I have to admit, I think Pokemon just missed me when it first became big, but there was something about Pokemon Go that got my interest… it was possibly the huge amount of talk online that did it… and the lack of ability to download it in the UK at the time.

But what is Pokemon Go anyway? In the words of wikipedia… “Pokémon Go is a free-to-play location-based augmented reality mobile game, developed by Niantic and published by The Pokémon Company as part of the Pokémon franchise. It was released worldwide in July 2016 for iOS and Android devices.” Augmented Reality. is a fancy term for when a view of the real world has elements added to by computer-generated elements such as sound, video, or graphics. (See this mashable for more)

Why did I say all that?

Simply, Pokemon Go is a game where you walk around your neighbourhood looking for pokemon to catch. Walk a little further, and you can access powerups, and train your pokemon. There are expectations that there is a going to be a trading system in a future Pokemon Go update. I’ve heard its a little like Geocaching

Basically we have a game here that encourages people to go outside… and possibly even talk

to people around them.  People are also tweeting that its helping with depression and social anxiety.

I’m not going to say that this is the perfect game for Little Ones to play, due to it not being massively little kid friendly (for that I would suggest checking out the Cbeebies apps), but for older kids, this may be a great game to load up on walks around parks… and to go and catch pokemon together.

Pokemon Go can be found at your mobile app stores… and I would suggest checking it out.

If Pokemon Go still isn’t sounding like your thing, how about Chardonnay Go?