Monsters have arrived in Powell River. Zapdos, Snorlax, Muk, Poliwrath and the rest of the Pokémon Go menagerie are, according to some of the earliest adopters of the game, all over town.
“Anyone with a phone walking around looking at their screen is playing it for sure,” said Rachel Young, one of many local gamers who recently started playing the game.
Young and five friends have teamed up to play the global phenomenon run by Niantic Labs.
Pokémon Go is a GPS-based, free video game phone app that, upon release, seemed bent on taking over the world. According to Young, Powell River is not immune to the craze.
“Everybody is talking about it,” she said.
Pokémon Go is about location. Players choose a character and go to various hotspots where Pokémon can be captured. Capture all 150 Pokémon and win.
In Powell River, players have found hotspots at gateway signs to Powell River south of town, the two viewpoints on Marine Avenue, Larry Gouthro Park on Manson Avenue, near Townsite Brewing and near the airport.
“I am somewhat interested in the game,” said Townsite resident and gamer Gregory Blais. “I’m stoked today because I got an egg at a Poké stop. You can put your little eggs in incubators and then they become Pokémon and it’s pretty exciting.”
Blais is playing solo and said he loves every kind of game. “I wasn’t going to give Pokémon Go a go,” he said, “but it’s free.”
The biggest Pokémon hotspot in town is Willingdon Beach, according to Young. She said her group was at the beach recently at 11 pm and more than a dozen other people were also in the dark wandering around catching Pokémon.
“People all come together at the same place,” she said. “They flock here because they know where Pokémon are going to be; people come from all over.”
And they walk all over. Young said on the first day she and her friends started playing the game they “walked all over town until our feet hurt. We just walked and walked and it was super fun.”
According to Young, she usually plays video games that force a player to stay inside with a controller.
“This one is the opposite,” she said. “It forces you to go outside.”
Young’s friend Monique Giles said she rarely played video games before Pokémon Go came on the scene. A big reason why she has caught on to the craze is that she sees her friends more often.
“I’ve seen them every day, multiple times a day,” said Giles.
Blais said he thinks hardcore gamers won’t be giving up Pokémon Go anytime soon because Niantic can update it and make it evolve anyway they want to maintain interest.
“I don’t think it’s a fad, although any game, at some point, people stop playing it,” he said. “A lot of people who are playing right now are going to get bored.”
Young said she thinks the game will have longevity as developers continue to add features and characters.
“That’s going to keep it more interesting,” said Young. “There are more generations of Pokémon that aren’t released yet, and they’re going to release more.”
