Travel Across the Land, Searching Far and Wide

To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause...Pokémon!!!!

Is it sad that I didn't even have to think twice about those lyrics? That theme song was catchy.

Pokemon.com

For the first time ever, Pokémon is available on IOS and Android devices!!! This is a big deal. I've been waiting for an official Pokémon app since I got an iPhone. Even since I had my Razor and wanted an iPhone, I was waiting for it.

I knew it was coming out in July, and yesterday afternoon some lucky people were able to download it. I had no such luck until I checked one last time before going to bed. I waiting until the morning to take it for a spin and here's what I've learned from playing it for the first time this morning.

I couldn't do much before I left the house, as the app seems to want to encourage you to go outside, explore your surroundings and landmarks, and get movin'. All good things! But not so good when you're feeling lazy or it's 90 degrees out.

So I left on my morning commute to work, and launched the app, passing parks and various landmarks that I didn't even know were right outside my own door. But in Brooklyn, there wasn't much action. Once I got off the subway in SoHo, however, things were on fire.





So here's how the game works: You have an avatar that you customize (with limited options), name, and that moves when you move. You can't make the avatar walk with controls: you actually have to move. The streets shown in the game are actual city streets where you are.

Look! The Hudson River!

So all those blue things are landmarks. I don't know who took the time to go around marking these and I'm not sure what they do, but when you click them it looks like this:

In the second picture, you can see a tall structure in the right corner of the picture. I think that's a gym, where you can battle gym leaders. You have to be at least level 5 to battle at gyms, or so Prof. Willow tells me. (Prof. Willow is the new Prof. Oak. I like the tree theme.)

So when you're walking around, what you're really looking for are little Pokémon that pop up around you. This doesn't happen all the time, but the more you move around and the more ground you cover, the more often they appear. When you see one you want to catch (which should be all of them--I mean it's "Catch 'Em ALL" isn't it??) you tap it. Then the app brings the Pokémon into your world.

It's kind of eerie. A Rattata is right there on the sidewalk, and it stay there even if you move the phone around, as if it's really a part of the world. They dish out some attack moves, too. When you're ready, you flick the Poké Ball towards it, and it's surprisingly hard to catch at first. Once I got the hang of it, I was catchin' Pokémon without even stopping my stride.

Once caught, the Pokémon struggles a little in the ball, just like in the normal game, and the camera zooms in to the real-life place where you caught it! In New York City, this is most often the dirty, gray sidewalk. It is then added to your Pokédex. My understanding is that once you catch enough of one type of Pokémon, it will evolve to the next stage. 

You level up pretty quickly, and apparently earn fun, shiny badges???

Once you stop moving, the fun kind of stops too. There's not much to do except check your pokédex, unless you're walking down blocks. Walking around your house doesn't cover enough ground to coax out Pokémon, unfortunately.

So here I am right now, in my office! Go forth and catch!