Let’s understand the whole concept of Pokemon Go that’s going all viral!

Most of us adopt, adapt and adept whenever there is something new in the market and can’t stop talking about it. Anything we can’t stop talking about goes viral and so did Pokémon Go! People hunting Pokémon on their office tables, roads and even bathrooms is the most frequently heard news these days! We are already so very addicted to the Pokémon Go, that we can’t stop hunting down the Pokémon even in the hospital rooms. What’s more extreme is that a teenage girl who was on her quest in finding Pokémon found a dead body and a man who was totally involved in the game fell into a lake. While there are many quite habituated to it, there are others wondering what exactly is going on. Let’s see!

It has almost been a couple of years that Pokémon lay relatively low and now it has made a great come back. The Nintendo-owned franchise, which was at its peaks in popularity in the late 1990s, is now again taking America by storm — this time through Pokémon Go, its biggest entry into the mobile space, now available for a free download on Android and iOS. It’s so popular that it’s on the verge of overtaking Twitter in terms of daily active users on Android.

How exactly does this Pokémon Go work? Pokémon Go uses our phone’s GPS and clock to detect our location in the game and make Pokémon “appear” around us (on your phone screen) so we can go and catch them. As we keep moving around, different types of Pokémon will appear depending on where we are and what time it is. The idea is to encourage us to walk around in the real world to catch Pokémon in the game. This way we get physical exercise too while playing the game on the phone!

One of the reasons Pokémon Go is viral is because it’s free, making it easy to download in a click and play in a go! In order to understand why people are so enthusiastic about the idea, we need to trace our steps back to the late 1990s — to the original Pokémon games.

History of the Pokémon Games

The very first generation of Pokémon games started with 151 creatures, but the number of creatures has expanded to more than 720 since then. In Pokémon Go, only the original 151 of the first generation are available.

The games were on a high note in the late 1990s — a big fad widely known as “Pokémania.” The original handheld games, Pokémon Red and Blue, came out in 1998 in America, followed by Yellow in 1999 and Gold and Silver in 2000. With the games came a popular TV show, movies, trading cards, and a lot of other merchandise. Pokémon ruled the world for quite many years!

Big Changes in the game

The game makes some big changes in our lives. Firstly, the way you map-read the world is different. In Pokémon Go, you have to travel around the real word, and the game uses your GPS and clock to detect your location on the in-game map and decide which Pokémon appear around you. It is very interesting to see that the game does a lot to make us explore our real-world environment at different times. For example, if we go out to a sea, we’ll probably see more water type Pokémon!

Another huge change is the combat. When catching Pokémon, we don’t fight them with our own team of Pokémon any longer. Now all we do is battle with the creature. You swipe to throw a Poké Ball (the device used to capture Pokémon) in their direction, which then traps them.

Setbacks of the game

The game has no multiplayer capability presently, meaning we don’t have the feature of a battle with our real-life friends or trade with them — two functionalities that play a vital role in the handheld games.

Another big drawback is the battery usage. Having a game like this on at all times can really drain your phone’s battery. If your charger is just a hand away, this is a game you must definitely try playing!

In spite of these drawbacks, if executed correctly, these games can bring out the child in you and increase your sense of imagination and wonderment that cannot be evoked by most other games.

Pokémon Go gives us an opportunity to immerse ourselves in an entirely different world and forget all about what’s happening in our lives, rejoice the beauties of the nature, attain peace and tranquillity and catch some Pokémon all through our journey!