Popular 'Pokémon Challenge' Google's big April Fool's joke

Meanwhile, on the internet by Tribune Reporters

Published: March 31, 2014 6:35 pm
Mobile • Fake augmented reality video leads to real smartphone game.
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Pokémon hunting just went to the next level. Google announced Monday an augmented reality challenge that involves using Google Maps and your smartphone to find the floppy Nintendo creatures as they hide throughout the U.S.

The Pokémon Challenge has become all the sensation on the Internet in just the hours after it was introduced. There's only one problem: It's all a big April Fool's joke by the giant search engine company.

Google announced The Pokémon Challenge with a video on Monday and showed intrepid Pokémon hunters looking for the creatures with their phones and finding them through augmented reality where the camera phone can spot the animated characters living in the real world.

But of course, augmented reality is not that advanced as much as we wish it was, and therefore, that's not how the challenge works.

You still, however, can play the mobile game. After you open up Google Maps on either an iOS or Android device, all you have to do is press on the search line, then "Press Start" and it takes you to a cartoon home where you can capture the Nintendo characters peppered throughout the map by just touching them on the screen. There are 150 Pokémon characters to look for.

vince@sltrib.com

Twitter: @ohmytech

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