ExcelVisibility: Everything you were too afraid to ask about "Pokémon Go"

If you’re starting out in the colorful world of Pokémon Go and you’re keen to catch them all/be the best like no one ever was/etc., there are a few key things you need to get to grips with first.Whether you’ve never played Pokémon before or you have fond childhood memories that you’re looking to rekindle, you’ll still be starting from scratch with this game — it’s very much its own beast.

It’s also a hell of a lot of fun. I’ve been wildly obsessed with the game for just over a week now, and there are plenty of things I wish I’d known when starting out that would have helped me pick it up a lot faster…

What do you actually do in Pokémon Go?

It sounds a bit odd when you break it down, but basically you go around capturing creatures called Pokémon so you can fight other people’s Pokémon with your own Pokémon. The reasonPokémon Go is so clever, though, is that it’s all tied to the real world.

The app tracks your IRL location, which means you hunt and catch Pokémon on the same network of roads and parks that you’re walking through in real life. PokéStops (where you stock up on items) are linked to real world places like post offices, and gyms (where you fight rival Pokémon trainers i.e. other people playing the game) are things like churches and train stations in the real world.

So how does the game work?

This is what the main game screen looks like.

Once you’ve signed in with Google or via the Pokémon Trainers Club and chosen your username and trainer outfit (you get to pick your own shoes and everything), you’ll be greeted by Professor Willow. After he’s waffled on a bit and told you a few things about the game, you’ll find yourself looking at something similar to the screen above. This is the main screen you’ll be looking at most of the time when you play Pokémon Go.

As you walk around your local area with the app open, your character will move too. If you walk up to a PokéStop (the little blue cubes indicated on the map above), they’ll get bigger and allow you to tap on them. You can stock up on items — like balls for catching Pokémon and potions to heal your critters after you’ve done some battling at the gym — by spinning the circular sign that appears after you’ve tapped.

Similarly, you can visit and do battle at gyms by walking up to one’s IRL location and tapping the corresponding icon on your map.

Elsewhere, the “Nearby” button in the bottom right of the screen shows you what Pokémon are in your vicinity (the number of paw prints below each shows you how far they are from your current location), the Pokéball icon bottom-centre brings up the main game menu and the picture of your face and username in the bottom-left brings up another mini sub-menu (both of these are explored in more detail below).

Navigating the submenus

The two sub-menus accessed by clicking on the Poké Ball (left) or your user icon (right).

If you click the Pokéball, you’ll see the screen pictured above on the left. From here you can access the items you’ve collected from Pokéstops, view your current squad of Pokémon, explore your Pokédex (an encyclopedia of all the Pokémon you’ve seen and caught), or buy some coins at the shop (this is the in-game currency that allows you to buy additional items, if you feel like splashing out on some extras).

Clicking the little icon of your character’s face, meanwhile, brings up the screen on the right. From here you can see your current level, the number of experience points (or XP) you need to progress to the next level (you gain experience for everything from visiting a Pokéstop to catching a new Pokémon — view a full list of things that give you XP here), and a journal containing a history of the stuff you’ve done recently in the game.

The emblem of your team (when you reach Level 5 and are able to join one) will also appear in the bottom-right, but more on that later.

Making sense of your awesome Pokémon

It’s easy to view your full collection of Pokémon.

You’ll catch one Pokémon right at the start of the game (see below for info on how to actually catch the damn things), but as you wander around and explore you’ll soon catch plenty more. Clicking the Pokémon button in the main game menu brings up the screen above and on the left, which shows you all the Pokémon you currently have in your squad (tip: click the clock in the bottom-right to change the way they’re ordered).

If you click on any individual Pokémon, you’ll be able to see its stats (see the right-hand image above). CP (combat points) basically means how strong the thing will be in a battle, while HP (hit points) relates to its health bar (this will go down if it’s hurt in battle). Every time you catch a Pokémon you’ll get Stardust (which allows you to power up a Pokémon’s CP) and Candy (which, when you have enough, allows you to evolve a Pokémon).

Take the Pikachu above, for example. His CP is 269, but the semi-circular bar behind him isn’t full; this means I could click the “Power Up” button and use 1300 Stardust and 2 Pikachu Candy to boost his CP. When I have enough of the right type of Candy (50, in Pikachu’s case), I can also evolve him. It’s worth noting that different types of Pokémon need different amounts of Candy to evolve (the common Pidgey only needs 12, while Magikarp needs a whopping 400).

Using items

You’ll unlock more and more items as you go through the game, but to start with you’ll mainly have Potions, Poké Balls, Incense and an Egg Incubator. We won’t go into a detailed breakdown of what they all do here (there are pretty good descriptions for each in the menu), but the main thing to remember is that you can only store up to 350 items at a time and you can make room by deleting ones you don’t want (Tip: Potions are probably a good thing to cut down on if you need to make room in your bag — nobody needs 50 Potions.)

What about eggs?

Eggs are a great way of getting new Pokémon (and gaining XP).

Eggs fall somewhere in between items and Pokémon; you get them randomly at Pokéstops alongside other items, but they live in a tab accessible through your Pokémon menu (see the left-hand screen above). Basically, eggs contain Pokémon that you can hatch by “incubating” them (sticking the egg in an Incubator and walking the required distance; either 2km, 5km or 10km, depending on the egg). The longer the incubation, the rarer the Pokémon tends to be.

It’s really, really worth staying on top of your eggs and incubating them as soon as you get them; that way as you’re wandering around catching Pokémon, you’ll also be making progress towards hatching a new critter.

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Monday 25 July 2016

Everything you were too afraid to ask about "Pokémon Go"