Pokemon Go

Pokémon Go is the newest craze and it seems like everyone is playing! If you’re going to play however, you’ll want to maximize your experience so you don’t spend a lot of hours just wasting time.

Here are some tips that will let you have fun while leveling up and enjoying the experience!

1. Circles Matter

When trying to catch a Pokémon, hold your finger down on the ball so that circles show up on the target.  A green circle means the target will be easier to catch than a yellow or red circle. The circle will shrink and grow. If you hit the Pokémon with the Pokéball when the moving circle is at its smallest, the Pokémon will be easier to capture. Hitting when the ring is at its smallest is particularly important if the ring is a color other than green.

2. Location Matters

Even if you aren’t unfortunate enough (relative to this game) to live rural, many housing and subdivisions lack a good frequency of Pokémon spawning.  Sometimes this is even true if you’re willing to walk a distance. At times like these, getting in your car can be incredibly helpful! While you certainly should NOT play the game and drive, simply driving to a more populated area can greatly improve the variety of Pokémon you find as soon as you start walking.  Historic areas of towns, shopping mall parking lots, community parks (particularly ones with lots of historical markers), and your local zoo can all be excellent places to spend your time.

3. Make The Most Of Potential Experience Points

Sometimes, leveling up can make experience seem hard to come by. This is especially true when you keep collecting the same type of Pokemon over and over!  Fortunately, collecting a whole lot of the same isn’t a bad thing! Turn some of them in to Professor Willow for candy of that Pokemon’s type. Then get ready to evolve a whole lot of them from their first tier to their second tier!  (Pidgey is a great one to do this with since it requires fewer candies than most for its first tier evolution.) Want to level up even faster? Hold onto them until you have a lucky egg and then evolve a whole bunch!

4. Pack A Spare Mobile Battery Pack

Running the game, the screen, and location data can be incredibly taxing on your phone’s battery.  Often you will find your battery running out before your feet say it’s time to quit. A spare mobile battery or battery pack can give you a LOT more play time and the newer ones aren’t particularly expensive. Battery packs are rated in mA (milliamps) and larger ones will give you more play time than smaller ones.

Bonus Tip: Constant use of location data can rapidly chew up your existing data plan. This can leave you with no access or, worse, data overage charges, which will make you sad. Consider either increasing your plan or picking up a prepaid mobile hotspot so you can easily buy a few more gigs of data only when you need them. (If you’re hanging out in a parking lot, store, or near a PokéStops, be sure to check for free Wi-Fi nearby!)