Pokemon Go!

Some thoughts on Pokemon Go! Shortly after the initial announcement of the game my brother, Tyler, told me about it. Let me go back. When Pokemon Red and Blue was first released in 1996 it didn't impact me at all. I was ten and worried more about Pogs and Slammers. Anyway, my interest in Pokemon stemmed from my brother. He grew up watching the show. He also played with the cards for a long time. I spent a lot of time in High School babysitting my brother so I saw a lot of the show. It wasn't bad. The movies were better, but better still was when I bought him a used copy of Pokemon Red, it had Chaizard on the cover! We kind of played it together. He liked the battles, so I would give him the game for the battles, but that was about it. So I got to do all the walking and was able to follow the story. The story was amazing and the game play was like nothing I had ever seen up to that point. So I loved the games. After a while my brother and I didn't play the games like that. We would just play on our own. It was because of that original way that we played the game that had the most impact. So, I think that's why he told me about Pokemon Go after the announcement

I wasn't sure about it at first, but the various announcements and ads had me interested. It was almost embarrassing how many times I refreshed the play store the night it was released. I was pleased that it starts like the original game. I accidentally picked Squirtle as a starter. While I was learning to throw the pokeballs I figure that if I caught the Squirtle it would be my starter pokemon. There was an option to run. So it was at that point that I decided that Squirtle could be my starter. In the original game Tyler made me pick Charmander. Later when I played the game solo, I also picked Charmander since picking Charmander makes the game more difficult. I couldn't think of a reason why picking Squirtle would make Pokemon Go more or less difficult. 

So I picked Squirtle. It took me forever to catch him, but he was standing on my couch! So cool! So for people that have not played. The game will use the camera on your phone to capture your surroundings and make it the background for the pokemon as you catch them. That is one of the best things about the game. It's called Augmented Reality. You can turn this feature off, sometimes I do and the background is just a grass meadow. I turn it off sometimes because the area is too dark so then I cannot see the background or the pokemon. Also, sometimes I turn it off because if the pokemon is to the side of me or behind me, then I have to turn my phone towards the pokemon to catch it. But if I turn off the augmented reality then the pokemon is just on the screen. So sometimes it is necessary to turn off. But it is much cooler to play with it on!

By the time I downloaded the game and caught Squirtle, I went to bed. But there was one thing I knew above all else and that was: join team Mystic. Tyler said it was important that I do, otherwise, we probably couldn't sit down to dinner together. He didn't say it in that many words, but I understood.

Three Dogs...or is there?

The next fun thing about the game is that it uses maps from google...I believe it's from google, that's what the game says. So it uses real maps. There are points, PokeStops on the map that are really cool Stops. So, I guess the points are based off a different game from the same company. I'm not sure how the points were decided or how they found them, who took pictures of them, but some of them surprise me. Some of them are things I know. Like the picture I put on the photo lab of the bug art, some of them are things I noticed before, but I never thought of. Like there is one called the Shaking Hands. It's a wall of different hands shaking. Which I have seen before, but I never really thought about them. When I saw it as a spot, I thought about them. I thought what a weird wall! Apparently, there are two Stops at the Shaking Hands, or maybe that is a mistake the one is right in front of the wall, the other is not. So maybe it was accidentally added twice? There are also things I walked by and I never noticed before. Well perhaps I noticed them, because I recognized them, but I didn't know I noticed them. There is one noodle street art stop. I have seen it a bunch of times, but never noticed. People walk under it, all the time, and I think they don't notice it either. I really like that about the game, seeing things I didn't notice. I only really play it when I am walking around the city to work or the gym or my car. But, I think it would be fun to play in a city that I'm not as familiar with. Then I can find all these little things about a city that a tourist wouldn't notice. A local might not even notice some of them! 

Poke Stop. The eye is cool

After the first night, I was able to play the game a little the next day. I visited my first Stops and caught a few pokemon. I was so geek about every little bit of it. At first everything was new. I learned to throw the ball with my finger instead of my thumb, now I'm trying to learn to throw better curveballs since they give you more points, but I had to learn the strike ball first! So, I don't know when I started to do this, but it wasn't that long after I started playing. On the old games when you catch a pokemon you have better odds at catching them if you hold the A button down as the ball shakes. You have to hold the A button down through 3 shakes. I don't have that button on my phone, so I just started to hold my finger over the ball as it shakes on Pokemon Go! I think it makes it easier to catch. I have had a few pokemon break free and flee, but it seems like a lot more pokemon are fleeing from other people, or they have to give them berries. I didn't start giving pokemon berries until today, and that's mostly because I started getting tired of the PokeStops saying that my bag is too full. You still get points at the PokeStop even if your bag is too full. So I still visit them, but I like them better when I collect things.

Another thing that I like about the game is that it makes people walk. In the games there a Pokemon eggs. In order to hatch them you must put them in an incubator and then walk a certain amount either 2 km, 5 km or 10 km. There are ways around walking I guess, but I think it is easier just to walk! Plus if you walk, then you might run into pokemon to catch!

Things that I do not like about the game are that sometimes the servers are down. The servers are much better these a few weeks later than when the game first came out, but there are still some nights where it's very glitchy. I don't mind having to restart the game once and a while. I have seen increasing improvement over the weekend, so I think perhaps the worse is behind us.

I haven't really spent much of the game at the Gyms. So like Poke Stops the Gyms are based off portals from a different game. The Gyms are the most popular portals I guess. While Poke Stops and catching pokemon is like a big scavenger hunt. The gyms are like capture the flag/king of the castle. The gyms are also where the teams come in. There are three teams, Red, Blue and Yellow. I think red is Valor and yellow is Instinct, but maybe I mixed them up. The Blue team is Mystic and that's the team I'm on. The gyms start out a neutral grey color, but when a trainer goes to the gym they capture it for their team and they assign one of their pokemon to defend the gym. Now other people on your team can also assign their pokemon to defend, and people on other teams can try to battle your pokemon and take the gym from your team! I have only gone to a few gyms. So I am a bit confused still, but I think I have the overall picture down. I really want to explore it more, but I think I need stronger pokemon. I know that people assign weak fodder pokemon at gyms too, but I think I need to visit them a little more before I do so. When you use a pokemon to defend you get a defender bonus at the shop. This is a way to earn coins in the game for free. You get a defend bonus every day, but if your defender pokemon gets knocked out of the gym then you don't get the bonus.

Speaking of bonuses. One of the best ways to get points in the game is to catch a lot of Pidgeys and evolve them. Then trade them to the Professor. Pidgeys only need 12 candies to evolve. So you can quickly get points and level up. Rattata and some of the other pokemon are helpful with this too, but you need more candies for the Rattatas. So it's not as quick. However, I heard that sometimes people use the Raticates at the Gyms as "fodder" so that has it's own advantages. I will have to see for myself how this works.

Okay, I think that is all I should say about Pokemon Go! For now, I will probably update later. Probably when I catch a Snorlax.