Now that Pokemon Go has been released to the public (since yesterday, July 7th!) I feel like nearly half the people I see glued to their phones walking down the street must be playing it, just like me! 🙂 So far, I mostly like the game, but it still has some bugs and the servers are most definitely suffering from the overwhelming user load.

One part of these location games that I wish was included was some decent activity to do when you aren’t moving. If you’re unable to move, because say you’re sitting down somewhere, or in an area where GPS is not functioning, the game has very little value. I think it’d be great if they did something to offer unique activities to both situations, moving and stationary.

The game can be a little challenging to understand, as there is minimal in-game instruction provided. Niantic has provided a few official resources (like this one), and plenty of people are also talking about their own discoveries. I wanted to do the same, but go after some of the things I’ve discovered that I haven’t seen documented elsewhere, or was buried and difficult to find.

Tips

Increasing one aspect of catch rate

If you aren’t holding down on the pokeball before you throw it, you’re missing out on the ability to time the target ring (the colored circle around the target pokemon that indicates it’s catch difficulty). As the documentation says, the smaller the chance circle is, the better your chances of catching the pokemon! HOLD the pokeball and throw only when it is as it’s smallest diameter!

Rotating the screen/map

On the map screen, hold down on the screen and move your finger. This will rotate the map around.

Zooming in/out

You can of course pinch and expand two fingers on the screen in order to zoom in and out, respectively. But you can also double tap and hold, then move your finger up or down, to accomplish the same thing! This is useful as it gives you the ability to rotate and zoom with just one hand/finger… probably your thumb, if you’re like me.

Poke Coins

These are the premium currency of the game, and can be bought for real money. But they can also be earned! So far, the only way I know how to earn them is by installing your pokemon into a friendly gym (unlocked at Level 5) and having it survive long enough for the timer located on the Shop screen to reset. So far, I’ve only collected this once, with a single pokemon in a gym… which gave me 10 poke coins.

Faster collection of items from Poke Stops

Some documentation suggests that you “tap” or “swipe” the items that appear when you spin the photo disk at a poke stop in order to collect the items. Did you know you don’t need to do that? Go ahead, spin the disk, and then just close the poke stop screen. You’ll instantly collect all of the items, saving you a few seconds and taps. Kind of nice when you’re in an area with several poke stops and you want to quickly grab all of the items from them.

I’ll continue to update this page with new tips and tricks as I uncover them. If you’ve got any you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments below!

Keywords
Pokemon, Pokemon Tips, Pokèmon, Pokèmon Tips, Pokemon Go, Pokèmon Go