9 Essential Pokémon Go Hacks

Hey, have you heard about Pokémon Go? Just kidding. You're here because you wanted to figure out how to cheat at the mobile game. And you know what? That's why this article exists. Everybody wins. Except people not  reading this article. Suckers.

Without further ado, here are a bunch of tips and workarounds for maxing out your Pokédex without having to walk to the ends of the Earth -- or hell, even the ends of your block.

Unless you just love killing your battery -- pretty weird fetish, but whatevs -- this is the first thing you should do after downloading logging in. All it takes is clicking the Pokéball on the bottom of the home screen, then clicking on the setting wheel in the top right corner. Check Battery Saver. Done and done.

Start off with Pikachu
As the series started with Pokémon Red and Blue back in the day, you begin your journey having to choose among Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle as your first Pokémon. Pikachu ain't in there.

But as Polygon details, there's a secret way to start out with the lil electric rodent that doesn't involve waiting for Pokémon Go Yellow: just ignore the other three. If you ignore the trio four times, they'll reappear with Pikachu to make it a quartet. Though to be honest, they make a lot better gym battlers than they do musicians.

Anyway, it apparently takes a while to catch Pikachu compared to the others. But let's be real: you're playing a game on your phone. Your productivity has likely already plummeted.

You might fall into a curveball every now and then, earning yourself and extra 10 XP. But you can make it a habit by just drawing a circle around your Pokéball before throwing it. Voila! You are now the Pokémon Satchel Paige.

Warning: this can get you banned.

While GPS spoofing defeats the intended real-world exploration of augmented reality, using a jailbroken iPhone will let you mess with your location services. As detailed in this video, you the LocationFaker app lets you move your GPS location without actually going to that place. 

This means you can get to that gym down the street -- or that spot with the Mewtwo on the other side of the world -- all from the comfort of your couch. You'll only burn as many calories as one does while moving a pin around on a smartphone, which is to say, not many.

Additionally, this can help you accrue mileage for incubating eggs.

This is pretty basic, but you can activate incense to attract Pokémon to you personally. If you're not into wearing Pokécologne, though, you can just loiter about a PokéStop with a lure on it. Chances are, if it's in a happening part of town, you can just be a Pokéfreeloader.

As if playing an augmented reality game on your smartphone weren't bougie enough, some person cooked up the idea to affix said smartphone to a Roomba or some other automated moving thing -- hey, you've got an intern. Put him to use! [Ed. note: don't do that] Or just use a drone like this one dude. Be one with your bougieness.

OK, so it's a bit drastic to move to a metropolis for the sole purpose of collecting more Pokéballs and siphoning off others' lures... but there's a discernible advantage to living in a place with a greater density of Stops and Gyms.

As this intrepid Redditor points out, Pokémon Go uses maps created for Niantic's previous game, Ingress. If you're really itching for more intel, check out that website.

It was inevitable, but people are already offering rides around town with the sole intent of helping out Pokémon Go players. And making themselves money, of course.