I think when it is working it is fun; it motivated me to walk 4 days in a row and encourages you to walk further and in new areas. Unfortunately, it is not working today and I might have lost my points from the previous 3 days. The message board that I read said that they added several new countries today without increasing the servers.
One cool thing is that since there are so many people out playing (when the servers are up…), you can actually ask other human beings for help. My youngest kid and I went out yesterday evening and were near a gym. We are almost at the point where we have Pokemon at a high enough level to battle in a gym, so we talked with someone who happened to be on our team color and had just captured the gym. He showed us how the battling part works and gave us a lot of useful hints.
We met people, walked around the neighborhood, dog got a long walk. In these days of bad news in the paper every morning, it seems like a good way to reassure yourself that overall most people are friendly.
I’m over 60 and picked it up very quickly and enjoy learning about the vast number of landmarks (paintings, statues, fountains, etc.) of which I was unaware. I did learn some of the background of the Poke Stops from DS and he is getting a kick out of my enjoyment.
I had some trouble with the servers today but mostly got on. I’m level 8 and have 39 different Pokemon. I like this Augmented Reality better than the Virtual Reality I’ve tried. And I’ve taken some cute screen captures of the Pokemon in the real world.
Marilyn, do you play play using Google or the ap? I started with the ap and made it to level 5. Today, I have been unable to get on so I tried Google which let me on. I hate to start over but if Google is more stable, I would rather switch now than later after I have gotten more levels.
I’ve lived in my relatively small town on and off since middle school. The game has taught me about sooo many landmarks that I walk by all the time and either never noticed or never thought about.
I’m signed into the app via my Gmail so they are capturing all that data about how DS has been driving me around in circles as I spot Pokemon from the car. Not sure how they can sell that data for anything useful!
My 24yo is meeting a HS friend at a park right now to go catch Pokemon. He is at level 14 but is holding off on cashing in some “points” – or whatever – until tomorrow. I bet he’ll be near 20.
I was at level 1 or 2. My sister took me to birthday lunch and we hung out at the neighborhood mall and played for several hours, so now I’m level 8 and have caught over 100 Pokemon and hatched an egg, an incubating 2 and have 6 or 7 more eggs. For some reason there are tons of bats in the shopping center, so caught them and am transferring the lower powered ones for candy from the prof.
I’m not sure what I think if the game but D enjoys it, so it’s something we can share about 2500 miles apart.
But how do you get it to go from the avatar standing on the map to the virtual reality? Try as I might - no matter where / how far I walk - I’m just still on a map. I’ve not done anything to turn off camera access.
You have to wait until the pokemon is within your radius (the circle coming out from where your avatar is) and then tap on it. Once you do that, it should pop up and (if you have AR turned on- which stupidly you can only do while you’re attempting to catch the pokemon- it’s an AR toggle on the top right of the screen).
ETA: Wait a minute. I think I misread your post. Right now you only appear on a google-maps looking thing (that is the only thing you can “walk” on- I’m not sure if they’re going to change that or not). You see “reality” when you try to catch a pokemon and only then. To get to that, do what I said above.
@Pizzagirl As you move in real life, your avatar in game moves too. Your position in the real world is mapped to the ‘mapview’ in the game. When you see a pokemon sprite appear, you can tap it to battle; at that point, your camera access comes on and you can see the pokemon on your phone.
Basically what @romanigypsyeyes said haha
D lives in a small easily walkable town and has been having a blast with Pokemon Go. She says tons of people go to the park after work daily to play and it’s so fun to meet new people.
I’m having a LOT more walking fit into my day “incubating my eggs.” It is getting kids out on bikes, skateboards and some on foot. I think it’s excellent but wonder how much things will subside after school starts later this month.
My son has a picture on his instagram of an overhead Phoenix freeway sign saying something like “Pokemon Go” is “Pokemon No while driving.” Someone commented that they caught one right under the sign.
I use a very narrow highway to get to work, with only two lanes and no shoulders. I did notice recently that many more cars than usual do not stay in their lanes, but it did not occur to me that the drivers may be playing. If true, this makes me very angry.