#pokemon-pokopia

#pokemon-pokopia

Laser sensors are at the center of these early designs. These motion-activated sensors are made with PokeMetal and can be rigged up in front of moving objects that can set off a chain of motion that, if you're patient and creative enough, you can use to create automated mechanisms.

At first, when you plant beans, tomatoes, or any other crop, it appears as if you have to pick each individual vegetable off the stem by hand. This isn't difficult, but it certainly takes a lot of time, especially if you've got a whole garden to pick. But it turns out you can use Cut to slice through entire patches of a garden, leaving the vegetables themselves unharmed and loose for you to hold down Y and suck them up, Kirby style.

At a moment when the internet feels like a constant stream of bad news alerts, many people online have found a surprisingly gentle escape: Pokémon Pokopia. Even if you're not a gamer, it's hard to miss. I don't own a Nintendo Switch - let alone the new $500 Switch 2 - and yet cute clips from Pokopia keep appearing on my feeds anyway.

constructing things like homes and buildings takes a little bit of real-world time. You can spend time tending to other things while your Pokémon friends help build these structures, but you can also trick your Switch 2 into thinking that all that time has passed by messing with the system's internal clock.

Pokémon Pokopia evolves the checklist concept beyond collecting gym badges and catching Pokémon, stripping conflict of any kind from the experience and instead giving you nearly endless tasks to improve your various towns and the overall happiness of the Pokémon therein. And it does so with a loop that mixes elements from Dragon Quest Builders, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft, resulting in one of the best laid-back simulation titles I've played in years.

The Pokémon Company finally, in the dead of night, announced its annual Pokémon Day Presents showcase. This is the stream the company hosts every year on February 27 to celebrate the franchise's anniversary. is turning 30 in 2026, so there's probably a lot to share ahead of the coming year. Here's what we know and what we can likely expect to see next week.