Pokemon Sleep cheats & an iPhone emulator

Pokemon GO (back the way you were)

Author

Cooltrainer Ace
April 18, 2024 • Estimated Read Time: 9 minutes

Welcome back to another week here at Victory Road with your best Poke-Pal, Cooltrainer Ace I’ve been training hard with the Machop here in the dungeon (Machoke are a total bros club). We’ve been practicing our Graveler rolls and Geodude throws.

To get shoulders like boulders you gotta train with rocks. Next up, Rhyhorn benching.

This week’s rundown (estimated read time 6 minutes):

  • People are cheating at Pokémon Sleep

  • iPhone emulators & Discord witch hunts

  • Rediscover Pokémon GO is off to a rocky start

Cheater, cheater, Pokémon Sleepers

Earlier this week, Pokémon Sleep shared a “response to inappropriate conduct” update, apparently due to people “using unauthorized tools or programs to conduct a considerable number of sleep research sessions.”

That’s right, people found a way to cheat at an app designed to help you improve your sleep. Humans really do ruin everything.

This takes me back to the early days of GO, when people were strapping their phones to their rumbas to get those extra hatching steps in. With Sleep, however, it looks like we’re talking about actual hacks and spoofs that mess with the app.

Makes zero sense considering you can’t trade, transfer, or otherwise do anything with the Pokémon you acquire in Sleep. As the Youngsters say these days, some people need to touch grass.

iPhone gets an emulator & Discord cracks down

It’s a wild time in the world of emulators and rom hacks right now. In early March, a Nintendo lawsuit led to the shutdown of popular emulators Yuzu and Citra. Then last week, Discord shut down servers for Nintendo Switch emulators Suyu and Sudachi AND disabled their lead developers accounts, apparently in response to a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request.

As reported by YouTuber Gym Leader Ed, many Pokémon YouTubers are getting takedown notices for videos containing popular Pokémon rom hacks, too. All signs point to Nintendo (and by extension, Game Freak & The Pokémon Company) going on the warpath to stamp out emulators and fan games.

We don’t talk about rom hacks, no, no, no.

And yet, in the midst of this turmoil, the second ever Nintendo emulator arrived in the App Store yesterday. Seems like bad timing, but what do I know?

(P.S. If you’re wondering what happened to the first emulator, it was removed over the weekend after a brief debut due to being a stolen knock-off of another program).

The new (apparently legit) kid on the block, Delta, can emulate the NES, SNES, N64, Game Body Color, GBA, and DS.

So far, Nintendo hasn’t gone after emulators of the DS and older hardware. Time will tell if that’s the next step in the crusade or not worth their time.

Rediscover Pokémon GO isn’t… going well

Do you remember the time you found your old Gameboy Color and Pokémon Yellow from childhood and fired it up to find your team consisting of Pikachu, a Spearow named Flappy and a Pidgey named Birdy?

The moral of the story is some things shouldn’t be rediscovered and so far, it looks like “Rediscover Pokémon GO” is one of them.

Announced last week, Rediscover GO promised to “refresh your Pokémon journey.” Instead, many players are holding literal funerals for their avatars after the first update rolled out new avatar customization options.

Time will tell how the rest of the new feature rollout is received. According to Serebii, we can still expect:

  • April 22nd, the game will change visuals to show wild encounters and more in a fun and ecologically accurate way, showing the current biome as a backdrop.

  • April 22nd, a Rediscover Kanto focus will be available having Kanto Pokémon spawn in various biomes.

  • On May 7, and rolling out in Australia soon, a new GO Snapshot feature releasing.

The Cooltrainer Chronicles, pt. 7

Through the storm of red and brown feathers, I spotted a lone girl sitting at the bus stop.

“Help!” I shrieked in the most uncool plea that’s ever left this Cooltrainer’s mouth. “Help!”

The girl looked up before I shielded my head with my arms as another barrage of beaks and talons came at me. Head down, I charged forward, hoping she had a Pokemon and that it was strong enough to drive the Spearow away.

“Go Meowth! Fury Swipes!”

I hit the ground as the presumed Meowth shot over my head, caterwauling. 

An intense flurry of howling, hissing, and squawking ensued. I rolled over and looked up in time to see the Spearow flock beating a hasty retreat to the forest. The strangest Meowth I’d ever seen stood with claws extended, feathers floating to the ground all around it. When it turned around, I shouted in surprise.

The muderhobo Meowth, as I called it, had yellow eyes, a beard, and paw-fulls of black claws. It gave me a manic, wide-eyed grin before the red light of the Poke Ball swallowed it.

“Umm, thank you… for the help,” I said, clearing my throat and dusting off my tracksuit. A trickle of sweat ran into one of the Spearow scrapes on my forehead, and I winced.

The girl had long blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and glared at me with intense green eyes.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, hands on her hips. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? Do you think you’re a tough guy picking on some Spearow?”

“I wasn’t–they attacked me!” 

“At the very least, you should be smart enough not to pester wild Pokémon without your own to protect you.”

“I–” my explanation turned into a long sigh. “Look, do you know if the fancy school here has a Pokémon Center? I have a Pokémon that needs help in a bad way.”

“Why didn’t you say so?!” She grabbed my arm, and before I knew it we were running toward the academy building. Well, she was running. I was dragging along like a tail on a Girafarig.

We crossed part of the academy grounds, accompanied by the bewildered gazes of several students. She didn’t let go of my wrist until we reached the telltale red framing, glowing white Poke Ball and sliding glass door of the campus Pokémon Center.

A bewildered Nurse Joy stared at us as we burst inside

“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder. When I reached the counter, I pulled Nidoran’s Poke Ball from my pocket and handed it to the surprised nurse.

“Please, I just caught this Pokémon and it needs help.”

Nurse Joy nodded and placed the Poke Ball in some fancy medical device. Her face fell at once when the readout appeared on a screen.

“Oh dear. Chansey!”

Card of the Week

I’ve been giving a lot of love to full art cards lately. This Great Tusk from Temporal Forces is gonna stampede its way straight into your heart. Or stomp it to pieces. I love how the card background is an extension of the desert sandstone design.

Random encounters around the internet

  • Pokémon Center x Van Gogh Museum merch is back in stock! (Sorry, no Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat promo cards tho)

  • Police in Kyoto arrested a 36-year-old man for selling hacked versions of Pokémon for Pokémon Violet. His price? $84 each. Think I’ll stick with Gold Bottle Caps. (source)

  • Scientists in Antarctica use Reddit to get a Pokestop added to their base (full story).

  • An artist in Fargo got 40 hours of community service for painting a Charmander on a railroad bridge. (source)

Obscure Pokémon Fact (from u/Mx_Toniy_4869)

Until next time,
Cooltrainer “no cosmetic changes needed” Ace