Pokemon Go on the go.

Ok, Kakuna is a Pokemon. We didn’t specifically go hunting for him. Or Zubat. Or Rattata. Or a bird called Pidgeotto. But we did go on our first HUNT.

What is a hunt? Well, let me start at the beginning.

After much consultation with the Boyz, I loaded up the Pokémon Go game on my iphone 6. It was free. I like free. Oh, there are ways to spend a lot of coin on this game, but for now, it costs me nothing.

Then I chose myself an avatar/trainer that looked like some amine-thin youth. I picked hair –  blue –  and a color scheme – orange – since I root for Holland during the World Cup. Then I was good to go.

I logged in, and my first Pokémon appeared. Right on the Prettiest-girl-in-the-world’s chest. So I grabbed it. The Pokémon, not her, ah, you-know-whats.

The Pokethrow. Or Pokeflick. From imore.com

To grab a Pokémon, you have a ball at the bottom of the screen. You FLICK, Joe, FLICK!!! the ball at the Pokémon, or more specifically at the circle encircling the Pokémon and if you hit it, you capture it.

If you really know what the hell you’re doing, and you’re good at this whole flicking thing, then you aim for the green (or yellow or red) circle inside the circle and if you hit, you capture a more maxed out Pokemon.

Or not.

Seems those silly things will escape, too, which took me a few minutes to realize. But once you capture one, you get experience (to level up your trainer), and some candy, which you can use to give your Pokémon more power or ‘evolve’ it, and some stardust, which you also use to give your Pokemon more power.

I have to say, that whole capturing thing was kinda fun. Had I been smarter, I would have found out that if you don’t capture the 1^st three that come along, you get a Pikachu, and I do love Pikachu (mostly cuz it’s the only Pokémon I know.)

With that, we drove off to Fort Langley. AKA, the big city. Now, to be fair, downtown Vancouver would really be far, far better, but that drive is long and hard, so the Fort seemed a good alternative.

Pokestop. On the left. Beside the Avatar

And it totally was. The key, apparently, to gathering as many Pokémon as possible is to find a spot that has a lot of Pokestops. Now what the hell are they?

They appear on your Pokemap that you have accessed with your Pokefingers and looked at with your Pokeeyes. They look like a block on a stick when far away. When you get near one, it looks like a big circle with another circle inside and another circle inside of that. I think my picture shows this better than I can describe.

The Pokestop. Usually at some monument or sign (like for a trail or where Michael J Fox once peed.)

At the stops, you can also get supplies. Once you find one and it goes all roundish, you tap it and then you swipe the picture you see. Very often it’s a sign. Like telling you you’re on a trail or near a spot captain Vancouver peed on or something like that.

So, in the Fort, we found a ton of Pokestops and the boyz got super excited. Heck, they weren’t the only ones. There were tons of people there. Sure some were shopping or drinking coffee and actually talking to people, but there were also hordes of people in small groups wandering around like us, looking for Pokestops or parked against a statue waiting for the Pokémon to come to them.

The Boyz and I went to all of the stops we could find, gathering balls, eggs, potions and things I didn’t have a clue about. The balls are obvious. You throw them to catch the Pokémon, which I was informed, anyone should know who’s ever played a Pokémon video game (which I have not.)

Eggs are placed in incubators which you get automatically as you level up. By walking, yes walking, you can hatch them and they become Pokémon. So, while you’re meandering around looking for Pokestops, you’re also working on hatching your eggs (and actually exercising!)

Cool, right?

A gym. Or battle arena – where you can take on other players. from Imore.com

The other things you’ll see on your Pokemap look like big towers built by aliens. (A place that the Pokémon dudes decided to call a ‘gym’ for some stupid reason. A gym?!?!?) That is where you battle other Pokemoners. Pokemites? Pokeplayes? However, we didn’t get into that on this adventure (the reason being, we had level 12 Pokemon and the dudes ruling the gym had, like, level 1534!)

See, the goal, as far as I can tell, is to get a Pokemon, evolve it to a more powerful Pokemon, then evolve it again to the ultimate uber Pokemon and then brag about it to your friends in a mean and cruel manner. Or, you can also take that uber Pokemon to a gym and battle other players and then brag about that in a mean and cruel way to your friends.

Fun times.

And then we found where people had dropped ‘lures’. Lures, I was told by The-Youngest as he hopped up and down with excitement are like incense – which explained exactly nothing, really. But incense is used to attract Pokémon faster. Like free booze for people. Or free wifi.

These lures are placed by people at a Pokestop so that everyone, but mostly their friends, can benefit from lots of Pokémon flooding into the area. It’s actually kind of social. If you can grab a group of people and they all go on a hunt, you can use lures, which last 30 minutes, for hours and rake in the Pokémon while talking to each other. Or at least watching your screen next to someone.

Pokemon Go at its finest.

In the end, we spent a good 90 minutes on our hunt, partially walking around, partially sitting and waiting by lures. However, we did it all together. Us boyz. And that makes it totally fun for me. I love listening to what they have to say about life or Pokémon or music or how best to kill someone in Assassin’s Creed.

We caught about 20 Pokémon, leveled a few of them up, evolved one or two, and then returned home.

It was a good way to spend a few hours.

For those who prefer a Pokevideo, there is one below.