An on-going Pokemon map of San Francisco
Forget the open-world Pokémon console RPG with wild pocket monsters represented on-screen instead of in random encounters. Nintendo just went and leap frogged all of us by partnering with a mobile company to bring Pokémon into real life.
The pitch perfect announcement trailer belies our lack of knowledge with respect to how Pokémon Go will actually look and function as a real-life application, but it does capture the exploratory, simple-times wonder of walking around a world with fantastical potential pets that you don’t get arrested for keeping and they don’t keep scratching at the fucking carpet.
The “augmented reality” Pokémon Go uses location technology to give you Pokémon to catch based on things like geography. Lapras in the ocean, and all that. You can even stumble across wild battles between monsters, apparently.
I’ve lived in San Francisco all my life which, I assume, isn’t the case for most of the people working at San Francisco-based Pokémon Go developer Niantic, so I’m definitely a leading authority and expert on which fictional creatures would inhabit certain areas. What started as a quick, fun Friday afternoon post has turned into a stupid, slightly more complicated project as I paste sprites onto a map. I may continue to update this and fill out all of San Francisco, probably when I get back from Tokyo.
Please chip in with local knowledge of your respective hoods.
Excelsior
I’ve lived a couple different places in Excelsior, including my current digs. You’ll find savvy Sneasels and Scythers scurrying through the fragrant wild fennel fenced off alongside the sloping freeway underpasses on your way up to the relative wilds of Glen Park. Murkrows dot power lines along Geneva and Mission.
Ekans occasionally slither down from their dry McLaren plains into the European-named streets below. The Meowths, too, will come down and brave the streets to swipe coins, while a more timid crew stays completely up in the hills. Exeggutors wander Mission freely while Machokes are hard at work.
Noe Valley
Wandering Magnemites have been spotted in increasing numbers in this region. They are mostly nocturnal and drain the batteries of residents’ Teslas. Eevee, of course, are prized in Noe Valley, including its fashionable evolutions brought about by precious-gem-owning old money. Except Jolteon. Fuck Jolteon. Wandering Trubbish and Garbodor, abandoned in Dolores Park by transplants and tech assholes, have been spotted wandering into outlying regions such as Noe Valley, but only the latter employs underpaid Quagsire to wash the trash Pokemon downhill into the Mission.
Fort Funston
San Francisco’s beaches are typically cold and free of the Southern California, bathing suit clad beaches people often associate with the state. The lesser known Fort Funston, south of the creatively named Ocean Beach, is a haven for owners of dog Pokémon like Growlithe and Arcanine, which are allowed to run freely amid the wild Sandshrews and Sandiles burrowed in the beach. The dogs are free to chase Wingull up and down, sniff the occasional washed up, dead Krabby, and sometimes roll around in Sealeo corpses, covering themselves in disgusting, rotting viscera.
Beware if you bring your smaller pup Pokémon as assholes nearby (the country club?) occasionally rise their Rapidashes down onto the beach, threatening the safety of all dogs in this typical haven. Plus they shit everywhere and do those prissy fucks get off their high horse to pick it up, like the responsible dog owners? Of course not.