With the release of Pokémon GO on Wednesday, July 6th, the world has changed for me and all of the on-the-go Pokémon trainers worldwide. The one problem I had with beginning the game was that I had no idea where to start! During the tutorial, I learned what a Pokeball is and what a Pokemon is, and honestly, I already knew those things. I was confused as to how gyms work, what pokestops meant and where I would find any of these things. Here are some tidbits of information I have gathered that may be of use to you! The first tip will be extremely basic, and will continue to get more advanced from there.

Disclaimer: I AM NOT AN EXPERT! The information in this article was collected by myself and may be false without my knowledge!

1. Pokéstops and Pokégyms:

Pokéstops are the blue squares in the picture above, and the gyms are the red towers (although they are not always red).

Pokéstops are used in this game to represent historic buildings of significance, businesses, art, sculptures, and special places in the real world. Every time you approach one, be sure to spin it to get free items. If you do not intend to spend money on this game, pokestops are the only way, so far, to restock your items. Some of the drops include pokeballs, eggs, potions, revives and the occasional rare drop, such as an extra incubator. This stops refresh every five minutes, and during those five minutes, they look purple like the one in the bottom left hand corner of the above picture.

Pokégyms can only be accessed once you have achieved level five. Upon clicking a gym after that, you have to choose between the three teams; Instinct (Yellow), Mystic (Blue) and Valor (Red). For educational purposes, let's start by saying you are on the red team. If you are on the red team, and a gym is red, you can train there to increase the space on the CP bar of any one particular pokémon and increase the prestige of the gym. When a pokémon faints during training, it remains at one health. If the gym is not full, you can add a pokémon to help defend the gym as well. The gym level indicates how many pokémon can guard it. That pokemon will have an indicator next to it that will show it is guarding a gym. If that pokémon is defeated and the prestige of the gym drops, the pokémon will return to you with one health. If you are defending a gym, there is a defender's bonus that can be redeemed in the shop menu for coins and stardust.

Now you are on the blue team, and you are approaching those red gyms up above. You can fight the gym to take it for yourself with six pokémon. Any pokémon guarding gyms already cannot be used in a battle for another gym. Even if you only defeat one pokémon in the gym, the prestige of the gym will drop, constantly making it easier to defeat the gym. The best way to defeat a gym is to bring teammates and take turns knocking down the gym's prestige. When your pokémon faint during these battles, only revives can be used to bring them back, and then you can use potions to heal them back to 100 percent.

2. Evolving and Powering Up:

When I started to catch multiple of the same pokémon, I really did not understand which was better; powering up or evolving?

Powering up uses stardust and candies (variably) to increase the CP (combat power) of the pokémon. Increasing the combat power leads to higher health and a more combat-ready pokemon.

Evolving uses a large amount of candies to change the form of the pokémon. This always leads to changes in all stats, including moves. Evolving a pokémon is the easiest way to immediately make a pokémon more powerful. In the case of my 451 CP eevee, upon evolution it grew to 809 CP.

Speculation has come up with a few tactics to have the strongest pokémon:

1. Power up each pokémon to the max and then evolve them. This can take a lot of time because stardust is not easy to come by, but that way, you have the highest possible CP before evolving. Some believe this leads to a higher CP after evolution. Also, some trainers believe that the CP bar resets somewhat after evolution, but this cannot be proven.

2. Evolve pokémon and then power them up. This can take some type for more rare pokémon, but with common pokémon it takes no time at all. This allows you to have strong pokémon and save stardust at the same time. This is a good tactic for the beginner too because it leads to more XP, making it easier to level up.

Evolving pokémon boosts CP by a certain multiplier. This can change based on level. The higher the level, the better the evolution.

3. How to Catch Pokemon (The Advanced Lesson):

They give an overview on how to catch pokémon in the tutorial, but they do not give any more advice on how to master throwing a pokéball.

Here are some tips on getting maximum benefits from a throw:

1. Please realize that the colored ring in front of the pokémon above is an indicator of difficulty, green being the easiest and red being the hardest. The size of the ring plays into the difficulty of catching it as well. I have watched so many YouTubers just throw the pokéball when the ring is not even near small. Every time you throw the pokéball prematurely is another time you WILL NOT catch the pokémon. Always make an effort to throw when the circle is at its smallest.

2. There are two different ways to get extra XP from a throw. The first one is still in development, as it has no rhyme or reason. Occasionally, after throwing a pokeball and hitting the pokemon, the words "nice", "good" or "great" could appear. If you catch the pokemon after a throw with one of those words, you get extra XP! Until they fix this feature, though, there is no guarantee that any throw will have one of these.

3. The second way to get extra XP is by throwing a curveball. To do this, you have to spin the pokéball so it looks like the picture above. Then you toss the ball to the side while it is still spinning. This allows the ball to arch in a way that still hits the pokemon. Every time a pokémon is caught with a curveball, extra XP is earned on top of the XP for catching the pokémon. I use this every time I catch as it came easily to me, but others could find it too difficult and waste too many pokéballs. Make the choice that is best for you!

4. How to Find Pokémon on the "Nearby" Menu:

This article does an excellent job explaining how the "Nearby" works. It works more as a chart than an indicator at this moment, as the footprints are extremely inaccurate and you cannot just track one pokemon. Check out the article to learn more!

5. The Eeveelutions:

We all know this cute little guy in the picture above. He has caused one of the biggest mysteries so far in the game! Eevees have multiple possible evolutions, and for a while, no one could figure out how it worked! Some theories have been made on how this works.

The first theory I saw said that eevees involve into their counterparts based on the moves they have. An eevee with dig would become flareon, an eevee with swift would become a jolteon and an eevee with body slam would become vaporeon. My first eevee that evolved had dig, and it indeed did turn into flareon. My second eevee that I was going to evolve had swift, so I was excited to get a new eeveelution. I actually got another flareon and I was mildly disappointed that this trick was completely false.

More recently, I did more research into this on reddit.

Some very smart and dedicated pokéfan thought maybe the evolutions were tied to something a little older. In the original pokemon series, the Eevee Brothers were named Rainer, Pyro and Sparky and they owned a vaporeon, a flareon and a jolteon respectively. Apparently if you name your eevee after the Eevee Brother that had the pokemon you want, you get that eeveelution! I have tested this twice myself, and I am quite happy to say it worked both times! This trick has been supported a lot on the Pokémon GO Facebook page, as well as reddit.

6. Lure Modules, Incense and Lucky Eggs:

Lure modules can be used at any pokéstop to lure pokémon (literally) to that spot. Those pokémon are available to anyone in the area.

Incense can be used to lure pokémon as well, but those pokémon are exclusive to one person. Lures and incense do NOT attract pokémon that are on the nearby list, but attract random pokémon. Both last for 30 minutes.

Lucky Eggs are probably the best item in the game to hoard. These eggs give double XP for EVERYTHING for 30 minutes. They are the easiest way to level up quickly. Using one of the luring items and a lucky egg can boost your XP a lot.

7. Pokémon Types:

If you are particularly new to the pokémon world, the chart above will be particularly useful to you. It is called a type chart! It shows the moves that are advantageous and not against different types of pokémon, as well as how your pokémon will take damage when certain type moves are used. It has been proven that type advantages and pairings with moves can make a difference on the battle field, so study it well if you want to defeat plenty of gyms!

Check in next week for the second half of this comprehensive list! I hope this helps all pokemon trainers out there. And although I strive for the success of all trainers... Go Team Mystic!