Everything you wanted to know about Pokémon Go

You may have heard stories of people hunting down Pokémon on their office desks, in hospital rooms, and even in bathrooms. One teenage girl even found a dead body while looking for Pokémon!

Here at The Computer Guyz, we found out what Pokémon Go is all about.

Well, after a few years lying relatively low, Pokémon is making a bit of a comeback. The Nintendo-owned franchise, which exploded in popularity in the late 1990s, is again taking the world 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 even on the verge of overtaking Twitter in terms of daily active users!

In simple terms, Pokémon Go uses your phone’s GPS and clock to detect where and when you are in the game and make Pokémon "appear" around you (on your phone screen) so you can go and catch them. As you move around, different and more types of Pokémon will appear depending on where you are and what time it is. The idea is to encourage you to travel around the real world to catch Pokémon in the game. This combination of a game and the real world interacting is known as "augmented reality."

So why are people seeking out virtual creatures while at work and as they go to the bathroom? Part of the reason Pokémon Go is popular is that it’s free, so it’s easy to download and play. But more importantly, Pokémon Go fulfils a fantasy Pokémon fans have had since the game’s first came out: What if Pokémon were real and inhabited our world?

Everyone wants t become the ultimate Pokémon master, right? Though the game is quite simple, it is also deep if you want to finish the game 100% and brag in front of all your friends.

Here are seven useful tricks that will help you master the game…

#1 How to get Pikachu as your starter

Picking a starter Pokémon is tough. Do you go with Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle? Maybe you don't want to start with any of those three and want Ash's adorable electric rodent Pikachu.

When you first start the game, Professor Willow will ask you to catch one of the three aforementioned starters, but you can actually catch Pikachu with a simple "hack." Just keep walking away. 

Pikachu appears if you simply walk away far enough. It will probably take about 25 minutes of walking down five blocks, but Ash's best friend did eventually appear.

#2 Apply spin for extra XP

Catching Pokémon in Go isn't hard — you just need to swipe up and throw Poké Balls at the critters — but you can actually get some more XP by spinning the ball before you throw it. 

This trick doesn't increase your capture success rate, but more XP points!

#3 Lure Pokémon to you with incense

There are a handful of items you can collect in the game, but one of the most useful ones is the incense, which you can find randomly at Poké Stops.

With incense, you can lure wild Pokémon to your location for 30 minutes. There aren't a whole lot of Pokémon that show up, but hey, better than nothing! You will have to leave your app open, though, because the timer counts down even if you close the app.

#4 Pay attention to the footprints

Tap the "nearby" window in the lower right corner of the screen and you'll expand a window full of Pokémon that are located nearby. 

See those footprints under each Pokémon? They tell you how close a certain Pokémon is to your location. One footprint means a Pokémon is close by, two means it's farther away and three means a Pokémon is out of your range and you need to walk farther away to run into it. 

By paying attention to these footprints, it's much easier to catch new types of Pokémon.

#5 Watch the circles

Most players blindly throw Poké Balls at wild Pokémon, but there's actually logic to the catching madness.

As you press and hold your Poké Ball, you'll notice a circle on the Pokémon getting smaller and smaller. What you want to do is throw the Poké Ball when the rings are smaller. It's harder to aim at, but by doing so, there's a less likely chance a stronger will escape from the Poké Ball. 

Pay attention to the colour of the circle, too. A green circle is the most common and means catching the Pokémon should be easy. Yellow is harder, and red is the strongest.

#6 Turn off AR to save battery life and reduce crashes

Pokémon Go is a battery guzzler. Maybe even more so than Snapchat. With the app already sucking down power because of its constant GPS usage, you'll notice your phone's battery drain quicker. 

To squeeze out more battery life and reduce the chances of the app crashing right when you think you've caught a Pokémon, turn off the augmented reality (AR) by hitting the switch in the upper right corner of the screen when you've encountered a Pokémon.

Also, switching off the AR keeps Pokémon centred on the screen, making them easier to catch.

#7 Get a battery pack or case

It sounds stupid, but like we said earlier, Pokémon Go eats up battery life like there's no tomorrow. To enjoy uninterrupted monster-catching, a battery case or a battery pack is a must. Almost any battery pack or charger with a large capacity will do. They're pretty cheap these days, too.

It’s also a bit of an escape. While that certainly applies more to virtual reality, which can immerse you entirely in another world, Pokémon Go gives you the opportunity to for once forget about all the terrible shit happening out there, explore the beauty of the world, and catch some Pokémon along the way.

I must say, Pokémon Go provides a bit of an escape. It gives you the opportunity to for once forget about all the nonsense happening around you and explore the beauty of the world, while catching some Pokémon along the way.