NOTICE: This post was originally posted on Medium, but has later been moved to the official World Of Card Games blog to consolidate all posts.
Recently, I’ve started playing Pokémon Go. Okay, I admit it. I’m hopelessly behind — this game has been out since 2016, for 6 years! I’ve always been curious about it, but never had the time to look into it. I used to play video games as a kid. But as I got older, life got complicated, and I became more of a workaholic. By now, I almost never play games anymore, unless I need to for work!
However, Pokémon Go really piqued my curiosity. The stories I’d heard about it reminded me of a scavenger hunt, and that appealed to me. Off and on, I’d hear about this game, and think it sounded like fun. So finally, I caved in and downloaded the app. It’s available for Android and iOS. And it’s free of charge, although you are encouraged to make “in-app purchases”, something that I’ve found easy to avoid so far.
When I started to play, I had no idea what I was doing. I decided to jump right in and not do any research. Research would take the fun out of it! I’m sure there are people who would read all about the rules and look for “cheat codes” and strategies to get ahead as quickly as possible. That was not me. Well, for one, I just don’t have the time 😄. And for another, I think that would spoil the game for me. I wanted to discover the rules and figure out how to get ahead without any outside help.
I just started by downloading the app and creating an account. It was so easy that I felt silly about how long it had taken me to get around to it. You choose a name, an outfit (yes, sunglasses and all), and you’re ready to go.
It was not so clear what I was supposed to do when I started. I soon discovered some Pokémon monsters, and I finally figured out that I was supposed to capture them by throwing “Poké Balls” at them. You do this by swiping your finger up your phone screen in the general direction of the creature. I was pretty bad at it, since my ball tosses tended to swerve to the right. I still don’t do this very well, and I wonder if I’ll get any better, or if there are any tricks to it. I’ve improved a bit, and I can usually capture the monsters that I find. Perhaps 30% of the monsters that I capture manage to escape, unfortunately. True to my nature, I’ve restrained myself from looking for advice about how to improve my odds. Usually, if a monster escapes, I can keep trying, and eventually I’ll get it (using valuable resources along the way, of course). A few of them take a powder before I can capture them for good.
I captured a few Pokémon just sitting at home, but they turned out to be pretty scarce in my vicinity, and the game got boring. I was quite interested in trying the game outdoors, since I’d heard some fuss about how Pokémon Go used some kind of “augmented reality” to interact with the monsters outside.
Eventually, I had the chance to take the app on a walk. This turned out to be entertaining. The app has a built in real-life map of your area. While you walk around, you can see your character walking along a map of your real-life location. Here and there on the map, you see “points of interest”. I didn’t understand how to use these at first. I’d click on one, and see a monster and a photo of the place. For example, the place might be a library building or town hall. I still don’t know how these places were first input into the app, but I’m guessing these were contributed by players. Speaking as a game developer, having to filter out all the user contributions sounds like a real headache. Many of them must have come from trolls or worse. Oy! But I digress.
Eventually, the app itself gave me a tip that I could “spin” the photo of the point of interest and that would generate some little bubbles that I could tap to collect extra valuable potions and so on. Why do you need potions? To heal your critters when they get hurt in fights!
After playing for a while, I was accosted by a kind of bully who challenged me to a fight. He arrived in a hot air balloon, no less! I could have run away, but decided to give it a try, and accepted the challenge.
It turns out that you don’t do any fighting yourself. Instead, the Pokémon you’ve captured fight for you. In each fight, you can pick three Pokémon to represent you. The bully is represented by three Pokémon of his or her own.
I think I’m fighting correctly, but I’m not really sure. Fighting involves swiping or tapping across the screen really fast, like you’re shooting at the opposing Pokémon. The system chooses an ideal Pokémon group for me, and I just kind of hope that I’m using them the correct way. Sometimes I can choose to apply a shield against an attack, and that often works. Sometimes I see a message that tells me my attack is not very effective, but I don’t know how to solve that problem. It seems some types of Pokémon are more effective at attacking other types. I don’t understand those nuances, yet. Sometimes I win the fight, but I’ve probably lost about 50% of them so far.
Honestly, the battles are not overly exciting. And I’m not sure that I’ll become interested enough in this game to dig into the details of how to improve my chances in these battles. I’m going to keep at it for a while because there’s one thing that I really like about the game. It encourages exercise. You get credit for walking while you play the game.
I can see why this is a problem. After all, we don’t want people strolling down the street with their noses glued to their mobile phone screens. That is a recipe for disaster. The way I deal with this is to take the phone along on a walk, and if I see the opportunity for a battle, I’ll just stop, step to a safe spot to one side of the sidewalk, and play. So far, so good. I do like that the app encourages people to get up and move. It just needs to be used sensibly in order to avoid accidents.
In this respect, Pokémon Go is so different from World of Card Games, where the only opportunity for exercise is between games, or perhaps if you use one of those treadmill desks. Card games have been around for much longer than the Internet, and you don’t need an app to play them, so that’s very different as well. All you need is a deck of cards (if playing Solitaire) and maybe some friends if playing a game like Spades or Hearts. I can see the appeal of Pokémon Go as an alternate type of entertainment. It gets you out of your chair and outside. And there’s a huge world of game items and rules to discover.
In contrast, the rules of card games are generally simpler. Once you figure them out, it’s up to you to try to apply different strategies within the constraints of the rules to try to win the game. I feel like a big part of the fun of Pokémon Go will be puzzling out how things work, and I wonder if I won’t get bored once I do. On the other hand, once I figured out the rules of card games like Euchre, Double Deck Pinochle, and Spades, I never got bored of them. I don’t play very often, but I still find it entertaining and relaxing to play once in a while. Perhaps Pokémon Go will turn out that way, too. Time will tell!