If you've noticed more and more people walking around your town or hanging out at local historical sights, you're witnessing the work of the new app, Pokémon Go. In my small hometown of Ashtabula, OH, there are many historical landmarks that used to go unnoticed by many, until now. It took me one trip to my favorite landmark, that was always so quiet to learn why half of my towns youth was gathered there, Pokémon Go. Since then I have become a Pokémon trainer and the game is actually super fun and the augmented reality lets the Pokémon enter our world. So, If you're a parent concerned for your children's new found love to walk around outside all hours of the day, a young(ish) person feeling out of the loop or a Pokémon master-in-training, here are eight things you need to know about Pokémon Go!
Warning! I recommend to never play Pokémon Go by yourself if you're planning on walking around your town at night. Bad people do bad things and a lot have used lures at PokéStops to catch young teens instead of Pokémon. Other than that, this is a great app that is getting many people out of their houses and on their feet!
1. Pokémon Go and your phone
For starters, Pokémon Go is an app that is available for iPhones and Androids that will definitely drain your battery and use your data if you aren't careful. Thankfully, there is a battery saver mode under settings that will help prevent your phone from dying when you're about to catch that Pikachu. As for your data, lets just hope you have a good plan.
2. Setting up your account
To set up your account, you have the option to log in with a Google account or a Pokémon Trainer Club account. From there you'll choose your gender, customize your look and then catch your starter Pokémon. The starters are Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. Sadly, no Pikachu, but there is a rumor that if you walk away from your three starters, Pikachu will actually appear. (This has yet to work for me but if you want to give it a try, have at it!) Then next, you'll choose a name and then you're off to catch them all!
3. Catching a Pokémon
Catching a Pokémon is going to be the same as when you catch your starter, but the CP, combat power, of the Pokémon will make the catch harder or easier. When you hold down on your Pokéball, a circle will appear around the face of the Pokémon and the color of the ring determines the difficulty of the catch. Green is easy, yellow is medium, and red is difficult. The usual throw is just flicking the Pokéball at the Pokémon when the circle gets the smallest and hoping it'll stay in the ball, but there are other ways to help catch your Pokémon. One way is making small, tight, circles with your Pokéball before you throw it. I've found that this takes a lot of practice and you will waste Pokéballs, but when it's done right, you earn more XP and the catch will be more likely to be successful. You can also use Great Balls, which make catching Pokémon easier, but you don't receive these until level 12. And you can also use Razz berries, which makes the Pokémon stop jumping around so much.
4. Tracking a Pokémon
Pokémon nearby will show up in the white box on the bottom right corner of your screen. It will show the three closest Pokémon, the absolute closest being on the left. When you click to enlarge it, you'll see the nine Pokémon closest to you. The paw prints under the Pokémon show how far away they are. I've heard from fellow trainers that one paw is 100 feet, two paws is 200 feet, and three paws is 300 feet. The app doesn't tell you what direction to go, so you just need to choose a random direction and hope the Pokémon you want get closer. Dark green leaves that pop up every minute show where a Pokémon may be hiding as well.
5. Naming and evolving Pokémon
Once you have a Pokémon, you're rewarded Stardust and candy for that specific Pokémon that you can use to power up your Pokémon, or to evolve them. Before you evolve your Pokémon, I recommend you power it up first if you have the candy because the higher it's CP before it evolves, the better the evolution will be. Some will almost double, bouncing from a 333 Eevee to a 608 Jolteon. You can get more candy by catching the same type of Pokémon or by transferring your extra Pokémon back to Professor Willow. But if you transfer, please know that you will not get your Pokémon back. Ever. Another awesome thing about Pokémon Go is that you have the option to rename your Pokémon so your Weedle can now be a Jeff if you so please. A hack that I have discovered is that if you rename your Eevee's before you evolve them, you can control which evolution you get. The only three evolutions now are Jolteon, Vaperon and Flareon. According to my boyfriend, if you rename your Eevee to Sparky, you'll get a Jolteon, Rainer will get you a Vaperon and then Pyro will give you a Flareon. I have seen this work as well!
6. Leveling up and picking your team
When you level up, you get rewards and XP. The higher level you are, the more rewards you'll get. Once you hit level five, you can go to a gym and get to decide what team to be on. What team you choose doesn't matter, but you'll probably want to be on the same team as your friends. Most of my friends are split between two teams so it turns out to be a fun rivalry. You can't change your team once you pick it though, the only way to be on a different team is to make a whole new account. The three teams are #TeamInstinct, #TeamMystic, and #TeamValor. The colors are yellow, blue and red, and each team has their own reason to catch Pokémon, thats where people will decide they like one team the best.
7. PokéStops, Gyms and the PokéShop
PokéStops will be seen as blue squares on your screen, and then they turn into circles once you get close. The PokéStops give you free items such as eggs, which you have to walk a certain number of km to hatch a Pokémon, Pokéballs, potions, and revives. All of these will be found in your items. There are Lure Modules that can be used at PokéStops to draw Pokémon near you, incense can do this as well but that will only benefit the trainer using it. The Pokéshop is where you can exchange your hard earned dollars for coins to buy items. Gyms are where you can back up your team or battle the other team to win the gym for yourself.
8. Facts and hacks
Most college campuses will have gyms and PokéStops near the buildings. The same people that created Pokémon Go, also created Google Earth, which is why everything is super detailed and all of your favorite historical sights are now hotspots. Pokémon Go became one of the top apps in less than days after its release. Different type of Pokémon can be found near their assumed habitat. Water Pokémon can be found by water, grass type by forests and ect. It's rumored that you can have unlimited incense by setting back your phone time so your timer will never run out. This is supposed to work with luck eggs as well. There has been an update so the servers don't go down as much. There is a new update coming that is supposed to allow trainers to trade Pokémon.
Happy Poké hunting! I hope you catch them all! Remember to always be safe and to never play Pokémon Go and drive. Sadly the Pokémon aren't real, but you are so always be careful!
Goodbye, goodbye, be always kind and true.
