The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Gamer Alex Kelly has become one of a handful of people across the globe to ‘catch’ one million Pokemon, walking 17,000 miles in the process.
Dundee gamer Alex Kelly has become one of only a handful of people in the world to collect one million Pokémon.
The 20-year-old has spent more than four years on a mission to collect the virtual pocket monsters on the online Pokémon Go app.
Alex, from Broughty Ferry, has walked more than 17,000 miles on his mission, wearing through a dozen pairs of shoes.
Pokémon exploded into popular culture in the 90s, featuring gaming card, TV series and films.
After a hiatus, the franchise returned with a bang in 2016, with millions of people downloading the free game app.
It uses mobile GPS to detect where a user is and makes Pokémon “appear” to be caught.
As the user moves around, different and more types of Pokémon will appear depending on the location and time.
Dundee Pokémon Go Master Alex has been playing since the app launched and is thought to be the first person in the UK to capture one million creatures, and only the third in the world.
He said: “I get that it is just a game, but I’m genuinely so happy that I’ve finally done this.
“It’s not just me who plays like this, other people have been trying too.
“There are Facebook groups so it became about competition, I wanted to get ahead of the others in a friendly way.”
On average, Alex has walked around 10 miles and caught more than 600 Pokémon per day since he started playing in the summer of 2016.
But it was only this time last year, when he reached 400,000 catches, that he realised reaching one million was within reach.
“The last few months have been long trying to get to the goal but it hasn’t felt like four and a half years in total,” he said.
“I had the one million idea a couple of years ago but it was only about a year ago I thought ‘oh, I can actually do this’.”
Lockdown threw a spanner in the works as Alex was limited to where he could go but he split his time between Broughty and Riverside, where he works at Tesco.
“It’s a relief in a way not having to do it so much but it feels good to have achieved it,” he said.
“If I was working I’d do around four hours, split between morning and evening.
“If I was off and the weather was nice I could do eight to 10 hours.
“When lockdown happened it was essentially a loop, it got a bit tedious at times.”
Alex is a member of Dundee’s Team Rocket Pokémon community, and is known as DDPKM in the group, which connects local players aged 18 to 78.
Alex’s millionth catch was the Totodile, a miniature blue crocodile.
He is already planning future challenges, but added “right now I’m resting”.