What is Pokémon GO?

Travel between the real world and the virtual world of Pokémon with Pokémon GO for iPhone and Android devices! With Pokémon GO, you’ll discover Pokémon in a whole new world—your own! Pokémon GO uses real location information to encourage players to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon.

The Pokémon video game series has used real-world locations such as the Hokkaido and Kanto regions of Japan, New York, and Paris as inspiration for the fantasy settings in which its games take place. Now the real world is the setting!

The Pokémon video game series has always valued open and social experiences, such as connecting with other players to enjoy trading and battling Pokémon. Pokémon GO’s gameplay experience goes beyond what appears on screen, as players explore their neighbourhoods, communities, and the world they live in to discover Pokémon alongside friends and other players.

Pokémon GO is developed by Niantic, Inc. Originally founded by Google Earth co-creator John Hanke as a start-up within Google, Niantic is known for creating Ingress, the augmented reality mobile game that utilizes GPS technology to fuel a sci-fi story encompassing the entire world. Ingress currently has 12 million downloads worldwide.

Source: https://pkmngowiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

How it works from our perspective?

Way-finding

Way-finding works by using the phones location services to know the user position in space. A radar is then used to activate points of interest around a user, such as Poke Stops and Pokemon encounters. The player is represented through an avatar on the map itself.

AR  View

In my opinion Pokemon go is not true AR.  I uses the camera view with a UI Overlay that is positioned using a phones gyro / accelerometer. This creates the illusion of a virtual object in physical reality however this can be debunked by moving the phone around in space. When this is done virtual objects retain the same distance from the phone and move position in space, where as if they were true AR they would retain a “fixed”position in space.
Another thing to understand is that not many people use this view as it complicates the Pokemon catching Pokemon. Many just use the default 3D view that keep the Pokemon in view at all times.

What we will use

This precedent will be used as a basis and inspiration for way finding and the AR instance using the phones gyro sensor.

However for our map we are leaning towards a 2D style, opposed to the 3D style of Pokemon Go. We also need to be careful not to make the visuals too much like Pokemon Go as it is a well known application, but we can use it to inform the mechanics of the way finding as these are already well known.