My Adventures in Pokémon Go

For those that know me well, they know that I go against the stereotypical nerd playing video games all day.  People are often surprised to learn this.  But there is one video game that I'll play, and that is Pokémon.  So of course when I heard about the Pokémon Go app, I knew that I'd have to break down and get my first smart phone game.  This is a summary of my thoughts and feelings about it over the last year and a half.



I first heard about the game on September 10th, 2015 right after they first released the first trailer for the game.  I was pretty excited, but I knew that I really shouldn't expect much from a smart phone game, so I kept my expectations low.

As time went on, we got more information, such as this interview from December 16th explaining how the game would work.  Reading it now, it's clear the different things he was talking about, but at the time we didn't know how gyms would work, and things like that.

As the beta test came out, we heard from people saying how simplistic the game was and that it wasn't nearly as in-depth as the handheld games.  So I was patient, and paid more attention to other things for a while.

But that all changed July 6th, and everybody downloaded it all at the same time and crashed their servers, it was so popular.  I waited a couple days and started on the 8th, just so that I would get less distracted having this game with me at work.  Turns out that Pokémon don't spawn where I work, but, yeah.

The first few days, I noticed pale people leaving their homes, walking up and down the street with their faces in their phones.  I put on a hat and went out to join in.  First, I got Bulbasaur as my starter, and I caught a Paras just outside my house.  I still have that one, even though Paras are super-common around me.  I guess I'm just sentimental like that.  I rode my bike down to a nearby park and caught a Koffing near a Pokéstop.  Those ones are super-rare, so I still have that one just because I've caught hardly any since then.  I rode my bike down to Steed's park before the server was overloaded and so I had to go back home.  I had a blast!

When I hit level 5 on the 10th, I felt like Ash-- he didn't know which starter to pick, and I didn't know which team to join.  Most gyms around me were blue at the time, but then the two near my house changed red.  I decided that yellow needed help, so I joined team Instinct.  (Later, I would express this as, "Yellow needs help, I'll join team yellow!  Oh, no, I'm team yellow, now I need help!")

Those early days were wild times.  People were out in the streets, and strangers would talk to each other, it was a different kind of experience.  A friend of mine told me that her sister was using it to meet guys at college.  That Pokéstop near my house would often have a lure module in place, so I'd go over there and meet new people.  The first time I went, July 11th, a Graveler appeared on our sightings, and we all worked together and found it.  That was the first evolved Pokémon I found, and I still have it.

Even after the game died down according to people online, I saw a lot of people walking on the D&RG trail into August.  It really wasn't until it started getting dark and cold that people really started quitting in my area.

People complain about the tracker becoming useless, but honestly in my opinion, I always had trouble finding a Pokémon anyway.  If it wasn't up or down my street, I would not be able to find it anyway, since that would require walking all the way to a connecting street, then back up to the street on the other side of the houses in front/behind me.  The handheld games did not have a tracker, you just had to wander through the grass.  Although, you could know what types you might encounter if you looked at a list online.  I think it would be cool if they provided you a list of % probability you'd find a Pokémon in a given area, or something like that.

By July 20th, I was level 11.  I attempted battling gyms, but I was so low level that I never succeeded.

The first weekend in August, Zack and I went down to Saint George for their board game convention.  He had just decided to download Pokémon Go as well, and as we were travelling, he made it to level 5, and joined team yellow with me.  At one point, we tried out battling as a team, but we didn't do so well even then.

By August 23rd, I was level 15, and on August 25th, I was finally able to defeat my first gym, at a park near my house.  Some guy from another team put theirs in before I could.  It was a Vaporeon, and I was not able to defeat those yet, so I was extremely depressed and walked back home, seriously considering giving up this game.

Jacob, a coworker I had gone backpacking with that summer had also started playing and joined team Yellow.  He suggested that I check out Kaysville, that he had seen some yellow gyms there.  September 11th, I did, and was pleasantly surprised!  There were 5 gyms that were yellow, some with open slots, and I was able to collect coins for the first time.  I was still too weak to train effectively.  And this was when you could only select one Pokémon, so it was even harder to train up a gym.  But I'd go back there and try, and sometimes be successful, but usually just put mine in an open slot, and they'd last a few hours down there.  Not very long at all in other locations.

At around the same time, I met up with Jacob for lunch, and we worked together to take down a gym near a park.  We had both already collected the day before, and it didn't survive for us to collect, but it was good to be able to work together for success.

On September 18th, there was a gym near me that had a slot, so I put one in there.  It survived to the next day, so I was excited to tell my friend Sam the next day at FHE.  We went together to get train it up and get him a slot.  That one lasted a while.  There were three other yellow gyms we were able to take advantage of, but one didn't survive the night, another didn't last much longer, but the one at the park across the tracks from me lasted a bit.  I'd go over there and train it up so that others Instinct members could come and join in.  I had in a Primeape, and I'd train it using Venomoth, a perfect combination.  In the end, I think it only lasted maybe a couple days, but that was awesome for me at the time.  But whenever it turned back yellow, that's what I'd do for the next month.  Meanwhile, that first one we both trained, it lasted a (then) record four or five days.

I liked going out for long walks in the middle of the night.  I would walk all the way down past several gyms, catching Pokémon along the way, see if there was any yellow gyms I could join.  On September 23rd, I went on a midnight stroll through the rain, and it was actually kind of pleasant.  I saw a gym being attacked, one turned yellow, so I went over there to help them attack the other one, but no one was there.  I put mine in the other gym, and my invisible teammate disappeared without defeating the other gym.  I was still too weak, so I didn't attack it either.

September 26th, I hit level 20.  I had understood that it gets significantly harder to catch Pokémon this high of a level, but it just wasn't the case.  It seems those complaints were coming from those who had leveled up too quickly and weren't used to the more powerful Pokémon appearing.  Since I took it gradual, the change in wild Pokémon levels was also more gradual.

October 5th, I decided to get together with Sam to try battling a gym with someone else.  He ended up not being able to make it, but I had also invited Jacob Webb.  We tried battling the gym at Kiwanis Park, but it was taking more time than we had, and Jacob's phone wasn't doing so great, so we had to quit.  Immediately prior to this, I saw Snorlax's shadow on the sightings list, but it disappeared before I could even leave my house.

By October 8th, I hit level 21, and I decided it was time I try that lucky egg + evolve trick I had heard a lot about.  I hadn't evolved hardly any Pokémon prior to that point.  I did it, but was largely left unsatisfied with gaining experience so quickly when I really needed more stardust.  I decided I'd save them until I was higher.  (High enough that I wouldn't really need them, to be honest.)  But one thing I did get out of it was a Parasect that knew Bug Bite and Solar Beam.  I went out that night and defeated a Vaporeon for the first time.  Up until this point, my strongest was a Rapidash and a couple Primeape that I had caught.  Now that I had more evolutions, my strongest was a Arcanine.  Things were looking up!  In fact, two days later on Columbus day, I took a walk and battled enough to collect at six gyms, which was a record for me at the dime.

I wrote down the top ten Pokémon that I had encountered up to that point.  In my area as of early October, these were the most common Pokémon I was seeing:

• Pidgey: 18.4%
• Rattata: 17.6%
• Paras: 11.4%
• Mankey: 6.6%
• Eevee: 4.0%
• Ponyta: 3.8%
• Geodude: 3.5%
• Zubat: 3.6%
• Venonat: 2.9%
• Spearow: 2.4%

At about the same time, the city I had previously seen yellow gyms at quit being an Instinct haven.  Someone decided it was a perfect time to use their GPS spoofing, or a bot to immediately defeat any Pokémon put into a gym in the entire city, and they left the city grey.  I quit going back there, and the next time I did, it was the red/blue stuff you see everywhere else, and any I chose to attack would quickly get re-defeated.  But sometimes there's a park down there that would have some yellow gyms, and they could last a bit.

I had evolved some of my Eevee back during that last spree, but it wasn't until later that I got a Vaporeon,  I believe it was October 23rd that I went out and battled that same gym as I did that last time.  It was a high-level gym, I decided I want to see how taking down a gym that size would go.  It still took forever, but I was able to do it, and I was surprised how much easier things were with a Vaporeon.  I'm not 100% on the timeline, but I seem to recall that after I left, I hatched an Exeggcute, which I was then able to evolve into my first Exeggutor.

I also remember that I was able to open a slot for myself in the gym near Home Depot that is almost always yellow, and I stuck my Vaporeon in, but I was disappointed that I didn't have it for attacking when I could have used it.  Also a sentiment I remember when I had put my Arcanine in a gym by the D&RG trail near Steed Park, and it was in for a while.  I also remember attacking a level 10 gym, but not really putting a dent in it, the top Pokémon fainting my last Pokémon, a Golem.  I then was able to put it in the Kawanis gym, and the next time I was there, noticed my Golem had a "Battles Won: 1" message, my first one.  Weird.

So I'm not sure I remember the timeline accurately, but perhaps Clearfield became an Instinct haven first, I lost with my Golem, but put it in the other gym, then I got my Vaporeon, won at the one gym, and got my Exeggutor.  Anyway, it all happened at about the same time, I suppose.

During the Halloween event, we got extra spooky Pokémon, which ruined my tally.  Later on, I realized I could just write down all my Pokédex totals, and keep track each month, and it will be less affected by events and nests and introducing new Pokémon, things like that.  We also got extra candy, and I walked enough with my Bulbasaur starter to evolve it up into a Venusaur.  On the last day, I received a 10k egg.  So I went walking hoping to hatch it before it ended.  I lucked out that the event lasted a bit longer than I expected, and I hatched a Dratini with double candy on November 1st.  I've been walking with that thing ever since.

In November, I was running out of items, thanks to playing Pokémon Go during Ragnar Vegas.  I caught a bunch, but didn't have access to many Pokéstops, but I barely managed to keep afloat somehow.  I was so grateful when they did their event where Pokéstops gave double items, it's just what I needed!  Unfortunately, it ended just as I was beginning a walk through a park to refill my bag.  I was Level 24 at the time.

November 22nd, they released Ditto, and I caught one in the Layton Park.  The next day, they started their Thanksgiving event that provided double XP and double stardust.  This cause me to move from level 25 towards the beginning to level 26 at the end pretty quickly.  It also meant that gyms had a lot more turnover, and I was running low on revives and potions for quite a while.

December 11th, I hit a new record with seven Pokémon in gyms.  I took the screenshot seen to the right here:

For the New Years event, they released Gen II baby Pokémon, so when I received two 10k eggs, that's what I expected to receive.  Imagine my surprise when I hatched two Lapras!  It was immediately after the first hatched on the 27th that I surpassed my previous record and took over nine gyms.  Unfortunately, some got defeated before it was time to collect.  But I kept trying and on the 29th I was actually able to collect for nine gyms (below left):



At the end of the year, I hit level 27, and that's where I'm at now.  I've had other successes this week, which is the reason I decided to compile this all together now.

On January 26th, I collected enough coins to buy enough incubators to hatch all my eggs at the same time.  I still had three leftover from the Christmas event, but yeah, it was good to have confirmation that I don't have any low-level eggs left over from forever ago.

During the month of January, the top ten Pokémon I got were:

• Pidgey: 13.4%
• Rattata: 12.0%
• Paras: 9.9%
• Mankey: 6.0%
• Eevee: 4.9%
• Venonat: 4.2%
• Weedle: 3.5%
• Abra: 3.2%
• Diglett: 3.0%
• Magnemite: 2.8%

Really, though, Weedle is an outlier, since they don't normally spawn here, but Layton Park was a Weedle nest this month when I was there.  I figure if I do this every month, then nests will even out over time.  You can see though, that when they said they would decrease Pidgey and Rattata spawns, they apparently meant it!  Some of it might be due to the increase in starter spawns at the beginning of the month, though, so we'll see what the future brings.

This week I hatched another 10k egg: Aerodactyl.  Now the only ones left I need to get are a few that can be evolved from what I already have, the regional exclusives, and Snorlax.

But the real accomplishment for me is finally getting to collect on ten Pokémon in gyms all at once!

I'm down to eight now, and I figure I won't need to spend as much time with gyms as I used to, now that my Pokémon and Item storage are almost maxed out.  But team Instinct is in much better shape now that it used to be, it seems like the teams are closer to being about even.  Fewer people are playing now, and my Pokémon can last quite a while in gyms now.  Anyway, whatever the case, the game goes on, and I still plan on going out to have these kind of adventures!