What’s the most niche thing you’ve ever done in-game just for fun?

I don't know if it is that niché, certainly for people of my generation, but I once tried to get to the infamous truck in RBY.

I had heard rumours of the truck and Mewthree dwelling beneath, but in the early days of the mainstream internet, you couldn't ask an AI, watch a two hour YouTube documentary on it, or even Google it.

Maybe you could AskJeeves if you could persuade your mum not to use any phones in the house for half an hour to let you browse the internet. The only way to be sure was to try it yourself.

So armed with a completed Red save file and a new copy of Blue I begged my mum to buy me, I decided to trade a Pokémon with cut over to Blue so that I could skip the S.S. Anne and access Lt. Surge and the rest of the game. This meant that once I had Surf and the badges necessary, I could backtrack, enter the port area and surf to the right of the Anne to find the truck.

And against all of my assumptions, it was there. I couldn't believe it.

So naturally I used Strength, which would of course move the truck and reveal the secret staircase leading to the Silph Co. fountain, obviously the lair of Mewthree.

But nothing happened.

You cannot interact with the truck in any way. There was no Mew, no Mewthree, no ghost of your rival's Raticate. Nothing.

Still, it was interesting to attempt and I had finally conclusively proved for myself that while the truck was real, the rumours surrounding it were untrue.

Of course, the Game Boy Pocket did not have a screenshot functionality. There were no smart phones. Mobile phones didn't even have colour screens yet, never mind cameras. The only way I could have gotten any evidence would have been to take a photo of the unlit, monochrome screen, wait for my mum to take the roll of film to be developed and hope that she would let me have it, if it even turned out to be visible in the first place.

So as far as the other kids on the playground were concerned, I was the one lying.

"Jeffers has never been to the truck. He's lying. And if he has, why didn't he catch Mewthree?

"Besides, John's dad works for Nintendo and he's already played Pokémon Gold and caught Pikablu. He said Mewthree is under the truck."

I think it is good that we are more informed about our game purchases in the age of the internet. It is very possible to know absolutely everything in the game before we buy it, either through direct confirmation from the developers themselves, early access, or leaks and data mining.

But a lot of the discovery, mystery and wonder was lost, and I don't think kids today will ever know the thrill of the search for Mewthree. After all, we know the entire Pokédex of a new game the second pre-loads begin.

There is nowhere for it to hide.