Pokémon Go: Week 2

[nanila]

If you are confused, frightened by or indifferent to Pokémon Go, please do feel free to skip this entry. If, however, you are delighted, obsessed by or also wish to share your enjoyment of Pokémon Go, then read on!

• I read this guide which claimed that levelling up "slowed down considerably after Level 20". My experience is that levelling up has slowed considerably since Level 15. Unless you live in the middle of a city in a thicket of gyms and Pokéstops, then you're a bit stuffed when it comes to earning XP, because it takes ages to do it just by catching Pokémon, especially when you've already caught most of the common ones.
  
• I have amassed 307 of the necessary 400 Magikarp candies needed to evolve a Magikarp. SOON, my friends. SOON.
  
• No one will be surprised to hear that the first medal I've maxed out on is the "Swimmer", for catching water-based Pokémon. Huzzah for living next to a canal.
  
• I'm saving up all my Evolves for when I reach Level 20 and receive another Lucky Egg.
  
• I have thus far failed to catch a Wartortle (at Euston Station) and a Koffing, which appeared suddenly in the corridor outside my office. The latter was quite appropriate because the corridor is currently a building site. All the doors are being repainted, the flooring has been ripped up and the overhead lighting is currently a string of naked bulbs.
  
• The failure to catch the Wartortle resulted in my most frivolous impulse purchase in years. I am now the owner of an external battery, which I bought because I wanted so much to continue playing while I waited for my train home.
  
• I have finally been to a Pokégym. I enjoyed it. It's pretty low-ability-threshold button-mashing, and also rewarding if you can put a Pokémon in the gym because you get free Stardust and Pokécoins out of it. I still don't think I'm going to do it much, though.
  
• Pokéwalks for the purposes of hatching eggs, OTOH, are the best. I have had the most fun wandering around, periodically catching Pokémon, and seeing what pops out of the incubator at the end. Geodude! Charmander! Sandshrew! Nidoran! And the funniest one by far, the Mankey.
  
• Yesterday I hatched a Meowth. Yesterday was the best Pokéday ever.

Comments

[kaberett]

yesssss Pokemons :D

[kaberett]

(Now I am rushing a little less: I bought an external battery yesterday too, not quite on impulse but also not terribly carefully independently researched, and as a result was able to meet up with A in the park on the way home, and hatch another egg and catch another Magikarp... ALSO, Green Park is consistently full of Magikarp, if that's of interest!)

[nanila]

Yes, definitely of interest that Green Park is full of Magikarp! After last night's Pokéwalk, I am up to 342 Magikarp candies. (SOOOOON)

[nanila]

Pokémons == Best monsters (according to the three-year-old)

[lurkingcat]

Pokémon: so much joy :)

I've not seen any Wartortles at all so far but I'm halfway to having enough candies for a Magikarp evolution because they were flopping all over Castle Park in the drizzle on Tuesday. I should spend more time there since it's next to the river.

I bought an external battery for purposes of phone and camera charging on the Shaun in the City trail last year and I have not regretted it. It is amazing how many people you see wandering around Bristol now with a phone in their hand and a cable running from the phone into their rucksack. I suspect that Pokémon Go has been very good for external battery manufacturers.

[nanila]

Lots and lots of joy!

Yes, I wish I'd thought of getting an external for Shaun in the City. I had to stop using the app on a couple of walks because of the battery drainage.

WH Smith at Euston had a whole aisle dedicated to external batteries. I expect there's been a bit of an explosion in demand recently...

[askygoneonfire]

I've had it since Sunday and really enjoy it. Pokegyms remain a total mystery to me and so far all that's happened is I've randomly mashed the screen whilst my pokemon gets battered.

I have no idea what is rare and what is not but I did manage to catch a Golbat when I was level 3 and suddenly I had a pokemon with more than 200CP when all the rest were below 50. I only want to catch Pokemon I think are cute which may prove to be poor approach tactically...i was sad to lose/fail to catch a Rattatta the other day.

I also love pokewalks and am finding it just the excuse I needed to actually get out the house and enjoy the weather and the city.

[nanila]

Golbat! I caught one quite early on as well. They're a bit scary with the massive open mouths and the fangs.

I've had to stop spending Pokéballs on Rattatas and Pidgeys, because otherwise I run out too quickly. It makes me a bit sad to walk past when they pop up.

[recessional]

I named my first Golbat AAAAAAHHHH because all I could think of looking at him was "reblog if AAAAAHHHH!!"

When I evolved a much higher cp one that didn't amuse me so much anymore, so now my Golbat is Marabat. (Currently my top roster is Ned and Bud [both Snorlaxes], Raya [Flareon], and then a selection of Marabat, Scarypants (Gengar), Clevis (Clefable), Rufeo (Pigeot), Queenie (Jynx) and someone else I'm forgetting.)

[nanila]

Is a Clefable the thing a Clefairy turns into? I look forward to that.

I saw a shadow of a Snorlax yesterday in South Ken but couldn't track it down. ONE DAY

[askygoneonfire]

I think Pokemon Go is a very different game when you live in a city, I've never had fewer than 150 pokeballs since I started, keep filling up my bag with them, in fact.

[nanila]

It totally is. I now fill up on Pokéballs on my London trips. Currently packing 300 (200 regular + 100 great), which should keep me going until next week's trip.

[recessional]

I swear Mankey's a) crack me the fuck up in their name ("you got one mankey candy!") and also b) look like demons coming for my fACE. XP

[nanila]

The little angry dance they do. Hilarious.

[recessional]

It iiiis. Since the last update there are a lot more of them around my area.

What I WANT is more Meowths and more Vulpixes. *LE SIGH* I really want a Persian and a Nine-tails. They're so pretty. But no: both my 10K eggs have been Snorlaxes. And I mean I should not complain (or if nothing else lireavue will come for me in my sleep) and they are very willing and dedicated little Snorlaxes and wow are they surprisingly effective against one of the Big Evolutions of something else (my 1300-odd cp Snorlaxes should not really be swatting out 1500-odd cp levels! But did, repeatedly, yesterday), but augh.

WANT MORE CHARMANDERS, MEOWTHS, VULPIXES AND PONYTAS. So I can have a dragon, a pretty cat, a pretty fox and a pretty horse whose mane is on FIRE.

[nanila]

I keep seeing Snorlaxes in the gyms and I don't like fighting them because they are too cute. :P

YES MORE MEOWTHS AND PONYTAS. I have not yet seen a Vulpix.

[silveradept]

Nicely done! I'm not quite as far along, having popped a Lucky egg to evolve the common mons and jump my level up from 13 to 16. I need to spend a lot more time down by the pond to collect all those water types that aren't Squirtle.

And find somewhere near me with an infestation if Bulbasaurs.

[nanila]

Yes, Bulbasaurs, me too. The bloke has hatched a Bulbasaur and also two Porygonx. I have yet to encounter either, so am a bit jealous.

[liseuse]

I've downloaded it but I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing. I never got into Pokemon when it first went around, and I don't really go anywhere other than my regular commute, so I'm just sort of collecting things that happen to be in those places.

[nanila]

This is my first Pokémon experience, so I'm the same. I have looked up a few specific bits of information but have tried to keep myself largely unspoiled for the evolutions/rare Pokémon.

[liseuse]

I didn't even know they evolved until someone at work mentioned it the other day. I've got a couple of medals for collecting different types of Pokemon, which was wonderful except I didn't know there were different types and I have no collecting rationale other than "oh, there is a Pokemon. I wonder if I can catch it?".

[gorgeousnerd]

The lucky egg/evolve combo has worked really well for me (and I've only done it after level 15). I had it suggested to me to max out my Pokemon before evolving instead of hoarding candy, but fumbling to trade in my Pokemon for candy really ate into my time once the egg started. Through trial and error, I'm estimating I'll have time for about 24 evolutions or so on my next lucky egg? People have probably figured it out more accurately, but I had some twelve on my last attempt and it took me about halfway through. (It would be so much faster if we could skip the animations!)

I've started investing in external batteries, too (which I can justify because, when I do leave the house, I use my phone enough that it's nice to have a backup even without Pokemon Go). And I like occasional gym play - I'm hoping that, even with my sporadic involvement, I'll be able to purchase more bag space and more Pokemon space so I don't have to spend in-app money. We'll see, I guess!

It's so interesting how different our Pokemon catching is! I've only started getting Magikarp and that's because I took two trips in the last two weeks that had large/populated water areas (that gave me more than Seels - that's what the near water areas give me). My area is lousy with Geodudes, Mankeys, and Meowths (I've evolved or can evolve all three). But, out of all 81 Pokemon I've seen, the only one that I haven't caught yet is Koffing. [shakes fist]

[nanila]

One estimate I saw for maximum number of evolves on a Lucky Egg, given the time of animation, was 70. But you'd have to be really organised and make a list of all the ones that were ready to evolve so you could do the next one as soon as the previous one finished.

It is interesting how geographically specific the Poke&eactue;mon are! I have yet to see a Geodude or a Mankey in the wild! Meowths are very occasional. I'm looking forward to my trip to the US later this month so I can see some new ones, potentially. :D