Play Store. Users can create an account with a Google, Facebook, Apple ID, or Pokémon Trainer Club account to start playing. 

The Pokémon Guild and Japan Club will be teaming up on Feb. 27 for an event to commemorate 30 years of Pokémon.

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