- Very cute Pokemon plushies!
- Daily puzzles to challenge your brain.
- Your own room to decorate.
I am a huge fan of Pokemon, primarily sticking to Pokemon Go, but when I saw that Pokemon Friends has a bunch of crochette Pokemon that you can collect, there was no way that I was not going to download the game and see what it's all about.
Pokemon Friends is a puzzle-based adventure where you are given some bite-sized puzzles to solve to gain yarn that can be turned into plushies. There is also a little story about wanting to create plushies for your shop and to help others, which is quite cute!
The whole concept of Pokemon Friends is to have something that you connect into at the start of each day to get a bit of brain training in. You get to do one set of three puzzles and then need to wait until the next day to do any more.
There is a DLC that you can purchase to play unlimited daily puzzles, as well as more DLCs with more Pokemon and puzzles inside them, but it does get expensive fast! I almost wish that there was a way to watch an advertisement to get a few more levels in, especially when I first started.
When it comes to the puzzles themselves, there is a lot of variety, and all of them really match the Pokemon that they are themed around. Tandemaus' level, for example, has both of them moving around the map in tandem, needing to connect. Piplup has you trying to slip your Pokemon to the exit flag using your phone's gyroscope to slip around. Pikachu lights up lightbulbs on the screen.
Some puzzles are more number-focused, while others just have some logic that needs to be solved.
In your daily challenge, you will get three different puzzles, all of which have timers of just over a minute for you to complete them in. The faster you are, the more yarn you will be untangling!
There is more than one of each of the categories of puzzles, and as you complete more daily challenges, you will level up these puzzles. This increases the number of levels you have of that puzzle within that space, along with the challenge of that puzzle.
Once you have completed your daily puzzle, you can take your yarn and use them in a machine to create plushies. I found this to be a fun experience, though I do wish the yarn type better matched the Pokemon.
At one point, I put some creepy yarn in, expecting a ghost type, but instead got a Toxel. I thought maybe it's because the yarn was purple and Toxel is purple, but I put in some blue yarn and got a Psyduck later in the game, so it feels like colour doesn't really have anything to do with it.
The plushies that you create in Pokemon Friends can then be placed within your rooms, though the gravity on these Pokemon can be a little tricky - I found it so hard to get a plushie into the chairs that I found. It was a real problem!
I did enjoy setting up my room, though. If you get any doubles of your plushies or just have some Pokemon you don't care for, you can actually give them to those who want them! A small collection of townsfolk is looking for specific Pokemon, either by type, size or just by the exact Pokemon they want. Giving them a plushie increases their friendship, and they often give you something in return, like furniture.
Pokemon Friends review - "Cute daily Pokemon puzzles"
Pokemon Friends feels like a really well-thought-out puzzle game, with a lot of fantastic features to it! I do wish the game had a way to do more puzzles without paying and that the yarn made more sense to me, but overall, I have enjoyed getting my adorable Pokemon plushies.
Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, and judges many jams and events. You can find her on Twitter as @Jupiter_Hadley