Pokémon Go: the new augmented reality game that everybody, and I mean everybody, is talking about. For those who are new to the world of Pokémon Go, it is Nintendo’s latest attempt, or rather success, to ease the laziness out of gamers everywhere. In my opinion, the real gem of Pokémon Go is how the game encourages its players to not only go outside, but to also meet new people and have fun while doing so, as they seek out that precious Pikachu.

As far as game mechanics go, Pokémon Go seems rather simple. When a Pokémon shows up on your smartphone screen, you swipe your finger to throw poke balls at it until you catch it. Easy enough; until there are no Pokémon nearby. Which happens quite often for me and I find it incredibly frustrating. This is the part where Pokémon Go gets a little more complicated.  Your phone uses GPS pings to calculate distance from your original location, so as you walk the Pokémon showing up on your screen will start changing. Keep in mind though, with this system, walking in circles will not get you far in either distance or Pokémon numbers. You have to walk away from that original GPS ping or nothing will happen. I realized that one half-way around the walking path of my neighborhood park.

In my personal experiences with this game, not only have I rediscovered my love for Pokémon; it has also rekindled the child in me that innate need to share this amazing experience with others. For me, there was no one better than my sister.  Since starting the game, I have found myself doing some pretty silly things. Each time I’ve been able to feel slightly better about it simply because my sister was doing it with me.

Do I feel guilty for driving to every LDS church house in my neighborhood just for the Pokéstops? No, because I caught some awesome Pokémon and my sister did it too. Do I know exactly how many Poké-stops there are at my workplace? Yes. Do I feel guilty for that? No; my boss knows how many there are, too.

There have been other silly moments as well. I laughed when I realized that the Del Taco across the street from my house is a Gym, and cried when my bed wasn’t close enough to let me visit it without physically going there myself.

For as much fun as I’ve had and as often as I’ve played, even with the knowledge I have amassed so far, there are still so many questions about this game I’ve yet to find answers to. Do I need to be by water to get my Eevee to evolve into a Vaporeon? Is it the size of my Eevee that determines its fate? Or is an Eevee pre-assigned an evolution according to which attack it knows? Could my 10 Kilometer Egg really be a Pidgey?? Who knows?! Not me!

If you want to check out Pokémon Go, all you need to do is head to either the Google Play Store or the ITunes App Store, search Pokémon Go and download!  You’ll be on your way to becoming a Pokémon Master in no time. If you come across a Pokémon that you’re proud of, share it with us on The Geekwave Facebook page, so I can be suitably jealous!