these_balls | Guide to the PokéGear

Well, let's start off with the basics! What is a PokéGear? It's a small, hand-held device used to communicate with people all around the Pokéverse. PokéGears currently come in two color sets: red for boys and pink for girls. Complete with a touch-screen for typing, and a small stylus attached to the side, you don't have to worry about broken keys or jammed buttons.

How does it work? Simple enough! Once you scan a Trainer ID into the device, it activates a signal. The Trainer ID is a simple identification card, containing the following information: the person's name, ID number (which is also your phone number), date of birth, status (trainer, breeder, citizen, or unknown, and a small picture, taken at a mysterious time that no one might remember. All Rockets are under the status of 'unknown'. The Trainer ID has already been scanned upon arrival through a slot in the pokégear, and that is how it's registered under your name! It automatically connects to a signal once this has been made. The ID is given to you when you receive your Gear.

With the signal activated, the device can then work and connect all over the regions!

Now, on to Useful Functions:

PokéDex
The pokédex is a useful program that recognizes and explains new Pokémon you encounter! Upon seeing a new Pokémon, point the top of your Gear towards it, and if it is registered in the system the Gear will pull up a little screen including the name, type, and well-known fact about the pokémon. If your setting is set to reading aloud, it will do so. The Pokédex also displays the statistics of your pokémon and the ones you fight or come across.

Map
This function pulls up a small map of your current region and location. You will be shown as a little dancing figure (male or female, depending on your gender) on a path or cave or wherever you may be. It also labels the major routes and cities in the region. (For more information, including the map, see the maps page.)

Phone
This one-to-one function connects one person to another's PokéGear or telephone. Much like a regular phone, this works in an audio function and also allows for a person to leave a voicemail post in order to be reached later. It loads a list of your currently saved 'numbers'. Each Trainer ID is used as a phone number, so the name of the person will register. They can be nicknamed much like a normal phone, but you have to edit that in. Saving a person's number in your Gear's address book gives you access to their name, birthdate, and default picture. Phone conversations cannot be hacked but standing too close to someone creates the risk of being overheard.

To use this function in-game, you could either specify in a post or a comment or make a sticky post with an answering machine style message and call it your phone/voicemail post!

PokéGear Connect
This is where posts in Route 29 take place, and how you communicate via pokégear if you choose not to call. The PokéGear Connect (also known as the PokéConnect or the PGC for short) is a program used Most Gears are set to directly broadcast from this program, and it offers three basic communication functions: Voice, Video, and Text. Similar to the phone function, your identification on the PGC registers under your status phone/ID number, with an option for nicknames. (ie. TRAINER 5655403)

Text can be done by touching the screen and summoning the keyboard function. Unfortunately, as of yet, there is no voice-to-text translator. The PokéConnect also broadcasts the weekly weather report, messages from the Pokémon Professors and Alerts from the Kangaskhan Police.

→"Hacking" and "locks" are a new, trainer-discovered function, and it works rather simply: 95%, 70%, 30%, or Open. Expert hackers, or those with high skill, can make or use a 95% hack; those with not as much, a 70%; Beginners, a 30%. And if you attempted to lock and have no idea what you did, it would be Open.

→What happens when someone disappears?
Their Trainer ID and number reads as unavailable or out of service. Any previous posts they may have made to the PGC read as from 'Unknown #####' and are archived.

Radio
For your on-the-go travels, you can listen to the radio! This is the only way to tune out the in-character Route BGM: by playing a different song to replace it. There are 17 Stations, with a broad range from classical and country to technopop and talk radio.
Please see the Music page for the current stations!

PokéStar
[credit goes to Muffin/hokage for the wonderful idea!]
A free, opt-in service (installable at any PokéMart) run by a private company to help you if you're in danger! They serve two primary purposes:

- Emergency services. Like 911/999/111/000/etc. - if you're lost in a cave and your arm was eaten by a pack of wild Ursaring, or if you've fallen and you can't get up, or if you've been surrounded by some superpowered cheating pokébullies and need help getting out of a super sticky situation, you can call dispatch through the emergency button (activated when one goes to make a post on the Connect) and they'll either send a Jenny squad out to help or contact a PokéCenter to get you all the proper help and information.

- You're Lost and Distressed! - The PokéStar have an interactive map of each region. Talking with them, they can help find you and give you directions to get to your destination.

* For a small fee of P50,000, you can have someone at the PokéMart install a GPS chip into your gear. That way, the PokéStar can track you during the call. They can track your location during the call and help give you directions on the closest way to a safer location or to a city. Please note that the GPS function only works in the middle of calling dispatch; other times, they cannot track you, and it only works if you've gotten the chip installed. If you lose or break your Gear, they will give you one replacement chip; if you lose or break it a second time, you will have to pay for a new one.

Applications
Because Johto is a rather tech-saavy region, you can have apps installed into your PokéGear at any local PokéMart!
Music - If you're enjoying some songs way too much, feel free to download them! They're 5P a song.
Games - Your PokéGear comes with three fancy 8-bit games to play! It's Snake, Tetris, and Minesweeper! For 10P, feel free to download other really cheasy, really old games, like Asteroid, Solitaire, or ~~Oregon~~ Kanto Discovery Trail.
*NEW!* Games: Angry Spearow, Robot Rapidash Attack, Sushi Skitty.
Paint - Does your character like to draw or doodle? Now you can draw and share art on your communicators!

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