The latest mobile entry in the long-running Pokémon franchise is none other than Sleep, a rest-tracking application that also helps you wake up each morning.
Gameplay is straightforward and minimal in Pokémon Sleep. Players will be greeted by Professor Neroli, studying the Drowsy Power of a mighty Snorlax, who attracts other Pokémon and makes them want to fall asleep. By working with these two, you will accumulate entries in your Pokédex, taking photos of the mons that appear in your campsite.
As the experience progresses, your sleep patterns are monitored to develop a sleep score. When you wake up, you’ll be able to see the Pokémon that showed up while you were resting! During the day, in true Tamogachi form, you’ll feed your Snorlax, increase its power, and monitor your sleep again to see how these efforts paid off.
This game is about as laid back as it can possibly get. With such a limited set of activities, it’s more of an away-from-keyboard type thing than anything you may play on mobile to help you sleep. There are also very few community features available here, which means it’s mostly designed as a solo experience.
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Pokémon Sleep relies on accelerometers in smartphones to track your movement, and you simply open the app before going to bed and place your phone face down next to you. By purchasing the Pokémon GO Plus + device, your sleep will be automatically tracked. In addition, you can integrate Sleep directly with Pokémon GO and provide benefits to your campsite.
When you wake up the next morning, you’ll open the app to check on your sleep cycle with a neat flowchart, allowing you to interact with the mons that popped up the night before. Feeding Pokébiscuits to Snorlax and the mons drawn to his Drowsy Power ensures they stay with you over time. The ones you ignore will run away.
Pokémon Sleep arrives for all mobile devices on July 20.