Pokémon Sleep

Pokémon Sleep, announced in 2019, was thought to have been cancelled and forgotten due to years of silence from The Pokémon Company. However, to everyone’s surprise, during the Pokémon Presents on February 27th 2023, Pokémon Sleep was showcased and was given a release date of Summer 2023.

We are now in July 2024, and the game is celebrating it's 1 year anniversary, but is this Pokémon sleep themed game worth trying out?

Developed by Select Button (also known for Magikarp Jump), Pokémon Sleep is an app created to help promote a healthy sleep pattern. When you first boot up the app, you’re introduced to a new professor called Professor Neroli, who specialises in the field of sleep. He is currently studying Pokémon sleeping patterns and has called on your assistance to gather data about the different types of Pokémon sleep styles.

There is a lot of information that is thrown at you early on in Pokémon Sleep, explaining how the game works and how to document your sleep. The ideal amount of sleep you should be getting according to the app is 8.5 hours, and you can do two sleep sessions each day but they must be 90 minutes minimum.

You can set an alarm in Pokémon Sleep to remind you to go to bed and one to wake you up. You are advised to connect your phone to a charger and lay it next to your pillow so it can track and record your movement and sound. You can also play relaxing Pokémon music via the app to help you doze off which is rather cute, but with only one sound I can imagine it getting irritating after a while.

After you wake up, the app will let you know your movement, noise, etc, and put together a “sleep report” for you which documents the phases of sleep, how long it took to fall asleep, and what sleeping type you fall into (Snoozing, Dozing or Slumbering).

After this, you can then see what Pokémon decided to come and have a snooze around Snorlax during the night, based on how you slept – as certain types show up based on the quality of your sleep. When you start you are initially gifted a Pikachu, and after my own first session, I met a Charmander, Meowth, Flaaffy and two Rattata, representing the “snoozing” sleep style.

Be wary that upon waking up after your first night you will be thrown into more tutorials showing you the ability to cook food for your Pokémon and how to feed them, so I recommend if you have to get ready for work or school that you wake up slightly earlier so you can complete and finish the new tutorials. Thankfully after this, the constant tutorials end.

Pokémon Sleep does come with optional monetisation. You can purchase diamonds with real money at the Shop, which in turn allows you to redeem all sorts of items to feed, level, and befriend more Pokémon. There is also a Premium Pass, which will boost your sleep points.

The app also includes helpful tips about healthy eating and other aspects of your life and will also grade your sleep sessions out of 100, with the goal of being able to work towards a perfect sleep score over time.

If you are looking to work on your sleep schedule in a fun way, then I do recommend checking out Pokémon Sleep. It is a cute way to inspire you to go to bed earlier, and since the app requires to be open, it stops you from browsing on your phone until the early hours of the morning.