In Glenwood, got some good walking in

As stated in the previous post, I'm in Glenwood Springs. We parked the car in front of our hotel and have been walking everywhere. And the Pokewalker has been in my pocket all day (10K+ steps, according to it). There was a significant amount of discussion of it at the Brewery as well today. We all passed it around and got a good chuckle out of the Slowpoke I put on there (a Slowpoke on a pokewalker is apparently "epic, but not as epic as a Snorlax on one.")

There were some thoughts about this. We were discussing if a pokemon levels up faster with the walker than it does when fighting normally (ie. put it as the first and instantly switch it out with something strong enough to battle whatever you're fighting). I'm hypothesizing that no, it doesn't; all this walking today made my Slowpoke only go up a single level. But, it might be worth testing this.

It also came up in conversation whether if the pokemon would learn a new attack at the level up that it does in this device, whether it would do it or not. When you leave a pokemon at the ranch in the game for others to raise, you lose those attacks; so it was hypothesized that the same might happen for pokemon in the walker.

I also figured out that you can get a new area to walk in for every badge you collect (at a minimum). And there are different pokemon in the areas (many of which you haven't yet seen in the game, so there is significant motivation to try and capture some of those).

We also discussed who might use the walker as a useful device. Because, it really seems easier to raise pokemon normally in the game. I can see the use case of a 10 year old boy carrying the pokewalker to and from school and screwing with it in class and between class (frankly, I expect schools to react and ban the things when these are officially released in the US (way to go pro-health policies)). I say 10 year old boy, mainly because I remember being in that situation and bringing stuff like the pokewalker to school and playing with others who owned the same. Margaret mentioned that pokemon was really cool in 6th-7th grade and it would be seen as cool to have the pokewalker on your belt. But by 8th grade, it was no longer cool and such a thing would get you shunned. I dunno, we'll have to see what kids do with this, but I think I can safely guarantee they will be playing with it.

I'm also remembering a ton of Japanese as I'm playing this game. I'm starting to sound things out that come in menus I see all the time. I decided instead of going "ok, the second from the top is the one I want" that I should make sure I know what buttons say incase some new item gets introduced that moves them around. I've also been doing the same with attacks and such. Doing this has turned this game from a chore back into an enjoyable game.

There was another observation about the device: when you are walking and then suddenly look at the device, you can see the number incrementing quickly and the pokemon walking with you; there appears to be a bit of a time lag to give you feedback. We also we passing the device around the table playing with shaking it in various ways to get it to register steps. I think the best method is a simple moving your hands in a ellipse with the walker in it; any straight motions aren't detected reliably as steps. This makes it a little harder to cheat at this than with the Pocket Pikachu 2 (which has stories online of kids sitting and just shaking the thing).

Also my wonderful girlfriend got me a DSi for Valentines Day!!!