As the Pokemon Go craze slowly dies down, fans who are getting bored with the mobile game will have new Pokemon challenges to overcome in the next few months.
The Pokemon Research Exhibition, which started in Japan last year, opens tomorrow at the S.E.A Aquarium in Resorts World Sentosa (RWS). It is the first instalment outside of Japan and will run until Jan 2. Tickets are $35 for adults and includes entry into the aquarium.
The participant's mission is to figure out the Pokemon character inside the Pokeball (used in Pokemon games to catch the pocket monsters) that they pick at the entrance of the exhibition. But this is not just a game for Pokemon masters. As clues, reference guides and images of Pokemon characters will be provided inside the venue, visitors who are not familiar with Pokemon can also play.
There are three types of Pokeballs, each representing a different difficulty level, to pick from: a regular ball (easy), a Great Ball (medium), and an Ultra Ball (hard).
After choosing a ball, visitors can head to one of eight different machines that are designed to reveal each Pokemon critter's distinctive traits, such as its silhouette, footprint and cry. They can use up to four machines for help.
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BOOK IT / POKEMON RESEARCH EXHIBITION
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WHERE: Exit gallery of S.E.A. Aquarium, Resorts World Sentosa, 8 Sentosa Gateway
WHEN: Tomorrow till Jan 2, 10am to 7pm daily
ADMISSION: Online ticket bundles at $35 for adults and $23 for children and senior citizens. The ticket price is inclusive of admission to S.E.A. Aquarium. Book at www.rwsentosa.com/pokemon
Some machines are more interactive than others. The outline shooter, for example, requires visitors to run on the spot. The faster they run in a given time frame, the more of the character's outline is revealed.
At another machine, the silhouette shooter, visitors have to turn a dial and snap an image of the character's silhouette within a given time frame.
With the clues generated by the machines, visitors then guess the character inside the Pokeball.
Those who choose the regular or Great balls can refer to an activity leaflet that shows the names and images of possible characters contained in the balls. The leaflet given to those who pick the Ultra Ball will contain only partial images of the characters and their names will not be provided.
All the participants can also refer to a giant Pokedex wall, an index of more than 700 of the characters with their names and images.
The Japanese version of the event has drawn "hundreds of thousands" of visitors, says a spokesman for RWS.
Undergraduate Jacqueline Tan, 19, an avid player of Pokemon Go, says she is excited about the exhibition.
"I look forward to trying out the hardest level, to see if I can guess the Pokemon character."
