OK, no, it's Pokemon Go. If you are uninformed about the game enough that you took the previous paragraph seriously, I'd better explain what the deal is. If you already know, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
Basically, it's a game you play on your phone, where you catch imaginary monsters called "Pokemon" and then train them and make them fight each other. The game has been around in one incarnation or another for a long time--I was well aware of the Pokemon craze back in the 1990's when I was in elementary school-- but this new version has added an interesting twist. In order to catch Pokemon, you have to walk to a real world location where the Pokemon is hiding. The game uses GPS to figure out where you are in relation to these Pokemon, and gives you hints about how far you need to walk to find them. The idea of the game is to get the players to actually get up and walk around outside.
Now, understand that as far as Pokemon go, I am a definite ignoramus. Back in the 90's when everyone else my age was in a Pokemon craze, I had only a vague awareness of what the game actually was. You see, I was not allowed to play Pokemon. (Well, that's what I believed at the time. I also believed I was not allowed to own any video games. But more recently I found out that this was never an actual rule; my parents just never bought us any because we never asked for them, and my siblings and I just assumed it was a rule because my parents never bought us any. So, likely as not, I interpreted my parents making some comments about how unimpressed they were with the snippets they'd seen of the anime as a household rule that never actually existed.) So as an adult, I have no particular nostalgia for the game. I don't even know what more than a couple of the little critters are called, I've never seen an episode of the Anime, and the closest I've come to interacting with Pokemon in the past was when a friend insisted on calling me "Jiggly Puff" for a week in what I could only assume was a crack about my weight.
So I was not one of the people that went crazy when the game came out--what is it, now, two or three weeks ago?
But I couldn't help hearing about it all over the Internet. And while I don't care much about Pokemon, there is a certain appeal to me in having a game based on walking around and exploring the area around you.
More than that, though, I've been drawn to the community. You see, the stories that come back from those playing the game-- players can identify each other easily because of the way you walk and hold your phone when you are playing the game, and so what's happening all over the country is complete strangers of different ages, races, backgrounds, and cultures are striking up friendly conversations and having friendly interactions in the street all over this Pokemon game. And I'd like to live in the kind of world where that happens. So, finally, I gave into curiosity and downloaded the app onto my phone.
It is a free app, so if you would like to try it yourself-- go do that. But if not, sit back and let me experience the adventure for you.
I opened the app. It crashed.
I tried again. This time, I got a picture of an old man, who proceeded to ask me if I wanted to help him catch Pokemon. Well, obviously, that's why I'm here, right? So after choosing my "style" (read, hair and shirt color for the little person who walks around on the screen), I began my adventures as a Pokemon trainer.
I immediately found one (later I figured out it was so fast because I was still in the tutorial), a little blue turtle thingy called a "Squirtle". It popped up on my camera screen, bobbing cheerfully in the street in front of my apartment building.
Well, to capture the Squirtle, you "throw" a Pokeball at it. This much I knew from hearing so much about the game. The problem-- how to throw? I kind of figured that actually throwing my phone was not a great idea.
(Yes, this video is a spoof made by a comedian)
Well, I spent about five minutes tapping my screen, sliding my fingers around my screen, and waving my phone in the air. Nothing happened, and the Squirtle just sat there and mocked me.
So I gave up and went back to my apartment.
After doing some research (turns out you need to gently "flick" a finger across the screen, and that if you disable the camera thing it's easier), I opened the game up (let it crash three times, restarted my phone, and then finally got it working) and tried again.
This time, there was an orange lizard hanging out in my bedroom. Using what I'd learned, I "threw" the Pokeball--and, success! I caught the charzar or whatever the heck it's called. I was a real life honest to goodness Poketrainer! (That is the word, right?
And then my game crashed.
I haven't got it working since.
I've heard the servers are so overloaded because it's so popular, that everyone has a ton of trouble with the app. We've had some good laughs watching people walk past our house playing and not actually looking where they are going.
ReplyDelete