By now, if you haven’t heard of Pokemon Go, you are definitely living off-grid. Pokemon Go, is an augmented reality game based on the Pokemon concept. If you are from my generation, then you are mostly familiar with the animated series with the famous line “I Choose You, Pikachu!”. The Pokemon mega franchise ranges from games, animated series, manga, trading cards, to even the All Nippon Airways Pokemon Jet.

 

Without getting into too many details of how to play Pokemon Go, because there are lots and lots of “for dummies” pages online you can get a crash course for, I’m simply here to say that we liked the game, for 2 weeks. The game itself, in my opinion, is for pretty much all ages…ok, so maybe 3/4 and up.

 

Considering that it’s for all ages, you can pretty much make it as simple as you want it to be, or as complicated as you want it to be. You can geek out like my PhD brother and his equally academically brilliant girlfriend and spend the entire weekend unleashing your cyber wrath at Pokegyms, you can use it as a great promotional tool to attract people to your retail business, or you can just simply go out, and catch some Pokemons with your child, like I did with my 5 year old.

 

When the game first came out, I saw two distinct sides of reactions. I heard the Debbie Downers, rolling their eyes saying “whatever”, I also heard the other side, folks that were squealing excitement aplenty. Here’s the thing, I’m a nerd at heart, so when I heard about it, I was very curious, but at the same time, I was wary about actually participating…because I know me, I like stuff like this, and I’d want to spend time playing the game, and I’m not sure I want to spend time playing, when I really should be doing boring things like vacuuming the house, and steam mopping the floors…

 

I finally caved, when the game released in Canada, I downloaded it. Of course I had to download it at midnight (sarcasm), when the game loaded up on my screen, I sat there, paused for a moment, and actually contemplated on going for a walk to my local park to check out what this “Pokestop” was all about, because it’s a short 2 minute walk from me. Luckily, I didn’t, I chose sleep instead.

 

6 hours later, upon waking up, getting my 2 daughters dressed, we dashed off to drop my older one to summer camp. On my way home, you guessed it, I stopped by 1 of my 2 locals parks with this Pokestop. Here I was, stopped on the side of the curb, vehicle appropriately parked, looking at my phone, discovering this Pokestop. I quickly figured out what it does, collected my goodies, then put my phone away. I look up at my rearview mirror, about to drive off, I see a very nice SUV creeping up behind me, pulling to a complete stop. I wait to observe this vehicle behind me. Within 10 seconds, this vehicle slowly pulls away from the curb and drives off, but not without making eye contact with me, holding up his phone smiling at me, and giving me the big thumbs up! Apparently, we were all on the same page!

 

Afterwards, I spent about 30 minutes exploring the game, and catching a few Pokemon that popped up on my phone as I navigated through it. When my older daughter came home from camp, I decided I would show her this game. Her mind was completely blown! What? You catch invisible animals that only your cell phone can see?! So I made her a deal: we would go out hunting for Pokemon after I’d put my younger daughter to bed, but only if she was properly showered, teeth brushed, etc. The deal would be to go for about 30-60 minutes, depending on time, and when she came back, go straight to bed.

 

We did this for a few days straight, and she loved it in the beginning, and I enjoyed it as well, because it was a harmless little game in my opinion, and when we were hunting, she walked very briskly and I found that the exercise helped get her energy out of her system before bedtime.

Here's the interesting part, many people say they see people walking around with their head glued to their phones and aren't watching where they're going, the statement is half true in my opinion. Yes, once you have to do stuff on your phone to catch a Pokemon, grab goodies, or fight at a gym, you do look at your phone, but you are not really obliged to be walking around with your head stuck to your phone all the time. We walked around, looking at parts of our neighbourhood, and when a Pokemon pops up, the phone vibrates, we stop, make sure we're in a safe spot before proceeding with any catching of Pokemons. As you are probably wondering what that silly orange bib is for on my 5 year old, that was her being imaginative and we collected and assigned different types of tree leaves, flowers, and pine cones for the different Pokemons that we caught.

In total, we played avidly for almost 2 weeks.

 

Then came the kicker...the more Pokemons you catch, and the more time you spend on it, the higher the level you reach, and the higher the level, the tougher it became to catch each of these Pokemons…sure enough, it became tough enough that each Pokemon required more than a handful of balls thrown at these virtual animals (mostly pigeons, rats of worms anyways), and when you have to spend an extended period of time to catch these critters, well, your 5 year old starts to lose interest and patience. Quite frankly, it wasn’t just my daughter that was losing interest, I was as well. After 2 weeks, going on the third week, I asked her routinely on one night whether she wanted to go out, and her respond was “Not really, mommy.” I asked the second night, same response, so I stopped asking on the third night. It’s been 4 days and she’s stopped asking for it, and I haven’t mentioned it either.

 

Overall, it was fun while it lasted, and frankly, I was worried about my own possible addiction for nothing. If you’re curious, go knock yourself out and give it a try, you might like it for a little bit, and like me, I imagine you’ll probably get bored quickly.