The Meteoric Rise Of 'Pokemon GO'

What goes up, must come down?

- Peter Chu

By the time you’re reading this, you would probably already be in over your head with Pokémon GO-related articles. We don’t blame you, considering that literally almost everyone has been raving about the game since it launched in the U.S. back in early July, and in Malaysia about a month later.

If you’ve been living on a different planet for the past few months, and have absolutely no clue about what Pokémon GO- is (or heaven forbid, what a Pokémon is), allow us to enlighten you.

LIFE OF A POKÉMON TRAINER

Pokémon GO is essentially a free-to-play mobile game (with in-app purchases) that’s available on both iOS and Android devices. The game revolves around one very simple objective – which is to catch all 145 Pokémon (Note: there are actually 151 of them, it’s just that six of them have yet to be released).

The word Pokémon is essentially a portmanteau of ‘pocket monsters’, and in order to catch these creatures, players will need to ‘hunt’ for them by walking around with the game running, while occasionally glancing at the screen to check if there are any Pokémon lingering nearby.

Unlike games like Candy Crush Saga, you’ll need to constantly be online (and have a stable GPS connection) in order for Pokémon GO to work properly, otherwise the in-game map won’t be able to load and display the Pokémon that might be around your vicinity. If you’re fortunate enough to chance upon a wild Pokémon, you can confront and attempt to catch it by hurling a Poké Ball. And we use the word ‘attempt’, because the