Attention Pokemon Go players! Your life has been taken over by trying to locate Pokestops and Gyms so that you can get a hold of items and train your Pokemon. Turns out there is actually a key of sorts that can help you in your quest.
And the key lies in an earlier game that was developed by Niantic, the makers of Pokeman. When Niantic was part of Google, it had developed a game called Ingress which is also a map based reality game. In Ingress, players had to create portals to capture locations. And, basically, in Pokemon Go, Gyms and Pokestops have replaced those portals.
Now, Ingress has a web map where you can see portals laid out all across the world.
You can also see the portals by signing into your Ingress account and going to this website. If you don't have the Ingress app you can sign up at the website and download it. And then it is easy, you can see the spots on the map which will guide you to a Pokestop or a Gym.
Ingress helps you to find the rare Pokemon as well. One hint is the rustling of leaves on the map but many times a Pokemon doesn't appear at that spot. Rather, you can see the Ingress app and see the heat map on it to see where you can locate more Pokemons. A Reddit user has also put an image of the heat map to show where to find Pokemons.
Pokemon Go has broken all the records. It has been downloaded more than Tinder and it has taken over Twitter in terms of daily active users. Many business are using Pokestops and Gyms to entice patrons. There is talk of sponsored gyms being placed in McDonald's eateries. Businesses are also using lures to get more customers by generating Pokemon around the store for, say, half an hour.
Gamers are playing Pokemon Go for an average of 43 minutes per day which is more than the average daily usage of WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook messenger. The augmented reality-based game is on the course to beat Snapchat and even Google maps in terms of the daily active users.