Playing Pokémon Go is hard. Playing Pokémon Go to manipulate the weak and powerless is even harder. Here are 11 tips pulled by our most beloved nerds and Machiavelli scholars to help you get the most fun and capital of strength out of this game!
11. Ask Your Friend Their Bleakest Memory And Immediately Pull Out Pokémon Go and Start Playing
“Oh is that a Pidgey?”, you shall mutter as your anxious friend tries sadly to get a word in edgewise. “Ho ho, better catch it”, you’ll say as your comrade relives a pained memory you have sparked into motion. He who feels the least pain is master of his endeavors, your friend will quickly realize. “I don’t even like this game,” you’ll offer back to his mumblings. He will know who is better and will do well to follow you into any abyss.
10. Set Lures At Places Of Death And Watch In Glee As Your Weak Friends Lose Their Minds
Watch them. Bear witness as your friend make their way to a graveyard or a valley of death because their phones showed them pink confetti. Shut the doors behind them. Let your cackle echo through every empty alley. Then when you exit clap your hands and say, “Wow, did anyone else catch that Moltres! I caught that Moltres! I suppose he only comes to I, the powerful! This is a great game!”
9. Try To Rename Each And Every Pokéstop “The Future Property Of Alex Firer”
Or use your name if possible, but I would not recommend it. Send your neighborhood a strong message when they walk through the streets looking for an errant Doduo: It is not their streets they walk on, and they never were, for the future owner of the asphalt is waiting around the corner, riding the bus back and forth to try to evolve his PokéEgg. It’s a 10 mile egg! Hope it’s a Chansey!
8. Tell Fellow Pokémon Go Players That Zapdos Came To You In A Dream And Told You God Has Chosen You To Capture It
Has Zapdos yet been caught in this game? No, of course not. Few players know how to yet capture it. However Zapdos came to you. It startled you in a dream as it cawed one caw and bowed to you. “Alex, only those of noble spirit shall capture me”, whispered the legendary bird, “And Alex, God has chosen you to be the one!” The Zapdos shall light up—“I am God’s Light And His Spirit Reborn! Gaze Into Me For I Am The Salvation And You The Absorber! I Am The Heat Of God’s Love And You But A Plant Feeding Upon The God-Like Heat That I Emanate From My Jagged Bloodied Wings! Zapdos!” Then you wake up and lead your people to the melting pizza mural by the Gelson’s on Franklin Ave, because that’s where the deity told you it is.
7. With Your Newfound Army Massacre The Owners Of Any Gyms
And I’m not talking about just beating the Pokémon they have there—that is not enough! Any enemy left standing is just an enemy soon to rise again and raise knife to your fattened back! No—you must find out where these owners live and slaughter them with the tip of your eternal dagger and the power of your army. For God has come to you in a dream and told you the location of Zapdos and God shall come again and tell you facts and tales true, and if your head is not on the crown, if your head is not closer to the sky as it sits upon the towers of gyms, how can God find you? With ten thousand knives you strike, and there is no CP 1,200 Arcanine to save you from the eternal daggers of Heaven.
6. Make Sure Your Face Is The First Anyone’s PokéEggs See Upon Hatching
For their children are now your children, and all is your property, from animal to man under setting glow of the PokéSun. Let your followers call you father, let their hatched Pokémon call you father—you are the patriarch of a long extended family of fourteen hundred sons and fourteen hundred daughters all fit to serve you and your vision—and when anyone steps out of line the power of the daggers shall serve as strict punishment.
5. Don’t Forget To Stock Up On Incubators
They’re one of the most important parts of the game, by cracky!
4. Give Birth To 10 Human Children With 10 Selected Women And Name Every Child Cubone
Dress them as Cubones in the skulls of small animals that your Luckiest Eggs (7 hapless men with clothes painted on them so they can feel the coldest of the cold) will find and slaughter for the behalf of your progeny! Teach them only the ways of war and have their first kill be the Luckiest Eggs as their mother is at work producing further Cubones, for an army can die a thousand deaths, but it must birth 10,000 more.
3. Oh! Also Buy Incense
Incense is perfect for catching quite a few Pokémon when you’re short on time! It’s great! Oh also, there are no more footprints because I did not feel like carrying you any longer. My power knows few bounds.
2. Storm Ninatic Headquarters And Hold Them Hostage Until Every Single Pokémon In The Game Is Replaced By Your Very Face
The people of Ninantic have loved ones, families, even if their loved one is their own heart and their family is their own ambition. Have them gaze into the dead eyes of men, women, children masked in the visages of the Pokémon they most hold dear—Wigglytuff, Clefairy, Mr. Mime (their strength is knowing their weakness)—and demand to change every face in the game to your own. You may go to prison for your crimes, they might call you mad, but the mark will either be made, or the idea of the mark will be imprinted in people’s heads as it may as well take the place of the original game. I Am Forever. I Am Pikachu And I Am Ready To Lead The Weak To Heaven.
1. When You Die You Live Forever So Fake Your Death And Watch As The Concept Of You Suffocates Any Life You Have Ever Touched
Also don’t waste all your Pokéballs on Zubats. Only the weak waste their filth ridden Pokéballs on Zubats.
Remember! One update from Ninatic can undo all your hard work and leave you at the mercy of your angered followers and the deathly law! Keep a suitcase and a new identity handy at all times, plus some extra battery chargers just in case! Happy hunting trainers!
Alex Firer has written for The Onion, Splitsider, Funny or Die and more. He’s on Twitter @AlexFirer.