Can anyone explain Pokemon Go to me please?

[CakeNinja]

Dd has just started playing, we downloaded it this morning and went out for a quick trot round the block.
Found a thing to catch, failed about 15 times to throw the ball in the circle (are we supposed to hit it?) which made our total amount of balls reduce (do we have to pay for more balls?). Then there was a gym battle which she couldn’t complete until she’d levelled up - she did level up and didn’t really understand the gym battle.
There was a page of Pokemon’s local to us to find but it didn’t refresh once we’d found them - we moved to a new area and it was still showing us the ones we’d caught with nothing new to find...
We thought this would be a nice way to get outdoors and it’s just seemed a bit crap! Any advice?!
Tia

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/video_games_chat/3604958-Abra-Abra-Kadabra-PokemonGo-Thread-25?msgid=89115692

Hello @CakeNinja, join us here and ask away.

My own tips: Don't try to do raids solo until you reach Level 20. The same with battling in gyms. Use the appraise tool to get rid of crap IV 'Mon. You choose what team you want to be on once you reach Level 5. Spin every Pokestop and Gym you go past. Keep an eye on what 'Mon are on your nearby, as the black shadows you'll see will add to your Pokedex.

Fiinally, enjoy, it's a great way to get exercise into your child by stealth. Good luck, and welcome to the daft side...

Also every Pokémon will have a coloured circle when you go to catch it - this gives you a clue as to how hard it is to catch (and which type of ball you might need). Green is easy, Orange is medium and red is hard. If you don't have great (blue) or ultra (yellow) balls yet (I can't remember what level you can get these at - sorry) then maybe just focus on Pokémon with green circles if you're low on balls as they're more likely to stay in the ball.
Also the stops give out daily tasks - some of which result in balls as the reward so you could try doing these as a priority to get going.

I've uninstalled wizards unite. Really frustrating game play and what feels like a pointless and fruitless grind. Abs it's all so slowwww!

I think i’ve played it twice since I downloaded it. Neither of them for more than about 5 mins.

I started playing it with ds and I'm the eejit that still plays it! I like to get my daily pokestop and pokemon even if I don't do anything else on it that day.

Well we are pretty disheartened right now! A 3 mile walk with only 2 pokestops and 5 balls yet hundreds of Pokemon! Is this the norm?
I think we might shelve it and take up geocaching!
Thanks for all the wise words guys, we may persist but I think we’re both a little fed up

Go somewhere with lots of pokestops. There are hardly any near me so I have to travel to get to areas with more. Town centres are good or more touristy areas. Find a cafe near a pokestop and pick up the pokestop every 5 minutes while you eat/drink

My nearest pokestop is showing. I have to go into town to find more or drive somewhere

Are you quite rural? It's not well set up for some areas tbh. We live in a village and weirdly there are six or seven Pokestops within a 10 min walk, but some places have barely any.

No we aren’t rural.
There are about 4 in a ten minute walk in one direction from our house and then 2 in an hour in the opposite direction

4 isn't that bad for day to day keeping up streaks etc. Best places to go are town centres or decent sized parks. I used to live in a village with a pokestop over a mile away, at the opposite end of the village (it recently got a new one, whoohoo!) and relied on heading into town once or twice a week to keep a stock of pokeballs.