Pokemon Go: A day hunting Zubats and Pidgeys on Dublin streets

It is just before midnight on Monday and I come across an article about something called PokémonGo on Twitter. Augmented reality? Pokémon? Adults? It sounds utterly ridiculous.

“Just when I thought the 21st Century couldn’t get any stupider Pokeman (sic) Go happened,” I tell anyone listening on the most social of networks.

I wake up to dog’s abuse.

Grandpa Simpson

“You’re too old to understand our youthful ways, Pops,” fans of the game shriek. One person tells me that if I am anti-PokémonGo, I must be anti-joy. I am sent pictures of Grandpa Simpson.

People are calling me Grandpa Simpson. I have never been so offended.

But I rise above these petty insults and do not spend hours looking up my haters’ twitter profiles to see just how much younger these go-getters are than me. Not much is the answer. The people who are calling me old and past it are in their 30s and 40s. Some look older than me.

But there criticism has stung me and I start to feel guilty. I have slagged a game off without knowing how to play it - or even how to spell it.

It is early on Tuesday morning when I download PokémonGo. In Japanese. I struggle through the opening screens, marvelling at the linguistic ability of the Irish people who had downloaded the game and then shouted at me for not liking it.

I delete the app and download it again. It is still in Japanese.

When I get to work, a colleague tells me there is a way to get the English-language version of the game which has been released in the US but not yet in Ireland.

To get the app, I must lie to my phone and pretend I live in America. I tell it I am living in the LA Westin. I move through the process so slowly, I can feel the frustrated eyes of Wunderkind burning into me. She sighs heavily and takes my phone and signs me up to iTunes in the US in seconds.

“You’re not really great with technology are you?,” she asks.

I have never felt more like Grandpa Simpson.

Incubation

At least until she explains the rules of the game to me. "There is a Pokéstop in The Irish Times where you collect Pokéballs which can be used to capture Pokémon and you can take over gyms and hatch eggs and...."

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it,” I lie.

I forget about PokémonGo for the rest of the day.

I remember it later that day when I am in the back of a taxi heading towards Ballymount. I activate the app and a little blue thing flashes on a street map of Dublin which has magically appeared. As the cab passes more blue things, I punch the screen with my fat fingers and the blue things turn into pictures of nearby landmarks on a spinning disc. I twirl the discs furiously and win little Pokéballs.

It is so exciting.

I get a couple of eggs too. I put them aside for later incubation.

To incubate an egg you have to walk a certain distance. “Or take a taxi,” I think to myself.

First sighting

Hours later I am in another taxi - on Islandbridge - when I see my first Pokémon. It just appears on my phone. Randomly. I attack it with the Pokéballs. Then my phone dies, having been drained of all life by the app.

The morning of my second day as a PokémonGo-er finds me at the Church of Scientology Pokéstop on Dublin's Middle Abbey St where I collect an egg to incubate and three Pokéballs which is two less than I am given by Freemasons near the Dail.

And yes, that is the weirdest sentence I have ever written for The Irish Times.

At the Lilliput Cafe on Dublin’s Arbour Hill a Zubat appears. I know this because my phone vibrated and automatically switched from a street map to a live view of the street on which the Zubat has been superimposed.

I stop what I am doing - which is walking - and throw Pokésballs randomly at it. Minutes pass. It doesn’t go away. A car horn blares impatiently. I realise I am standing in the middle of a road, risking my life trying to capture a non-existent thing.

The Life of Pidgey

It is absurd. I abandon my task and leave the scene. The Zubat follows me and every time I look at my phone, I see the real time live view of whatever street I am on and the Pokésmon dancing away in front of me.

I fire more Pokéballs at it. Indiscriminately.

No joy. I am clearly doing something wrong. I turn to Google for help. I type in the words "how to capture" and it automatically prompts me with the word "Pokémon". I learn a new technique. The Pokémon is captured. And I am at peace.

But not for long. A few minutes later I am in an Insomnia cafe. Pidgey appears. He (she? It? ) appears just as the barista hands me my coffee. The coffee nearly ends up in my lap as I try to capture the thing.

The barista looks at me like I have two heads.

I wander through Temple Bar, head still buried in the phone. I bump (literally) into a colleague. "Are you playing Pokémon GO," he says incredulously.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Because you look like an idiot.”

He’s not wrong.