April Fool's Day

April Fool's Day is celebrated every year on the first day of April and is the start of Dunsparce Appreciation Month. Additionally, there is usually a fun gag that is disguised as a new feature that is played each year. Poliwager has been celebrating April Fool's Day since 2009.

Dunsparce Appreciation Month

Dunsparce Appreciation Month is a month to celebrate the Pokémon Dunsparce. An Event Ticket for Dunsparce and a Dunsparce Carpet is made available every year as well as a Dunsparce being in the Daily Radiant Rare Lottery on April 1. Dunsparce Appreciation Month was first celebrated in 2013[1].

2009: Hacked

Poliwager was "hacked" by a "hacker" and the site had graffiti written on it in 2009[2].

2010: Easier to Read and Banned

On Poliwager Forums, everyone's Poliwager Forums Member Ranks were changed to say they were "Banned", and Poliwager was made "easier to read" by crossing out each line of text and capitalizing every word on the site[3].

2011: Bellsprouter

In 2011 Poliwager was renamed to "Bellsprouter" after Slix claimed that Bellsprout was his new favorite Pokémon. The style for the main site and Poliwager Forums both changed to have Bellsprout-themed colors and images[4].

2012: Arceus on the Adopt Page

In 2012 the Adopt Page had all the descriptions changed to make them look like Arceus Eggs[5]. Additionally, there was a "special" Multiplier of 0.41x which actually reduced interaction and view Exp. gained.

2013: Magic Jump

Magic Jump was a new page that functioned similarly to Mt. Chimney walking and Politoed Pond diving but there were no rewards for jumping[6]. This was the first year that Dunsparce Appreciation Month was celebrated, giving away a Dunsparce Event Ticket. Additionally, there was a "special" Multiplier of 0.41x which actually reduced interaction and view Exp. gained.

2014: Magic Jump Revisited

Magic Jump, the Dunsparce Event Ticket, and 0.41x multiplier were celebrated on April Fool's Day in 2014 again[7].

2015-2016: Dunsparce Appreciation Month

The Dunsparce Event Ticket and 0.41x multiplier were celebrated on April Fool's Day in 2015[8] and 2016[9] again.

2017: Magic Jump Revisited Again

Magic Jump returned as a "new" feature, and the Dunsparce Event Ticket and 0.41x multiplier were celebrated on April Fool's Day in 2017 again[10].

2018: Dunsparce Carpet

In 2018, the Dunsparce Appreciation Month Event Ticket gave a Dunsparce Carpet to decorate your Room with for the first time[11].

2020: Dunsparce Limited Edition Backpack

In 2020, along with the usual Dunsparce Appreciation Month bonuses, there was a limited edition Dunsparce backpack that was made available to purchase in the Merch Store[12].

2022: Pokemon Raising Event

In 2022[13], a fake event was announced for raising existing Pokémon, thus it was announced that less eggs would appear on the Adopt Page. Additionally, hatching a Shiny Pokémon would disqualify you from receiving a prize egg at the end of the month. Ironically, Dunsparce was announced to appear in the lottery everyday for the entire month with increased shiny odds. This was all an April Fool's Day hoax.

2023: Poliwager VR

In 2023 Poliwager VR was announced as a feature advertised as giving "a whole new way to experience Poliwager"[14]. Enabling "VR Mode" would cause two hands to appear and shift around along with the site logo and side menus. It can be disabled by changing to another style with the style switcher.

2024: New Adopt Page Feature

In 2024, there was a new feature advertised as making adopting eggs easier announced[15]. Eggs on the Adopt Page would appear in different sizes and rotation for the entire day. This year the 0.41x multiplier was instead made 4.1x going forward.

2025: Big Political AI

Big Political AI was a fake AI model advertised as being able to answer any question about Poliwager[16]. In reality it only gave hand crafted answers that were chosen at random. A YouTube video[17] was also made to show off it's "features."

Trivia

• April Fool's Day used to have a 0.41x multiplier meaning eggs would take longer to hatch than normal.

• Dunsparce Appreciation Month is inspired by the fact that Dunsparce is a subtle joke as it only had a 1% encounter rate in Johto while not being particularly strong making its discovery underwhelming.