Pokemon GO came out nearly two weeks ago, and the game has taken the country by storm. There have been numerous safety concerns about the game, from players not looking up from their phones to catch a Pokemon to players playing the game while driving, or even teenagers being robbed at PokeStops.
There have also been numerous technical problems with the game. Servers are often down, forcing players to wait away from home until they come back up if they do not want to give up on catching that rare Pokemon. PokeBalls sometimes freeze during the middle of capture, leaving a trainer in limbo about whether or not he or she had a successful capture. Perhaps the most excruciating problem many players have noticed as of recently is the "Nearby" feature. It straight up doesn't seem to work.
Come on PokeBall, Taylor Swift is telling you to shake it off!
The most problematic aspect of the game has probably been its detrimental effect on my pull game. The past weekend, I turned down a date because I needed to spend a couple of hours hatching eggs and finding new Pokemon. A few days before that, I ran into possibly the most attractive human being (different dude) my eyes have ever witnessed, yet I interrupted him in the middle of our conversation to catch a Magikarp. (But hear this, he asked me if I was trying to evolve it into a Gyrados. Ladies, get yourself a man that knows his Pokemon evolutions.)
All issues -- serious or silly -- aside, players are still as hyped up about the game as they were on the day of the game's release.
However, we know that all things hot and trendy eventually fade out and become forgotten. I'm determined to keep the one game that may potentially be America's cure for obesity (with its heavy demand for walking around and exploring) as popular as it was the day of its release. Of course, hopefully in the future, players will practice greater street safety and the game will have fewer bugs.
Here are some ways to make the most out of this app.
1. Set some personal goals for yourself.
What do YOU want to accomplish from this game? Everyone probably has the same two overarching goals for the game: to reach the maximum level cap in the game and to obtain data for every single monster in the Pokedex. But what goals do you have that may be different from other players'? Do you want to have your team dominate every gym in the area? Or maybe you just want to have more Pidgey candies than any other player. Better yet, think of a goal that may be beyond the game itself: reaching a personal fitness goal by walking a certain number of kilometers a day or traveling the world. After all, there are a handful of Pokemon that can only be found on one continent.
2. Play the game with friends.
I cannot stress this enough. Walking countless steps to hatch a Pokemon gets tedious, so find a friend to exercise daily with as you hatch these eggs and get some Pokemon you may never encounter otherwise. With this game, it's pretty easy to make friends. Players often accumulate at PokeStops, especially where there are lure modules and tons of monsters flocking in that direction. This is a great way to meet new people. Especially with all the safety concerns of this game, it is much better to be with another person out in public when playing this game.
3. Wear comfortable shoes when playing the game.
4. Bring a portable battery while you're out.
We all know how badly this game drains our battery.
5. Join online communities of Pokemon Go players for your team and/or region.
This is probably the most surefire way to find other players, especially to find other trainers on your respective team so you all can strategize a way to dominate your area's gyms. I highly suggest utilizing Reddit and Facebook to find these online communities.
Furthermore, if you want to hatch your eggs as quickly as possible, here are some tips:
1. If you drive slowly enough, the kilometers you drive still contribute to egg hatching.
The app uses the both the phone's GPS and pedometer to determine how far a person has traveled. If you are moving faster than 12 miles per hour, no distance will be added to your egg incubation. So if you're getting tired of walking so much and don't mind blowing some gas, find an empty parking lot (possibly a high school parking lot during the summer) and drive extra slow while wiggling your phone a little here and there.
2. Only use your temporary incubators on 10-kilometer eggs.
The temporary incubator only has three uses, so when using these to incubate your 10-kilometer eggs, you will have walked 30 kilometers using these kilometers before they break. When using these to incubate your 2-kilometer eggs, you will only have walked 6 kilometers before the incubator breaks. Also, using only 10-kilometer eggs for temporary incubators helps with turnover time. You can incubate two 10-kilometer eggs at once and will hatch two eggs at once for walking 10 kilometers instead of 20 kilometers. Furthermore, you can hatch your shorter distance eggs in the background while hatching these 10-kilometer eggs. Your 10-kilometer eggs are your most important eggs! Only from 10-kilometer eggs can you hatch some of the rarest Pokemon.
3. If you're really too lazy or unable to go outside, place your phone with the app open on the edge of a turntable or set it on a Roomba cleaning robot.
Totally defeats the purpose of getting your daily workout in, but it works right?
And the ultimate trick for leveling up?
Catch enough Pokemon and collect candies so that you can evolve as many monsters at once as possible. Then, use a Lucky egg so that you get double experience points for 30 minutes. You get 500 experience points normally for evolving a Pokemon, so this trick will get you 1,000 experience points per evolution. This is great trick to use with Pidgeys since there are so many of them.
