Pokémon Sleep: Japanese walkthrough site lists “sleeping pills” as a tool for real competitive sleepers, but quickly backtracks

A major Japanese video game walkthrough site had listed sleeping pills as one of their recommended methods to excel in Pokémon Sleep. Japanese users didn’t fail to notice the outrageous detail and in no time, the topic of Pokémon Sleep doping went viral on social media. The mention of sleeping pills has since been deleted from the site. 

Pokémon Sleep, developed by Select Studio and published by The Pokémon Company on July 20, is a sleep-tracking app based on the Pokémon series. The plot takes place on a small island where large Snorlax slumber, and the player takes part in the research of Professor Neroli, a Pokémon sleep researcher. The app analyzes and measures how much the user sleeps each night, and the user can receive rewards and encounter various different Pokémon by sleeping well and continuously recording their sleep. 

Though the app seems at first glance to be the definition of “casual,” unsurprisingly, a lot of players are dead-serious about it, being firmly set to rack up their sleep game or even cheat the game into rewarding them with Pokémon GO goodies such as Snorlax nightcaps. 

This major Japanese video game walkthrough site seemed eager to respond to users’ ambition to become the best competitive sleepers out there, and ended up going several steps too far by essentially suggesting people use sleeping pills to earn high sleep scores in the game. 

The site lists up various tips on the game, such as the fact that the target sleep time in the game is 8.5 hours, and that sleeping for any amount of time over that period is going to reflect on your Drowsy Power the same as if you slept for 8.5 hours, as 8.5 hours seems to be the maximum. 

But then, they go on to list their “tips on sleeping” (not the heading you’d expect in a game walkthrough), the first of which is healthy and harmless, albeit slightly obvious – light exercise. They explain that doing light exercise during the day and getting some sunshine will make you nice and drowsy by nightfall.

But the second “tip” is what made users do a double take – the site recommended none other than the use of sleep-inducing agents. The supplementary explanation said, “They can be bought in pharmacies. Be sure to follow the terms of use and dosage decided upon consultation with a pharmacist.” The warning to follow the terms of use rings a bit hollow when coming from the same source that suggests knocking yourself out with sleeping aid for the sake of a game. 

The tweet pointing out the absurd detail quickly blew up, reaching over 46k likes in a day, with people comparing the idea to doping and “hardware cheating” and joking about sleeping medication going out of stock due to Pokémon Sleep. Many also pointed out the irony of an app envisioned to encourage healthy sleeping habits causing the opposite effect. 

The site has since deleted any mention of sleeping aid, and the same walkthrough now recommends “bathing in lukewarm water” and “relaxing footbaths” instead.