This Chinese ‘Pokemon Go’ Clone Is Super Effective

While it seems that the entire developed world has gone completely crazy for Pokémon GO, the mobile powerhouse has yet to roll out in several countries across the globe. One of those being China, where the government has something of a reputation for being picky when it comes to pop culture imports. Which is why a local developer has made their own version.

In lieu of the real thing, Chinese mobile gamers have latched on to City Spirit Go by Chinese developer Xiaoyu Sun. Efforts to slake their wanderlust have quickly turned the title into the most popular game on Apple’s Chinese iOS store.

The game allows players to walk around their physical surroundings and collect colorful, imaginative cartoon monsters. Sound familiar? While not technically an augmented reality game, because it doesn’t make use of a player’s camera, the game does make use of geo-location in much the same way as Niantic’s title.

Unfortunately for Chinese gamers, they may have to get used to their Pokémon GO workaround as Niantic has declared that they will not be expanding the game to other countries until the Pokémon GO craze (and their servers) have stabilized somewhat. In other words, depending on how long the phenomenon goes, it could be several months before Chinese players can get their hands on legitimate Squirtle.