In That Pokeyman Thing Your Grandkids Are Into, you play as Grandpa, who borrows grandson Billy’s phone and leaves the old folks’ home for a Pokeyman hunting adventure. This game uses all the tropes of old-school RPG games, with a Pokemon Go twist. Lost little girl in the forest? She doesn’t want a map, she was a Charizorb! Gatekeeper to the next area? Doesn’t want gold, just prove your Pokey-hunting prowess.
With a dual-screen UI, showing both a blocky overview of Grandpa and his surroundings, and a light-blue phone screen for catching Pokeymen, you’ll help Grandpa find and catch Pokeymans. Grandpa catches mostly Pidgeys Dumb Birds, although there’s a super cute rare Peekachorp, a Charizorb, Just Eggs, and some other funny bizarreo-world Pokemon. At the conclusion of the game, it turned out I had 17 of 18 possible Pokeymans, which kind of made me want to play again to find whichever superdeformed Pokeyman I haven’t seen. Gotta catch ‘em all, I guess.
Talking to other game characters gets Grandpa typical soundbites about Pokeman Go, from children, punk teens, and elders. All these kids using their phones in public! Haha! Trespassing to search of imaginary monsters! Haha! You’re in a graveyard looking for rares! (Note: When I die, it would be awesome if my grave was used as a node in whatever AR game the kids are playing in the future, so people will come visit me to play games! I wonder if I should put a Pokestop clause in my will.) These comments and observations are nothing that hasn’t been said before, but the combination of old-school RPG format and grandfather as the straightman who just wants to play some good old shuffleboard make it funnier than yet another navel-gazing thinkpiece on the Social Value of Pokemon Go.
Punch The Moon’s That Pokeyman Thing Your Grandkids Are Into is available to play now in in your browser. It’s a quick playthrough, and besides, you can’t catch any new Pokemon from your desk anyway.
