It has only been slightly more than a week since Pokemon Go was launched in Asia. Boy, did the fever catch on fast…
We are starting to see hordes of ardent fans roaming the country at ungodly hours of the early morning to stalk unique monsters. Some loyal fans are even ganging up to fight the “cheaters” at the gyms – those that had a head start in the game via other countries in early July or use non-honest means to level up quickly.
The story of how this game was created makes an interesting read too. The creators apparently showed an advert 2 years ago that simulated a similar game experience. They were the ones that developed Google maps. Then as a precursor, they created a game more than a year ago that encouraged players to map out important sites around the world. This formed the database for Pokemon Go PokeStops which were activated immediately at 4 million locations around the world. How neat is that!
Because of the sheer permutations of the gameplay, it is not possible for any two individuals to share the same experience. Multiple strategies can be deployed for limitless endgames. The whole population of planet earth can theoretically play together at the same time. The developers have also just hinted at more add-ons at a later stage – the possibility of clans for group faceoffs and the ability to trade amongst trainers.
Over the weekend, we had 2 enjoyable PokeStop hunting sessions with our kids before dinner. This game is one of the first to bring the young and old together, the serious gamers with the casual players and uniting families for a common objective. Our boys had meaningful strategy discussions with us as we shared good quality time together.
The missus and I need to do a serious catch up to our boys. We are now only halfway towards their Level 20…
My heartfelt congrats to Joseph Schooling, you made us all so proud of your first Olympic gold, which was also our nation’s first in our young history!
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