“Good job,” I say, “Where’s the next PokeStop?”
We are catching Pokémon, the super-powerful mini-monsters that populate not only the imaginary world of a long-running video game franchise (20 years now), but now my driveway, Highway 12, the Community Square, and pretty much everywhere else in the “real” world, including Ocracoke.
I have been playing the new hit game PokémonGO as a special assignment for the Current’s arts and culture department, and let me tell you, it is crazy awesome. It is downloadable for both Android and Apple devices and uses the GPS, clock, and camera to let you wander around in real space while catching creatures that do not exist. This Augmented Reality, or AR, is not to be confused with the increasingly popular Virtual Reality where the user dons goggles that show a totally invented landscape. It works because… computers.
The object of PokémonGO, like its predecessors for Nintendo handheld consoles, is to catch and train Pokémon, eventually making them powerful enough so that you can compete against other Pokémon trainers and gain prestige and renown. I guess. After a day of playing I have yet to gain either prestige or renown, but I have evolved my Pidgy to a Pidgeotto and caught a plethora of Voltorbs.
If you’re into it for the novelty of it, or for the love of Pokémon franchise, you might be missing some other interesting aspects of game.
For instance: Mariah and carted up and down practically every road on the island yesterday looking for PokéStops where we could stock up on PokéBalls, and every single stop was either a shop, or an historical landmark. Everything from a sign that details Lt. Robert Maynard’s defeat of Blackbeard to the giant blue crab on the side of Tradewinds Tackle was a PokéStop. There’s even one for the Skipjack Wilma Lee, and, of course, the Ocracoke Lighthouse is home to a gym where you can train your Pokémon and battle other Trainers.
The big takeaway for me on this part was that if I was a first-time visitor to Ocracoke and was out playing PokémonGO it would take me to all sorts of interesting places, loaded with local history, that I might never have gone to otherwise. The Pokéstops located at shops often refer to a specific cool detail of the shop like the pirate statue outside Kitty Hawk Kites or the giant flip-flop at ride the wind, showing off all the interesting little details of the island.
Also, because your character can only move on the in-game map if you are moving in the real world, it encourages people to get out of their houses and move around, specifically in nature.
The gaming/internet community has already self-reported an improvement in mental health related to getting more exercise in the outside world.
There have also been reports of the game bringing people of various backgrounds together around a common goal: Beating *&%$*# Team Valor!
A few questions still haunt me though: were these Pokémon always here, lurking just out of sight until the day our cameras became able to pick them up? And how will I know now that I’m not surrounded by cute little monsters everywhere I go? And if the streets are literally riddled with Pokémon should I drive slower?
Anyway, the verdict is that this game, which has now became a sensation, a resurgence of 90s Pokémania if you will, is definitely worth the free download, and the drain on your battery. Now go out there and find yourself some pocket monsters, there’s almost definitely one in the room you’re in. So you better get started because you gotta catch ‘em all!
