Pokemon Sleep is weird, wonderful, and a little under-cooked

The internet doesn't exactly need an excuse to mock and meme, but Pokemon Sleep was one of those games that was particularly susceptible to that reaction. With a nebulous, vague announcement at the height of Pokemon Go mania, an incredulous reaction from some was perhaps inevitable. So now they want to monetize our sleep?

Well, yes, sort of. But after a few days of toying with it, it's plain that this is a pretty useful tool – though perhaps not the most compelling of gaming experiences.

The pitch is pretty simple. You sleep with Pokemon (not like that, for god's sake), and in doing so you level them up, create bonds and friendships, and discover new Pokemon and their 'sleep styles'. Like all things Pokemon, this is really about collecting – filling in a journal with different critters and the manner in which they sleep, and collecting a range of resources that allow you to speed up that process.

While there is a lot of clicking around in a cutely formatted app, to play sleeping is key. The way this works is pretty simple – you plug your phone in, tell Pokemon Sleep you're planning to put your head down, and then rest your phone on your bed.

Over the course of your slumber, Pokemon Sleep will monitor the movements and noise in your bedroom, and use this to vaguely represent exactly how much you're sleeping. Sleep is divided into three categories: Dozing, Snoozing, and Slumbering. Slumbering represents that full-blown REM sleep, and the other categories are lighter sleep from there.

The game can also function as an alarm clock if you want, but regardless of that, once you wake up you tell it sleep is over, and it tots up the data to determine how well you've slept. It even presents you with little recordings of major noises in the night – so if you're a sleeptalker (which I sometimes am), you might learn something. It's important to mention that these recordings never leave your phone and are automatically deleted from your device, so nobody will hear them but you.

As a sleep tracker, it's quite cute. I had my doubts about how accurate a phone on a mattress could be, but Pokemon Sleep ended up posting broadly similar statistics to my Fitbit, which has a direct read on my heart rate and movement. The inaccuracies there are could probably be attributed as much to the nature of the tracker as to the movements of those I share the bedroom with – my wife, and our dog.

The advantage over a regular sleep tracker, I suppose, is the Pokemon element. Pokemon Sleep fulfills the same function as any other sleep tracking device or app, but it's all lovingly swaddled in these Pokemon trappings. Each week you'll be helping a Snorlax through your sleep, but also through gathering berries and cooking meals, plus meeting Pokemon, feeding them biscuits, and recording the various positions they sleep in.

There's a gorgeous art style with lovely illustrations of Pokemon asleep, relaxing music, and quite a lot to do in search of the grind. There's a lot to love. And yet... I'd be lying if I said it wasn't entirely landing for me.

I think part of it is a flaw in the game's base conceit. The main thing that drives your progress is sleeping – which means the game is at its best, with the most to do, first thing in the morning. But the issue is that I don't much fancy clicking through menus and doing that classic mobile game busywork when I'm bleary-eyed and half-asleep. By the time I'm fully awake, my desire to go back into the game is dampened. When it's time to track sleep again, I boot the game... to be greeted with the daily tasks you really should quickly undertake to optimize progression.

Some may argue that mobile game busywork sucks in general, but I actually disagree. I rather like the daily grind in a mobile title, if executed well. The nature of this game means it greets you first thing in the morning, though. Maybe this is my problem, but I'm clearly not a morning person.

This pairs with the fact that Pokemon Sleep is incredibly passive by design to make a game that you don't feel compelled to launch in the day, either. I could see it becoming part of my bedtime routine, and I'm pleased to see that the eye-bulgingly expensive microtransactions aren't essential to progression. But I'm struggling to find the impetus to play the actual game part at a satisfying time of day. I think it's fair to say that it might just be a little too lackadaisical, then.

Also, a mild frustration is the nature of needing your device on the bed with you. My second night trying to track sleep, despite the game's warnings not to put the device there, my phone eventually slipped beneath my pillow during the night where it promptly overheated and turned off. Not ideal.

Undeterred and curious at Pokemon Sleep's concept, I hopped on Amazon and ordered the Pokemon Go Plus+ – a new device compatible with both Go and Sleep. This little disc-shaped gadget can sit on your bed instead of your phone, then syncs up each morning via bluetooth. This works much better, and doesn't seem nearly as much of a fire risk, but the button on it is too easily depressed, and as an active sleeper I've already once accidentally pressed it and canceled tracking during my nightly tossing and turning. I leave my play so far with one overwhelming thought: I wish this game could just sync in with the Fitbit API and use that data instead.

And yet... I do sort of love this. Sleep tracking is useful technology that has some real advantages and benefits when used correctly. It can reveal things about you and your health, and help you to live a better life. The idea of sleep tracking incentivized by a bit of light gamification - and cute familiar fictional critters – is a good one. I just wish this game was as immediately gripping as Pokemon Go was back in the day. As a service game, it'll keep rolling, and so I really hope it improves. The core idea I'm well on board with; the execution not so much.