100 Weeks of Pokemon Go is Probably Enough

Note: Initially this was just long form writing practice for me and I was not going to post it.
However I realized it fit with my recent post themes: thinking about how I interact with my phone, enshittification, and how the decline of services can get us to re-evaluate why we use them. So I have decided to share it.

A couple weeks ago I saw that I had played Pokémon Sleep for 100 weeks. The game shouts at you the number of weeks you've played like some kind of grim warning. The 2 year anniversary is coming up on July 20th. I wanted to look back and hopefully avoid fully grasping how much time has been spent in this game.

You see I am the Venn diagram of people this game was designed for. I am the target audience: the game is a spreadsheet with a thin veneer of Pokémon applied, combined with a health tracking app. There is a BLE sleep tracking accessory for goodness sake.

There is a problem though that is helping to shake me from my stupor.

The Change In Development of Pokémon Sleep

Pokémon Sleep released under the direction of a the company Select Button. The game was pretty bare bones at launch but the core loop was fun and they did a good job of continuously improving it over time.

In November last year they announced development would shift from Select Button to The Pokémon Works. The subreddit lamented and there was a general sense of worry that rent extraction would begin. For a while it seemed OK, but game development takes a time and the releases we were seeing after the announcement where likely still developed under Select Button.

Recently, a Reddit user post a summary of the changes to the game credits over time. They did the work so go there to see the details, but the important part to highlight is that The Pokémon Works is now officially in a leadership role for the game. You can tell too from the recent game changes [^ I don't think its worth enumerating all of them but the implementation of the Darkrai even is a great example] and the vibes are off.

The Game Loop

Why did I play a mobile game in the first place? That is not something I would usually allow myself to do. [^ I especially do not let myself play incremental games. I have the exact kind of brain they scratch too well.] I want to go over the core of the game because I think it will help me understand why I enjoyed it.

The gameplay loop exists on three time horizons: daily, weekly, and long term. The daily cycle is where the bulk of the mechanics exist. There are two distinct phases to it: daytime and night time.

The normal day to day focuses on taking care of a Snorlax:

• You have a team of 5 helper Pokémon [^ If you own the Pokemon Go Plus+ you also have a "Nightcap Pikachu" that is worth roughly a third of a Pokémon. I really like weird BLE wearable devices and so I think it is neat.] that you stock from your Pokémon box. This is where the majority of the choice framework in the game comes from: Picking who you want to use on your team.
• The Pokémon on your team will toil away while your phone is off. At fixed intervals they roll to do one of the following:
  • Berries: find find berries that can be fed to Snorlax. The type of the berry depends on the Pokémon's type.
  • Ingredients: find ingredients that can be used to cook meals for Snorlax.
  • Skills: Store a trigger of their skill. There are many skills in the game but each Pokémon line has one specific skill.
• Each Pokémon has an inventory. When they gather a berry or ingredient it takes up slots in the inventory.
• Each Pokémon has a role that matches one of the three actions. While all Pokémon do all three actions, they will do much better at the one that matches their role.
• You have to take your phone out of your pocket to interact with your at some point. This involves tapping each Pokémon in your party to collect the items from their inventory.
• Three times a day you are able to cook a meal for Snorlax that will provide a significant about of XP towards their Snorlax Rank.
• You can unlock new recipes by knowing the correct combination of ingredients to put into the cooking pot.
• Your Pokémon have stamina that drains as the day progresses. The lower their stamina the less efficient they are at performing the three actions.

The night half:

• In the evening you go to bed and track your sleep.
• When you wake up, you check your phone. If Pokémon Sleep detects less than eight and a half hours of sleep you will only get partial credit. [^ The sleep detection built into the app is exceedingly flakey. The Pokemon Go Plus+ helps mitigate this somewhat.] This is your "Sleep Score" which is from 0 to 100.
• You will get "Sleep Points" equal to your Sleep Score. This is a game currency that can be spent on items.
• Depending on how much you move at night and the will of the gods, the game will decide on one of four "Sleep Types" to assign that night of sleep.
• You get "Dream Shards" based on the rarity of the Pokémon that appeared. This is a game currency that is used when leveling up Pokémon. [^ along with Candies which is a whole other thing.]
• Your "Drowsy Power" for the night is equal to your Snorlax's Strength X your Sleep Score.
• The Drowsy Power is used to decide what Pokémon show up overnight. The Raenonx site has details on rolling logic.
• Also Pokémon have different Sleep Types and under normal circumstances only appear when they match the Sleep Types you got that night.
• Each Pokémon has four different "Sleep Styles", they could appear in. When you see a new style for a Pokémon you get a new entry in your Sleepdex.
• You then stuff some of the Pokémon with biscuits to fill up a bar and catch them. You get one free biscuit a day. If you want any more you need to spend sleep points on them.
• You will get Research XP based on the rarity of the Pokémon that appeared. This will increases your Research Rank.
• You will return to the day part of the cycle and all your Pokémon will have their stamina refilled.

The weekly cycle is the main progression reset mechanic in game:

• There are different islands you can visit and you start with one island unlocked.
• Each island has a different type theme that favors three specific types. Berries gathered by Pokémon matching these types will get a bonus.
• At the beginning of a week you pick what island you want to go to and start fresh with a Rank 1 Snorlax.
• The goal of the game is to stuff this boy with as much food as you can to increase his Snorlax Strength.
• There are also three types of meals in the game: curry, salads and desserts. Each week you can only cook recipes from one of these categories.
• So each week you have to balance the types of the Pokémon that match the islands type, with the Pokémon that can gather the right ingredients for the kind of dishes you are making that week.
• You repeat all of daily loop each day until the end of the week and you get a grade.
• You start all over next week.

The long term progression is layered on top of the weekly resets so you feel like there is momentum in the game:

• The max level for Pokémon is gated by your Research Rank.
• Access to new islands is gated by the number of Sleep Styles in your Sleepdex. [^ It also gates other progression like the size of your cooking pot which impacts how much your meals will increase your Snorlax Strength]
• At the end of each week you get a small percent multiplier added to the island you visited. [^ or if you are at the cap its now spread out over the other islands that are not capped yet.] This is the big flywheel mechanic: the higher the multiplier the higher your Snorlax Rank. That means you will see more Sleep Styles and get more Sleep XP.

Did I enjoy my time play Pokémon Sleep?

Believe it or not but the section above is the short explanation for the game's mechanics. There are plenty more layered on top.

For me, the main properties of the loops that are nice are:

• Pokémon inventory size is pretty generous.
• There is a "Sneaky Snacking" [^ Here is lots of math if you are also a fan of games that are actually just spreadsheets] mechanic where if a Pokémon's inventory is full, berries they collect will go directly to Snorlax.
• You only can feed Snorlax a meal three times a day.
• An update made it so skill specialist Pokémon can store a second proc of their skill.
• You can only get new Pokémon once a day.

All of this together means you do not have to open the game up too frequently. The amount of time you had to spend in the game is fairly limited [^ Now having said that the number of load screens an interacts the game requires is really tiring and unnecessary.] compared to other mobile games that optimize for engagement. This is the part that made the game have positive utility for me.

So Why Are the Vibes Off?

I see friends complain about not liking games they used to love. These are games they have played for many years. I think it's unlikely that even with solid stewardship a game can provide stimulus forever. This game is no exception. That core game loop has been refined over many updates but the day to day of the game is essentially unchanged.

Also, based on the odds around rolling for stats and skills on Pokémon, the following two things will happen over the long run:

1. You will not get great rolls on most Pokémon, so you probably won't use them because...
2. You will eventually get amazing rolls on some Pokémon. They will be so good that you might as well never not use them.
   This means that you no longer really have to make choices to do well enough in the game. With the choice framework gone there isn't much left.

This is a mobile game, its always been a designed to manipulate our Skinner Box reactions to random events. Previously the balance was that the amount of fun I got from the game was worth the amount of time I spent in it. The new game play changes from the developers reduced the amount of fun.

Actually if I'm being honest the game play changes actually just removed the facade around the social contract of this type of game: Developers make a game, some users hopefully give them money if they can't control themselves, and all users get some enjoyment out of the experience. The recently changes just make it much clearer that the new developers care about changing "some users" to "as many users as possible".

A final thought

I was talking recently with a co-worker about the game Blue Prince. No spoilers here I promise. [^ but also please go play that game.] They mentioned they no longer play games that do not have an end to them. I really like that mentality, it's an interesting and explicit choice to think about how we interact with this form of entertainment. I would like to try and follow that more myself.