Thursday, March 28, 2024
Pokemon — short for Pocket Monsters — first debuted as a game for the handheld Nintendo Game Boy in 1996. It was the brainchild of Satoshi Tajiri, who was inspired by his childhood love of collecting bugs.
In the game, players control a trainer who travels around the world collecting and catching the creatures known as pokemon.
The trainer makes the pokemon stronger in a series of battles against other pokemon. The ultimate goal for a trainer is to collect every single pokemon, beat the teams of pokemon at gyms, gain badges and to be the very best, like no one ever was.
Pokemon exploded in popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The franchise includes a long-running animated TV show, a card game, 19 movies, comic books, all kinds of merchandise and many, many games. Though each game has added new aspects and new pokemon (there are 729 total at last count), the basic concept has stayed the same.
Pokemon — Human players catch these creatures, and can train them to make them stronger. Can look like anything, from birds and rats to a mime to a dragon to a bunch of eggs.
Pokestop — A real-world landmark where players can pick up virtual items. Usually churches, monuments and memorials.
Pokeball — A red and white ball that players throw at a pokemon to “catch” it.
Lure — An object a player can place on a Pokestop to attract more pokemon to the area, as well as real-live players. All players can see a lure on the in-game map as falling flower petals. Lasts for 30 minutes.
Gym — A real-world landmark where players can make their Pokemon fight each other. Teams battle to control these areas. A player can either fight the team holding a gym, or train their pokemon at a gym to make it stronger — as long as their team controls the gym.
Team — Players can pledge allegiance to one of three teams: Mystic (Blue), Valor (Red) and Instinct (Yellow).
Long Islanders have gotta catch ’em all.
People across the region have spent the past two weeks on the hunt, playing the new mobile game Pokemon Go.
Based on the popular franchise, the game encourages people to explore neighborhoods to find items, fight battles and, of course, catch the varied creatures known as Pokemon.
For the teenagers and young adults roaming the landscape, the game is a childhood dream come true: The children who played the first Pokemon games 20 years ago in elementary school are now adults.
“You join a team to battle in gyms,” Island Park resident Eric Prisco explained. “I’m on Team Instinct — the yellow team. If you have co-workers or friends that play, you might want to find out what team they play on if you plan to play with them. Me and my friends really liked one of the original Pokemon games, which was a special yellow edition that featured a Pikachu as your starter Pokemon, which was also the first Pokemon that the main character from the TV show gets.”
Pokemon Go’s popularity is not limited to young people, though. In its first week of availability, it was downloaded more times than Candy Crush and boosted the value of parent company Nintendo by $7.5 billion.
The Oceanside Library is a Pokestop — a place where players gather to collect items. “There’s been a little bit of buzz in the building,” said library Director Karen Porcella. “And people coming in and looking at their phones. We have the sign outside, and every teen program, everybody is told that we’re a Pokestop — although they do know it. And it’s just brought a lot of younger people into the building. And it’s always good to have younger people talking about the library.”
However, there are downsides to Pokemon Go. The servers often crash. A woman in Wyoming and a man in New Hampshire discovered dead bodies. There are Pokestops at the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
The memorial for 9/11 victims in Rockville Centre is also a Pokestop, which upsets Chris Wieman, who lost his mother in the attacks. He has already notified the game’s developer, Niantic, to have it removed. “For a person that lost someone that day, kids are just going there to disrespect it,” he said. “You should respect the area for people who lost people that day, and of course they don’t care.”
Robbers have used the game to find victims, including a case in Lake Ronkonkoma, where three men with a handgun took a 19-year-old player’s iPhone. A man upstate crashed his car while playing Pokemon Go. Players are warned to stay alert before they open the app.
There are benefits. Players get more exercise, because the game forces them to get out of the house, walk around and explore — which is especially helpful for people with conditions like depression or social anxiety. It brings people to local parks. Businesses have used the game to boost sales. Animal shelters have lured players to walk shelter dogs. Perhaps best of all, it uses gaming — a singular, solitary hobby — to brings people together.
Oceanside resident James Grzybowski said that a crowd of more than 50 fellow players sang “Happy Birthday to You” to him as he turned 20 last week. “I was at the [Long Beach] boardwalk and it was midnight, so technically it was my birthday,” he said. “I was with a few of my friends … and we met so many people playing Pokemon Go. So we’re all just walking for the lures, and they all start singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, but none of [the strangers] knew my name, so when my friends said my name it just kind of echoed around … So I thought that was really fun.”
Barbra Rubin-Perry contributed to this story.
The worldwide pandemic has threatened many of the businesses you rely on every day, but don’t let it take away your source for local news. Now more than ever, we need your help to ensure nothing but the best in hyperlocal community journalism comes straight to you. Consider supporting the Herald with a small donation. It can be a one-time, or a monthly contribution, to help ensure we’re here through this crisis. To donate or for more information, click here.
Sponsored content
Other items that may interest you