Last Saturday (Aug 3), shoppers at Vivo City must have been surprised by a sudden surge in human traffic late afternoon. Many can be seen walking around, eyes on their phone and fingers swiping on their phone's screen. They are fans of the mobile game Pokemon Go, there to attend a monthly game event called community day.

The augmented reality (AR) game with a simple but charming gameplay - throw a virtual ball to catch virtual monsters that can only reached by walking to physical locations - took Singapore by storm when it arrived here three years ago, in August 2016, following its worldwide debut in the United States, Australia and New Zealand a month earlier.