(Played on campus throughout the day on my phone)
Adding more pokémon to Pokémon Go is all well and good, but it can only draw players back in for so long. So what did Niantic change about the actual mechanics of the game since the initial successful-yet-short-lived launch, and is the game really any better?
Mechanically speaking, I can’t see a lot that has changed significantly since I played last, but there are some small details that drew me back in. The locating feature is great, and really has improved upon the old system of just showing the pokémon (or their outline) and how far away they are from the player’s location; while the distance is still represented by footprints, images now accompany the pokémon and their distance so you can see where you need to go to find them. (They did have a hiccup in between where there was no distance indicator, which made headlines at the time due to player frustration with the removal of the feature).
So the “nearby” system has improved significantly, but other than that very little seems to have changed. There are definitely more warning messages about staying out of dangerous places and not driving while playing…
All of which are great, considering that kids do play the game…although it seems a little ridiculous that Niantic has to tell adults to have common sense and not drive while playing.
I also enjoy the added avatar customization, and being able to pick a pokémon to “walk” with you – it’s great that Niantic recognized the importance of the avatar, even if the options are a bit limited.
I did revisit the avatar customization on my second day of playing the game, and found that I rather enjoyed some of the new outfit options that weren’t available the first time I downloaded the app (there were more options that you could buy, as well, but I wasn’t about to spend real money on the app). I spent some time fiddling with the outfit combinations, but it seems like the game designers working on the clothing didn’t really consider what “goes together” when determining the free v. paid options (although this could be another tactic to make players want to buy the locked clothing items).
Here is where I discovered the “buddy” option – I do enjoy this new feature, as it allows players to showcase their favorite pokémon with their avatar. But it is annoying that the pokémon doesn’t “walk” with your avatar on the in-game map (although, I am just being a bit nit-picky there).
The limited options for customization might be a bit more important if interaction between players was more emphasized in-game, since avatars are “a marker of player identity”; the more we know that others will see our avatar, the more likely we’re going to be desirous of customization (Where the Women Are 104). Pokémon Go doesn’t really seem to fit in the traditional model when thinking about avatars, though, since it is an augmented reality game and players are meant to be feeling as if their actual bodies are participating in the gameworld.