The Pokémon Company has finally started releasing details about how the long-awaited smartphone app Pokémon Sleep will actually work.
A video uploaded to the official Pokémon YouTube channel this morning details the mechanics of the game, which was initially announced a whopping four years ago.
Like other games in the series, Pokémon Sleep centers around collecting a wide variety of Pokémon, but instead of tossing out Poke balls and filling out a normal Pokedex, players instead draw Pokémon in with “drowsy power” and add them to their “sleep style dex.” Players start with their primary companion, and who else could it be in such a game but the sleep fanatic Snorlax. While awake, players can feed Snorlax to increase its strength, and overnight, players track their sleep with the app, with more sleep amounting to a better sleep score. Snorlax’s strength stat and the player’s sleep score are then used together to calculate a stat called “drowsy power,” which will cause more Pokémon to appear the higher it goes—so, more sleep means more Pokémon for the dex.
The app’s sleep tracking allows for more than just Pokémon collecting, though. The video detailed some other features of the sleep tracking, including collecting data such as what time you fall asleep and wake up, recording your sleep so you can listen to the noises you make, and identifying your sleep style in one of three categories: dozing, snoozing, and slumbering. Apparently, the types of Pokémon that show up in the game will change based on which of these styles you fall into on a given night. Additionally, each Pokémon species has multiple different styles of sleep which can be logged in the sleep style dex.
Pokémon Sleep had gone largely undiscussed for multiple years after its initial announcement before resurfacing in a Pokémon Presents event this February with a release window set for this summer. The app was confirmed to be releasing on both iOS and Android, with both versions being compatible with the soon-to-be-released Pokémon Go Plus+ device as well. Pre-registration for the Android version is now available through the Google Play Store.