The Pokémon Company was busy on Wednesday. After unveiling a new Pokémon Snap game, the developer said it is also working on two new titles to help children brush their teeth and solve puzzles.
Pokémon Smile is a new, free app available now in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play marketplace that aims at improving a child’s tooth-brushing activity. It uses an iPhone or Android device’s camera to analyze how the player is brushing their teeth and displays “bacteria” over their faces. As they continue to brush, they’ll kill the bacteria and save Pokémon.
Pokémon Smile will feature more than 100 Pokémon to rescue and children can collect Pokémon Caps the more they brush. The app will also let parents set reminders and timers, so kids will know when to brush their teeth and for how long. It also features advice on how to effectively brush teeth.
This isn’t the first time that The Pokémon Company has tried to use its characters to play a role in child health. Last year, the company unveiled Pokémon Sleep, an app that allowed parents to track a child’s sleep.
The Pokémon Company also announced a new free-to-play video game called Pokémon Cafe Mix for both the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices. The game, which will be available on June 23, will launch on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play, in addition to the Switch.
Pokémon Cafe Mix is a puzzle game that requires players to link Pokémon icons by swirling them around, with the ultimate goal of solving puzzles. The story centers on players in the role of a café owner where Pokémon come to visit. Completing puzzles will allow players to serve food and drinks to the Pokémon.
The company said there would be a level-up system, where players can improve their friendships with different Pokémon as they serve food and drinks. They’ll also be able to upgrade the café with new tools to attract more Pokémon to the facility.
The game will be available as a free download, but it’s unclear whether there will be in-app purchases to boost a player’s café, buy tools, or other items.
Both Pokémon Smile and Pokémon Cafe Mix were unveiled alongside a new Pokémon Snap on Wednesday. That game, which will be available on the Nintendo Switch, has yet to get a release date.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.