Google Maps Lets You Catch Pokémon Now
Now you gotta -- oh, all right, you get it.
Man, trying to find directions to places is just so boring. Isn’t there a way that we can make it as compelling as wandering around in tall grass trying to find Pokémon? Wait, there is? Tell us more, Google Maps!
Today, as part of their April Fools activities for this year, Google wants you to become a Pokémon master by taking the aptly named .
Of course, you don’t actually have go mountain climbing to participate. All you have to do is find the “Press Start” button on your iOS or Android Google Maps app, which will drop you off at the Pokémon Lab. For me, that was Google headquarters, but others are also reporting that the lab dropped them off at CERN in Switzerland, so it’s possible that the starting place is random.
From there, it becomes a hide-and-seek sort of game—you tap at each pokémon you find while exploring the map to “catch” them, and they appear as a little pokéball on the map from then on. Once you reach 150 (though it should be noted that they’re not actually confined to the original 150 pokémon), you win.
Yes, we know April 1st is tomorrow for us, but it’s today for a big chunk of the world already, including Japan—you know, where Pokémon was invented? So don’t complain about getting to have fun early. This way, you can devote all of tomorrow to rickrolling your friends with the best of ’em without getting distracted by Meowstics.
(via TheNextWeb, images our own)
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