Rest Your Very Best!

For the past four days or so, I've been trying out the cute, and rather long-awaited, sleep tracking game, Pokémon Sleep.

Developed for iOS and Andriod devices by SELECT BUTTON inc. (who also gave us the rather charming and fun 'Magikarp Jump' game), Pokémon Sleep is a game that helps to encourage you to get a good nights sleep, with the aim of helping to research different sleep styles of Pokémon and raise a Snorlax each week. The app allows you to track your sleep during the night. 

The game was originally announced back in 2019, for a 2020 release, but no more information came about until 2023. Why there was such a huge delay isn't clear, but I wouldn't be surprised if the pandemic played a part in it.

Still, it was a really pleasant surprise when it was finally announced during the Pokémon Presents on Pokémon Day 2023!

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- Gameplay via Phone - 

Once it was released for the UK on July 18th, 2023, I started reading up on how you play the game and I'll admit, I was a little concerned on how you play using your smartphone.

You're recommended to keep your phone plugged in while you sleep, keep the screen on and flip the phone over. Now I've always personally been told to never keep things charging, like your phone, during the night while you sleep. To me, I've always seen it as a bit of a fire hazard. Granted, they do recommend you don't place your phone under covers or pillows while doing this to avoid overheating your phone, but I feel even just having it on your mattress while charging is a bit of a concern. This is just my own personal worries though.

Just not keen on the idea of sleeping while the phone is plugged in and charging.

My other concern was leaving your phone screen on, though it does say that the screen will naturally dim. I decided to try this out and took a nap after work for a few hours. I didn't plug my phone in, as it had plenty of battery, but I followed the advice of leaving the screen on and flipping the phone over. I found that the screen on my phone did dim and turn off quite quickly with the Pokémon Sleep app running, so I felt I didn't have to worry about the screen. Once I woke up, I tapped my screen and instead of my usual lock screen I get after turning the screen off manually, a lock screen was over the app instead, which is what I usually get if I leave the screen on but don't interact with it for a minute or so.

I checked the sleep data and it seemed to record the sleep session well. I also feel it didn't drain the battery on the phone much, but this was just for a 2-hour nap, though I feel you don't have to put the phone on charge if you don't want to, as long as it's already got sufficient charge in it.

I also was a little uncomfortable with the sound recording feature, so I decided to switch that off after this first session. I personally don't want to know what noises I make when I sleep.

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- Gameplay via Pokémon Go Plus + -

That was actually the only time I attempted a sleep session with my phone. As I still felt a little uneasy doing it this way, I decided to order the Pokémon GO Plus + which would allow me to record sleep sessions without using my phone. Using this also thankfully doesn't record sound or anything, so if you're like me and didn't like the idea of sound recording, it's a non-issue while using this.

My Pokémon Go Plus + after unboxing.

All my other sleep sessions since have used the Pokémon GO Plus + which I find much easier and more comfortable to use. You just activate it when you start a sleep session by long pressing the middle button, and when you wake up you long press it again to end the session. Then afterwards, you can sync the Pokémon GO Plus + to Pokémon Sleep to transfer over the sleep data. 

When you long press on the button to start or stop sleep sessions, Pikachu does speak to you when you do. I haven't personally found a way to disable this yet. I tried to put the GO Plus + into 'silent mode' but it didn't seem to work. Despite this, you can stop Pikachu speaking with another quick press of the middle button. Thankfully, it doesn't speak to you in the night or anything, just when you start and stop sessions.
Pikachu singing a lullaby is cute and all, and probably quite fun for younger players, but it might get a little potentially annoying, especially for others you live with, as the sound can be quite loud.
In the morning, when I end a sleep session, I tend to place it under the covers or pillow to drown out the sound and quickly press the button to stop it, so not to risk potentially disturbing my dad with it.

Otherwise, I find the Pokémon GO Plus + records my sleep sessions well and it's definitely worth the investment, especially if you play Pokémon Go too. I haven't had a good chance to use it for Pokémon Go yet, other than testing out the auto-catch on it, but it seems to be working well as intended so far for me.

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- General Gameplay - 

Pokémon Sleep is a very casual and relaxed game to play, so it's not really something you can speedrun or do a lot all at once.

You can register two sleep sessions per day, which need to be 90 minutes or more to be counted. If it's less, then it won't register it as a session and will tell you that it was too short. The more sleep you get, the higher you get on your overall sleep score. This is then multiplied against the strength your Snorlax has, which decides it's drowsy power. The higher the drowsy power, the more Pokémon will gather around Snorlax.

Most of the general gameplay is explained in this video put out by the Pokémon Company:

I haven't had a full week with a Snorlax yet, as I began playing in the middle of the week the game released and the Snorlax resets on Monday. Still, I managed to get my Snorlax up to the 'Great 2' level in that time.
Sadly my sleep wasn't the greatest during this playtime. I work nights currently, so I usually only get 5 or less hours of sleep before work, and maybe a 2-3 hour nap afterwards, so my sleep scores haven't been the greatest so far, but thankfully, since I just started the game, I don't think it's mattered too much. I've also had a mix of overall sleep styles so far, which has allowed me to see a bunch of different Pokémon.

I'm not really sure how accurate the game is for tracking sleep, but I feel it has shown just how in-and-out of sleep I am during the night, as my chart tends to be extremely up and down between 'dozing', 'snoozing' and 'slumbering'.

I somehow got a dozing type sleep for this, despite it only being 16% of the overall sleep.

So far I've been playing f2p (free to play). Being a mobile game, there is, of course, paid options for items and better benefits, but right now I feel it's a perfectly good game to just play with it's basic features. Thankfully, if you find you don't have enough of the biscuits to befriend a Pokémon, the progress does actually carry on when you next get that Pokémon again.

The Pokémon also have different skills, with sub skills you can unlock, as well as different benefits depending on it's nature. It also will have different berries and ingredients that it will gather, so it's worth looking at all of these options to see what can be the best fit for the team, and the Snorlax you have.

My current 'Helper Team'!

A small note, but I was happy to see you could nickname Pokémon in the game. Getting to nickname Pokémon is always something I enjoy. It's also fun to see that you can get Shiny Pokémon in the game too. I haven't had one of those yet, but hopefully I will eventually. It's a nice extra surprise to be able to get.

Overall it's been quite fun so far setting up the sleep sessions and waking up wondering what Pokémon and sleep styles I'll see. It's not a game you'll be on all the time, but you can check in throughout the day to gather items from your helper Pokémon and also feed Snorlax to raise it's strength (which you can do three times a day.)

It's been difficult to know whether it's having a positive impact on my sleeping habits, since my job currently makes getting regular sleep difficult, but I have found myself a little more motivated to lay down to get some sleep, so I'll keep at it and continue to rest my very best!

Oh, to be a Snorlax, resting and eating berries.