PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Our reporter searched for Pokémon on Munroe Street in Lynn.
BY DILLON DURST
LYNN — I spent the better part of Tuesday aimlessly traipsing around the city, eyes glued to my phone, hunting for Pokémon. I knew those suckers were out there somewhere.
Gotta catch ‘em all.
The new Pokémon Go game has enjoyed a whirlwind of popularity since its release last week. Developed by Niantic Inc., the game had been downloaded an estimated 7.5 million times as of Monday, according to application analytics company SmartTower. The game became available on Apple and Android mobile devices last week, combining a sense of childhood nostalgia and cutting-edge technology.
Police officers nationwide have been found playing the game with children; it even supposedly led a Wyoming teenage girl to discover a dead body.
So, on Tuesday, I checked it out myself..
I’m 24 years old. I hadn’t played Pokémon since I was about 10; back when Game Boys and not iPhones and iPads were the primary form of electronic entertainment.
The game uses your phone’s GPS to detect Pokémon as you move. When creatures are spotted, the game’s augmented reality feature, which accesses the user’s phone camera, displays them as if they were standing on the sidewalk in front of you, or perched on your desk at work.
After selecting the color of my character’s hair (brown), eyes (brown), shirt (yellow) and backpack (yellow, again), I was ready to hunt.
Even before I left the office, I captured a Wild Drowzee, which, as I learned throughout the day, appears more often than not.
To catch a Pokémon, the user has to throw a Poké Ball at it by tapping and dragging the ball upward on the screen. It’s addictive fun.
Wandering through downtown Lynn, I found 20-year-old Emily Shirazi mid-Gym challenge battle at the farmers market at the corner of Union and Exchange streets.
There are a few Gyms, which allow players to test their Pokémon against opponents scattered throughout the city.
After acknowledging her defeat, Shirazi said she downloaded the game on her iPhone 6 on Thursday and plays it every time she has the chance. She said she’s been playing Pokémon in its card form for about 15 years, but she likes the convenience of having the game on her phone and the fact she can play it with friends.
Catherine Josey, 25, hunted for Pokémon while walking to get lunch Tuesday.
Josey, who works at the Lynn Community Health Center on Union Street, said she specifically set aside time later in the day to search for Pokémon.
“I wanna catch ‘em all,” she said with a laugh.
“I just caught my son a Jigglypuff,” added a friend accompanying Josey.
After a few hours of trekking around the city in the hot sun in search of Poké Stops, which allow users to replenish their inventory of Poké Balls, I needed to find shade.
At the corner of Andrews and Market streets, I came across 50-year-old Manny Carrasquillo, who had just captured a Drowzee.
The Boston native said he downloaded the game on his Samsung Galaxy S7 on Sunday and spent the day scouring Lynn Beach in the rain with his 29-year-old daughter in search of Pokémon.
“If you wanna catch Pikachu, you gotta take the train to Wonderland Station in Revere,” he said. “It took me seven balls to catch him.”
A little over 7,000 steps later, according to my iPhone, which equates to roughly 3 ½ miles, I had reached level 5. There, I decided, my hunt for the day would come to an end.
Having played the game for a little more than two hours on Tuesday, I found that it forces you to be active and allows you to interact with people you might otherwise just pass by without any acknowledgement.
“I learned how to play from some old guy I met on the bus,” Carrasquillo said.
The buzz is real, and I’m officially hooked on Pokémon Go.
Dillon Durst can be reached at [email protected].
