Features / Reportage
I went hunting for Pokemon in Bristol so you didn’t have to
My Pokemon adventure starts right here, in our office in the humble Paintworks. It doesn’t take long after downloading the app to capture my first one: Squirtle. Yes! One of the greats.
But this, being a virtual reality app which gets you to hunt for Pokemon in your surroundings using a map and your camera phone (clever, eh?), is not made for sitting around the office. Bristol, get ready: here I come.
There’s a short discussion as I head out the door. “Didn’t you hear? Someone found a real body in a river looking for Pokemon.”
is needed now More than ever
“I heard someone crashed their car.”
“My mate went into the massage parlour on Stokes Croft looking for one. At least that’s what he said he was doing.”
Hmmm. Well, if they like massage parlours, I know a good one on Old Market.
On my cycle I cross Sparke Evans Footbridge, picking up some Poke Balls on the way and some incense from a Poke Stop which appears on the map.
I use the incense “to attract wild Pokemon”, but all I can see is two old people having a picnic and a man walking a dog.
Ignoring the app’s warning to pay attention to your surroundings, I cycle along the river while looking at my phone screen in case a Pokemon appears. I stop only to look into the Avon New Cut just in case there is a body. No such luck.
I lock my bike up and head down Old Market and arrive at Adam & Eve Massages. But there’s nothing there. The map is dead.
Is there something I’m doing wrong? I walk towards Cabot Circus where there must be tonnes of the critters, reading along the way a few tips – one of which says head to populated places.
But the shopping centre is barren. I head into The Galleries, phone aloft, like a zombie. Everyone seems to be using their phone as they walk. I can’t work out if that’s normal or it’s just that Pokemon Go has been that efficient in taking over everyone’s lives. It was only released in the UK earlier today.
Walking up the stairs I catch a glimpse of a man in a trilby’s phone screen with a familiar-looking map on it.
“Are you playing Pokemon Go?” I ask him.
“Er, no.”
“Are you sure?” I add, glancing at his phone.
“Yep. It’s Google Maps.”
“It looks like Pokeman Go.”
“I’m going into Argos, mate”
Exasperated and embarrassed I head down Corn Street where phone zombies come at me like it’s the Apocalypse, grinning like they’ve got all the Pokemon in the world.
I try a classic trick and turn the app on and off again.
Suddenly all is clear. I see what they see. The whole of Bristol city centre is bristling with Poke Stops, and, sure enough, Pokemon, as my second of the day appears right before my eyes.
Come here you little bastard.
And there’s another, behind me. I’m on a roll. “Take that,” I don’t say as I throw a Pokeball at it and watch it get sucked inside.
I suddenly feel like a monumental dick as I realise I’ve been flicking my phone for about three minutes while waiting at the pedestrian crossing where people have been marching back and forth around me.
I decide to make a tit of myself elsewhere. I go over the fountains, pass the Jesus naysayers shouting at bored commuters, dodge the chuggers and pick up some Poke Balls from the Waterfront on my way to College Green.
I’m briefly distracted by a UWE graduation ceremony and my app pulls me into Bristol Cathedral before I realise how inappropriate this is (not before I’ve turned the sound down and caught a Clefairy).
At this point I should mention I’ve been promoted to Level 2. I’m just three levels away from being allowed to fight my Pokemon at a “gym”, one of which I can see on the map is outside the Wills Memorial Building.
As I make my way to the top of Park Street I’m distracted on Charlotte Street by three blokes who look suspiciously like they are catching Pokemon.
“Oh my god I can’t get this crab,” a 23-year-old salesman says.
He explains that there are loads of Pokemon here because he has made a new law and laid incense. He agrees to stroke a Pokemon I’m trying to catch, just for bants. Six people come and go with their phones as I catch another three pokemon.
One asks me if I’m Level 5 yet, to which I reply, timidly, “no”.
He adds: “Do you know what team you’re going to be?”
I ask if it really matters.
“I dunno. They all hate each other,” he sniggers without looking up.
Anyway, my work is done here, I’m up to Level 3 and my battery is running low.
Now I’ve got the hang of this I head to Stokes Croft to find the massage parlour where I’ve got it on good advice I’m going to catch something.
I turn the app on as I reach Jamaica Street just as a man walks into me while walking his dog.
“Watch where you’re going,” his partner says.
“I was,” he replies, head buried in his phone.
Another Pokemon! And it’s a big one this time. It’s Drowzee, the little bastard, and he’s standing right outside the offices of the Bristol Cable. What’s he doing there? Maybe he’s just finished a citizen journalism training course and is fighting corruption right here on the street.
I throw my Pokeball at him square in the face. “Ha! Take that,” I don’t say.
I walk past the massage parlour, which seems to be undergoing renovations, and a bat flies out. Not just any old bat, a Zubat, of which I already have two. I throw another ball and take myself to Level 4, just one level from gaining entry to a gym to test my Poke-mon/men out.
I head to the Bearpit where I release more incense and pick up a few more Pokemon. I stroll through Broadmead like a Pokemon champion, raking up Poliwag, Nidoran, and two more Zubats.
Outside Harvey Nick’s I reach Level 5 and frantically look on the map for a gym as my battery seeps away.
It’s the friary building just around the corner. I skip around through Broadmead and into Cabot Circus. The adrenaline is rushing, the blood is pumping, the skin is tingling and I am positively marching through the shopping centre staring at my phone.
I finally arrive and tap the screen. I’m not close enough, so go up to the building and tap it again. Which Pokemon do I want to use to fight? Snoozie. No, I change my mind, Squirtle.
And then… Then it happens. My screen turns white, a giant “3” appears as my service provider notifies me that this is the end. The 3 shrinks into oblivion and the phone’s screen goes blank.
I stare at my battery-less phone on the verge of tears. It’s like waking up from a dream, or like being ripped out of my mother’s womb before I’m ready to enter the real world. It’s all over and I can’t even text anyone.
I look up at all the people going by and for the first time I feel the breeze on my face, the sweat patches under my arms and the onset of an atrocious headache.
I drag myself to my feet and begin my trudge back between the shoppers and towards my bike where I left it near Temple Meads all those years ago.
I come to the corner of Broad Weir right outside Castelmead tower and cross the road before walking straight into two guys in three piece suits with their heads buried in their phones.
They are playing Pokemon Go and I ask them how far they’ve got before vomiting out my full story of how I lost two hours of my life and part of my soul.
They can see the despair in my eyes. But they’re not really paying attention. They glaze over and flinch down at their phones like they have some magnetic tick as I tell them about reaching Level 5 and the gym that wasn’t to be.
They don’t care. All they want to do is go to Castle Park and catch some Pokemon.