
Google Maps now lets you find and catch wild Pokémon - kevinwuhoo
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/03/31/can-now-find-catch-wild-pokemon-inside-google-maps/
======
jzelinskie
I've always considered this to be the "killer app" for AR, when it's actually
ready. Seeing people pull over their car during their morning commute to catch
a Pokemon that caught their eye would be hilarious.

~~~
smokinjoe
Yes and no.. I would not appreciate someone cutting me off because they need
to grab that specific Pokemon.

And while I realize that would be more an exception than rule, it would still
happen. It drives me crazy enough when people just slam on the breaks after
they miss an exit/turn (just keep going until you can turn around, please) - I
personally would not like that extra dabble of human reaction thrown into a
commuter experience.

~~~
scrollaway
Please stop hindering cool stuff just because you have a sucky driving
experience. You'll have a sucky driving experience regardless - assholes exist
everywhere, Google Pokemon or not.

Edit: I see I'm being downvoted so I'd like to elaborate: Frankly, the
behaviour of people on the road is and should be of zero concern to the
developer of an app that has nothing to do with driving. Should the original
dev behind the port of 2048 have stopped to think how many deaths his app
would cause because idiots would play it while driving?

Maybe I'm biased because I find that too many people solve the transportation
problem with cars when their use case is covered with bikes or public
transports at lower costs. (Translation, I think that driving is stupid unless
you got an excellent reason. Please don't list your excellent reasons.)

~~~
smokinjoe
Sucky?

Sucky is being stuck in endless traffic or getting a flat tire.

I'm talking about the disregard people have for the safety of others at times
while on the open road. I want a safe drive, you want pokemon on the side of
the road - I think somewhere on the path to those goals there are enough
compromises we would both share.

Reply to the edit:

>Frankly, the behaviour of people on the road is and should be of zero concern
to the developer of an app that has nothing to do with driving.

You want app developers to take possible use-cases and completely ignore them?
That doesn't seem like a very good user experience.

> Maybe I'm biased because I find that too many people solve the
> transportation problem with cars when their use case is covered with bikes
> or public transports at lower costs. (Translation, I think that driving is
> stupid unless you got an excellent reason. Please don't list your excellent
> reasons.)

You are biased, and confirm it with your parenthetical statement.

People are going to own and use cars despite what your opinion on use-cases
is. I personally would rather developers keep that in mind instead of just
throwing a whole ton of crap out there that may actually affect my personal
safety.

That said, I think the second point is slightly deviating away from the
original topic.

~~~
derefr
How about I, as a developer, "consider your safety" by only releasing my app
in European markets where bicycling is more popular than car-travel?

~~~
smokinjoe
I think it'd be highly inefficient to specifically consider only my safety.

I'm also pretty sure they drive cars in Europe. How does your suggestion aid
someone in Germany that just got clipped from someone pulling over
unexpectedly?

Also, your suggestion brings up a thought: I'm sure that driver laws differ
from country to country in Europe. You're going to need to build some sort of
UI/UX that complies with those laws if you want the app to be used freely
while driving.

~~~
dwd
It is illegal in most countries including Germany to use a hand-held device
while driving.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety)

Having the app switch off when the GPS calculates you are traveling faster
than 30kmh would be an interesting hack.

~~~
kalleboo
> Having the app switch off when the GPS calculates you are traveling faster
> than 30kmh would be an interesting hack.

The Japanese carrier docomo have an Android app to stop you from using your
smartphone while walking, the latest menace to public safety.

[https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/2013/12/03_00....](https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/2013/12/03_00.html)

~~~
dwd
Even switching off the touch capability would be worthwhile, so you could only
use voice. (hands-free)

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al_
Shameless plug, but I'm working on a similar mobile game : Mobbles (Our
tagline is actually Google Maps + Pokemon)
[http://www.mobbles.com](http://www.mobbles.com)

I'm not that unhappy it's an April fool ;)

~~~
boqeh
Pretty cute creature designs. Nice work!

~~~
al_
Thanks! Needless to say, we used to play a lot of Pokemon in our youth...

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afreak
Here's a question not being asked: when did Nintendo allow for its IP to be
used outside of their platform(s)? Is this just an extension of the animated
show or is it an extension of the game? From the way this works, it looks like
this is the answer to their current sales woes?

April Fool's joke or not, but it is quite impressive to see Nintendo's IP
being used for a game of sorts outside of their own hardware.

~~~
barbs
I'm a bit surprised Nintendo hasn't released their own pokemon app for
iOS/Android. Though I guess they're seen as a competitor to the DS these
days...

~~~
Cthulhu_
Probably that; port the Nintendo games to a non-Nintendo platform and nobody
will buy Nintendo platforms anymore. I'm pretty sure Nintendo's hardly ever
released any of its IP outside of its own platforms.

~~~
cjrp
Are people still buying Nintendo platforms anyway?

~~~
rubinelli
They have sold more than 40 million 3DS units.

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iscrewyou
For anyone who'd like to cheat:

[http://pokemonaprilfools.wikia.com/wiki/Sorted_by_Pokedex_No](http://pokemonaprilfools.wikia.com/wiki/Sorted_by_Pokedex_No).

~~~
GuiA
Wikia is one of my favorite platforms enabled by the internet. In hours after
any new content is released (whether it is a game, movie, book, etc.), it gets
thoroughly documented and compiled by a distributed community.

~~~
scrollaway
Wikia is a good idea wrapped in a company that is shady as fuck and has no
competition outside the gaming market.

They have a history of treating their community like crap, forcing wikis they
buy (uncyclopedia for example) to destroy their brand and move to *.wikia.com.
They encourage content farming (copying content from other websites with no
regard for the license etc) and, worst of all, their wikis are more ad
infested than a Windows 98 computer running IE6 after grandma has had her dose
of free smileys.

Hey, entrepreneurs of HN: ever thought about solving the wiki community
problem? This is a problem worth tackling if you figure out a way to make it
cheap to tackle and monetize it (possibly by offering sub-monetization to your
wikis, letting communities pay their editors and running an actual community
economy). This is a freebie - but do PM me if you tackle it I want to see it
in action!

~~~
LoneWolf
Totally off topic but I really need to say it, a good example of bad wikia
behavior was the unofficial guild wars wiki, that went down in quality and
lost a lot of contributors when it moved there myself included, they forced a
terrible layout just because they wanted ad space everywhere ruining the
experience.

~~~
scrollaway
I recommend looking at gamepedia for gaming wikis. They're not great (plenty
of ads still) but at least they don't force a stupid layout. Also curse is
massively better community-wise.

------
jw2013
"Side effects of the Pokémon Challenge may include extreme excitement and a
sense of accomplishment. Do not operate the Pokémon Challenge in Google Maps
while driving or operating heavy machinery. Our hiring committee must first
battle to determine who can best judge the Pokémon Master. The battle date has
yet to be set, so the role of Pokémon Master is not yet available."

Aha, well played, Google.

------
trekforever
I guess Google wants this April's Fools day to be the 'very best'

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Tiktaalik
Nothing near me, but I found several Pokemon around the Google campus in
Mountain View.

Did they statically author these with set GPS coordinates instead of
dynamically generating them around you?

~~~
fmorel
I think they're all static or randomly assigned to the same spots. I see some
around the Googleplex, Manhattan, Tokyo, and Paris. But nothing near me in
Atlanta.

~~~
ucarion
I think they're hard-coded to appear in places that are the real-life
locations of Pokemon games, and they tossed in the Googleplex for fun.

For instance, the latest Pokemon iteration is quite obviously based on France
[1], so that's why Google put creatures there.

[1]: A map of the Pokemon X / Y world:
[http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/194c63lohgnayjpg/original.jp...](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/194c63lohgnayjpg/original.jpg)

~~~
jonalmeida
Definitely hard-coded. But I have a feeling they got Google employees to
choose places on the maps by telling them to choose places they like or
something like that (without mentioning what project this is for).

The reason I think so, is because some places seem to be residential, like
they're places you would live at.

------
brianpgordon
I feel like they must have someone working on the April fool's prank year-
round.

~~~
pearjuice
Someone? More like an entire division with an own budget. Looking at the video
of this gig, they have a helicopter(!), a crew of actors (maybe employees) a
full-sized camera team and a few GFX-artists.

It's understandable why Google is one of the "hottest" companies in tech right
now.

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Technically, wouldn't that just be... the advertising department? I mean,
writing, production, distribution, GOALS, are all... the exact same as
advertising.

Only better, because good April Fools projects are awesome.

------
kylemaxwell
This would probably be more popular than Ingress if they did it right. And
yes, combined with the "other" AR (augmented vs alternate) it would be
revolutionary.

~~~
deletes
Seriously, what are they waiting for. I'm not a teenager anymore, but If this
was a serious app I would totally go catch a few, granted as a joke. And kids
would go crazy over this, every single one already has the pokedex( smartphone
), that basically has all required capabilities.

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azdle
I know that this was released on april 1st, and it probably an april fools day
thing, but it could be a genius way to keep street view up to date.

New building get constructed? Put some Pokemon there and people take pictures
from all angles for you.

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pearjuice
I don't think this is a joke. It is a fully functional application/game and
judging from the partnership with Nintendo there is more behind this.

The video is really good too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YMD6xELI_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YMD6xELI_k)

~~~
paraboul
Yes Larry announced that he's leaving his position so that he can catch 'em
all.

~~~
paraboul
Ok, got it, no joke about April fools.

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LukeWalsh
So far the best luck I've had is googling landmarks (eiffel tower, white
house, grand canyon, etc.). Will be interesting to see the compiled list of
where they are all located once people start finding more of them.

~~~
laconic-io
Got one in Everest

------
jonalmeida
I'm surprised that the Google Maps team didn't work with the Ingress team to
make this a proper AR game. Maybe there wasn't enough time, or they thought it
was too complex?

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cpg
Tangentially related, for those interested, I just revived an app that I found
a while ago to run on recent ruby/sinatra to make pokemon creatures
[https://github.com/cpg/pokemaker](https://github.com/cpg/pokemaker)

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GazNewt
Where's the distance measuring ruler gone in the new maps? Pokémon is a higher
priority?

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NicoJuicy
I actually thought this (indeed) to be a killer app.. But i checked it out and
had problems with terrain identification with Google Maps...

Not a killer app for AR, but just a casual game like Ingress (mentioned in
another app also)

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mfabbri77
[https://www.war2map.com](https://www.war2map.com) This is the most "complete"
strategy game on Google Maps

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Grue3
Now if only it didn't run dog ass slow and/or crash my browser. Seriously,
what was Google thinking with their "new" interface?

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thatmatt
CERN is a second pokemon lab/center. Bunch around there. Also some searches
for town names worked: "Palette", etc.

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lispylol
Holy shit this is for real! There's a pokemon two blocks away from me LOL.

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polm23
I was really surprised to see nothing at the Game Freak offices.

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k_bx
Thought it's first 1st April joke.

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mantazer
How to catch Kecleon?

~~~
roryokane
He’s #71 on the list at
[http://pokemonaprilfools.wikia.com/wiki/Sorted_by_Pokedex_No](http://pokemonaprilfools.wikia.com/wiki/Sorted_by_Pokedex_No).
Just go to any of the places listed by his name.

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elwell
Pleasantly surprised to not find a single post about Google privacy issues.
_keeping my fingers crossed_

~~~
wingerlang
But you just made one..

