Attention Pokemon Go players! Your life has been taken over by trying to locate Pokestops and Gyms so that you can get a hold of items and train your Pokemon. Turns out there is actually a key of sorts that can help you in your quest.
And the key lies in an earlier game that was developed by Niantic, the makers of Pokeman. When Niantic was part of Google, it had developed a game called Ingress which is also a map based reality game. In Ingress, players had to create portals to capture locations. And, since Pokemon Go is based on Ingress so, in Pokemon Go, Gyms and Pokestops have replaced those portals. Which means you will find Portals and Pokestops/Gyms at the exact same location in both Ingress and Pokemon Go. Not only that the gameplay of Pokemon Go is a lot similar to Ingress.
In Ingress "Exotic Matter" seeps into Earth through portals in order to cover the whole earth with this matter. There are two teams, Green team tries to collect already leaked out Exotic Matter by collecting them through clusters and taking over portals and study it, whereas Blue team tries to do the same in order to destroy it and save humanity from potential alien chemical attack.
Now, Ingress has a Web Map where you can see portals laid out all across the world and since these are also the locations for Pokestops/Gyms you can easily reference this map to check out if there are possible Pokestops and Gyms 10km away from your home or in any other country, or how many possible Pokestops/Gyms are there in your friends locality.
You can see the portals by signing into your Ingress account and going to the website. If you don't have the Ingress app you can sign up at the website and download it. And then it is easy, you can see the spots on the map which will guide you to a Pokestop or a Gym.
Now comes the interesting part! Pokemon fishing! Pokemon fishing is very similar to real fishing. In normal fishing to know the region where the probability of finding a particular type of fish is higher than the other. Similarly, in Pokemon fishing, we can go to certain region and fish for a certain type of Pokemon. This is also the reason why a lot of people catch Ratata, Piegy or Zubat, because they don't know that they are in their fishing zone and also because they are large in numbers.
Coming back to the game, Ingress helps you to find the Pokemon as well. One hint is the rustling of leaves on the map but many times a Pokemon doesn't appear at that spot. Rather, you can see the Ingress app and see the heat map on it to see where you can locate Pokemons. That heat map is nothing but Exotic Matter cluster (those cluster of tiny white dots on the map). So, in other words, if you see a Pokemon with one footstep, instead of running wildly over random places near you, open the Ingress app and rush over to the nearest Exotic Matter cluster. We have tried it over a week and it works every time! By the way, rustling of leaves also occur at locations with most Exotic Matter cluster.
This also means that finding a rare pokemon has become a lot easier. Suppose if someone has caught Gyarados near Statue of Liberty then from now on you won't be running around Statue of Liberty like a wild chicken instead you will open Ingress and look for a spot with most Exotic Matter cluster near Statue of Liberty and fish out Gyarados.
Unfortunately, you won't find Exotic Matter in the Ingress World Map! Overall Ingress is a well built and thought of game. We enjoyed a lot playing Ingress too. We also encourage you to play Ingress and let us know if you find any similarities too between Ingress and Pokemon Go!
There is an app called Poke-Radar which help you to Spot/Mark locations where a particular Pokemon was caught by you/someone.
PRO TIP: Do not go after already evolved wild Pokemons like Charizard, as they will be much weaker. Instead, hatch a Charmander from a 5km egg and then evolve it to Charizard. Believe us the difference will be huge between the two Charizard!
Pokemon Go has broken all the records. It has been downloaded more than Tinder and it has taken over Twitter in terms of daily active users. Many business are using Pokestops and Gyms to entice patrons. There is talk of sponsored gyms being placed in McDonald's eateries. Businesses are also using lures to get more customers by generating Pokemon around the store for, say, half an hour.
Gamers are playing Pokemon Go for an average of 43 minutes per day which is more than the average daily usage of WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook messenger. The augmented reality-based game is on the course to beat Snapchat and even Google maps in terms of the daily active users.
Stay tuned for more updates! Do Share your Thoughts in the Comments section below and Do Not forget to Check Out our Trending Now section! Go Catch'em All!