This New Free Mobile Pokemon Puzzle Game Lets You Weave Digital Plushes

CNET

3 days ago

The Pokemon Company unveiled a host of Pokemon content at its Pokemon Presents event on Tuesday. We saw a new trailer for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, a release date for the second season of the Netflix series Pokemon Concierge and a free, new mobile game you can play now, called Pokemon Friends.
The latest Pokemon mobile game is a puzzle game where you untangle threads of yarn in order to weave Pokemon plushes for your in-game collection. You can play it now on iOS and Android devices for free, or you can buy it for $10 on the Nintendo eShop.
Here's what you should know to get started with Pokemon Friends.
Puzzles, yarn and Pokemon
To earn yarn, you have to solve puzzles in the game. To get to these puzzles, tap the Psyduck tile with the word Untangle near the bottom of the screen in the main room of the game -- poor Psyduck is always tied up in knots. Some of the puzzles include connecting a string of lightbulbs using only one line and rotating a box in order to free Pokemon, like Slowpoke, from the box.
Slowpoke are always getting themselves into some kind of mess.
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
After solving the series of puzzles, you are rewarded with a certain number of inches of yarn. Your reward depends on how quickly you solve the puzzles, so if you want the most yarn to make more Pokemon plushes, you have to be faster than an Electrode.
How much yarn you get depends on how fast you solve the puzzles.
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
Once you have your yarn, you'll stamp your calendar, which shows all the days you've solved puzzles for. You can use your calendar to keep track of what days you've solved puzzles, and you can use it to go back to older puzzles and try to beat your high score.
You can revisit old puzzles from your calendar.
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
When you have your yarn, tap the Plush-O-Matic -- the machine that looks like a giant Pokeball -- and you'll be able to make plushes with your yarn. Then tap Make and you can choose which yarn to create a Pokemon plush with. Certain yarns are used to make a handful of Pokemon, but it only took one bundle of yarn to make my first few Pokemon.
However, I can't see a way to make one particular Pokemon. For example, when you select Fiery Yarn, you can tap Plush Rates in the bottom right corner of your screen to see what Pokemon that yarn can create. I found that my Fiery Yarn could create a Charmander, Charizard, Scorbunny or Fuecoco plush, but I had a 25% chance to make any of those Pokemon -- I got a Scorbunny!
It's a cute little Scorbunny!
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
After tapping the Plush-O-Matic, you can also tap Catalog to see details of which plushes you've created, like their size, how many of them you own and what yarn it takes to create them.
Decorate with your new Pokemon friend
After you've woven your Pokemon plush, it's time to decorate. From the main room of the game, tap the tile in the bottom left corner of your screen that has a Scorbunny on it -- it was like that before I got my own Scorbunny. This will take you to your own room, which you can decorate with your plushes.
Once in the room, tap the tile with the Pawmi and Buneary in the left corner of your screen to pull up all the plushes. Tap the plush you want to decorate with and then you can drag and place it anywhere in the room.
Scorbunny and Pikachu are friends so they are sharing the basket.
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
You can also tap the green chair under the Pawmi and Buneary tile to add or change furniture in the room. Beneath that tile is an hourglass icon. Tap and hold the hourglass to rewind your room, kind of like an Undo button.
And in the bottom left corner of your screen is a toy chest with Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly Pokemon. This is the Tidy Up button. Tap this and then tap Pokemon plushes or furniture around the room to remove them from the room. And if you accidentally remove something, no worries, tap and hold the hourglass to undo the change.
After decorating, tap the green door in the top right corner of your screen to go back to the main room.
The mobile version is free but…
The mobile version of Pokemon Friends is free up to a point. I could only solve the second series of puzzles the first time I played the game, but that might be different for you.
After you solve your daily puzzles, Pokemon Friends says you can buy DLC to keep playing. To do so, tap Shop in the top left corner of your screen and you can buy different bundles.
You might have to buy DLC at a point if you want to continue in Pokemon Friends.
The Pokemon Company/Screenshot by CNET
The Basic Pack ($10) lets you play puzzles as often as you like. Other packs include new puzzles, wallpapers for your plush room and more, and those packs start at $15.
It's unclear if you can solve a limited number of puzzles every day without issue, or if you'll have to buy the Basic Pack at some point to continue playing.
The Pokemon Company did not immediately respond to my request for comment.
For more on the July Pokemon Presents, here's all the free stuff you can get from the event.