Final thoughts on that game

Well, I am very done with Pokemon go. 

The biggest problem for me is the basic premise.  It is essentially like illegal dog fighting.  Capture a wild creature, that is normally pretty cute then you 'evolve' it into something aggressive.  Train it to fight in 'friendly' fights, and then send it out to other gyms to really fight.  The pokemon can get injured and killed in these fights, and you make money off them.

Just plain sick.

Also, the augmented reality aspect is a slick little sideshow and is not integrated in the game in any real way, in fact most players...and websites advise this....turn off the AR as it saves battery power, so while this is the primary reason I was looking at the game, the first really massively popular use of augmented reality, a break out so to speak, it isn't really that much of a thing in the game.  Just kinda something cool at first.

And it is sick.

Despite the fact that I know that these are non-existent creatures, I will not be fighting them.  Just cannot go there. 

Oh, and there is also this kinda creepy feature where you can trade them out for cookies for the animals (sorry pokemon)  Kinda like dog cookies, no? You can 'transfer' them to 'the professor'.  But what is this professor doing with them?  What is the story behind that?

Anyway, final comments?

Ick.  Just sorta gross.  I'm looking forward to uninstalling it from my phone

and the augmented reality?  Cool, but they could have done so much more with it!

At level 5, some more thoughts on that pesky game

From before....I cannot post at work, so it needs organization to get this stuff posted!!!!

well, i've leveled up to level 5, and things have, as stated gotten more interesting.  I now have an incubator and can incubate eggs.  Interestingly, in order to hatch an egg, you have to walk.  The minimum is 2k!  Some are 5k or 10 or 15 k!  Wow, enforced exercise!

It is interesting to look too at the perceived or real overlay.  One always knows that there is much more going on in a place than you can really imagine.  You look around an office and wonder what all those people can be so busy with at their computers.  Or at least I do.  My dog must as well.

This summer, I stumbled upon a geocache, and I have a friend who is mad about this, so I messaged him and he told me to log it, which I did do.  Then I realized the number of geocaches there are around us that we know nothing about.  They also make use of google mapping to show where they are in general terms.  

Then there is pokemon go with all the gyms and stops and I know not what else.  There are layers and layers around us that we pay no heed to.

More importantly this makes me realise the layers of natural world that are around us that we pay no heed to.  Territories for foxes, or squirrels, hiding spots (caches) of food for the winter, nest, hiding spots for predators and their prey.

Mapping all of that as well would be fascinating, and would end up like one of those old anatomy books with transparent drawing after transparent drawing laid one on top o the next.

Pokemon Go

Well, I have gone over to the dark side, or the pokemon side, to the tremendous ridicule of my family!  But in reality, as I am studying technology in education and online learning so pokemon go is actually really fascinating.  It leverages the technology that is so available in our phones, gps, cameras, and of course the processing power.  

Boy does the phone heat up.

So, first thoughts?  Lots of folks have scuttled out of their basement gaming consoles to come into the sun and walk around, which is definitely cool, most of them seem to be doing it with friends or a partner, which is also really neat.  It also seems to spawn a certain amount of conversation amongst other pokemon go players.

It does seem to indicate a fairly short attention span however, as the pokemons you find while walking even the shortest distance come thick and fast.  We seem to need a lot of feedback, and quickly.  Not a lot of patience amongst the searchers, which is noticeably different from geocaching, which need quite a lot of patience for the reward to come.  Different.  Geocaching also needs considerably more problem solving skills, a much tougher game.

By the same token, the use of augmented reality on the phones is very cool, and does add degree of interest to it.  And it does require you to get quite physically close to spaces, which increases the chance of people going out in person and doing this, and also of them socializing as they are physically in close proximity to one another.  

It'll be interesting to see what I figure out from it as I level up.  Not sure how long the interest will last, but it is a neat usage of the newest technology and could certainly be used in an educational setting, as it is essentially a treasure hunt.  

Things I dislike is the clear gendering of the avatars, there is no option but male and female, and you cannot alter body shape (which is generally quite unrealistic) or hair length, either in the men or the women.  A little frustrating.