During today’s Pokémon Presents, The Pokémon Company announced a brand new Pokémon spin-off game. It’s called Pokémon Friends, and it’s a daily brain teaser game featuring lots of Pokémon-themed puzzles.

In the trailer, we got a look at a number of examples of the sorts of puzzles we’ll encounter in Pokémon Friends. The first one showed a design of tiles with light bulbs on them, asking players to draw a line from one tile that touched every single other tile only once. Another had a player sliding lined tiles around to connect a path so that water could flow from one side to the other. Still others involved connecting train tracks, predicting which balloons wouldn’t be popped by a flying arrow, sliding around an ice maze, and more.

All the games are themed around Pokémon such as Pikachu, Piplup, Mudkip, Sableye, and more. Completing puzzles gets the player in-game Pokemon plush items that they can use to decorate a virtual room.

Pokémon Friends is out right now on iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch. It costs $9.99 on Nintendo Switch, and is “free to start” on mobile but eventually will block the player from progressing without paying. The game purports to feature over 1,200 different puzzles.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Every time there’s a new Pokémon Presents livestream, we’re reminded that there’s a Pokémon mobile game for just about anything you can imagine. Sleeping, brushing your teeth, walking outside, you name it. Today’s livestream added another app to this lineup — Pokémon Friends, a daily puzzle game for Switch and mobile. While it may look like the other free games, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The trailer shows off a variety of simple puzzle formats, like one where you connect a line of lightbulbs in a single stroke, a slide puzzle where you direct water from one side of the screen to another, and a challenge where you rotate railroad tracks to create a path for a cart. When you complete puzzles, you get in-game plushes of Pokémon you can use to decorate some in-game rooms. According to the game’s listing on the iOS App Store, the game has “over 1,200 puzzles” as well as “up to five save files,” so families can have separate progress on a shared device. The trailer shows kids of all ages playing, including with their parents, so it seems geared towards a slightly younger audience.

However, while the game is free to download on mobile devices, it costs $9.99 on Switch in the United States. The FAQ section of the official Pokémon Friends site breaks it down; essentially, the Switch version comes with the Basic Pack, a DLC bundle that allows players to do an unlimited number of puzzles per day. You can purchase the Basic Pack on mobile too, but it’s a base feature of the Switch version. There are also two more DLC options – Puzzle On Pack #1 and #1 – that are available to buy from day one as standalone packages or in bundles.

It’s a confusing monetization system, but it seems like if you just want to give the game a try, you should download the free version on mobile before committing to the console version. The game is available today on Nintendo Switch, the App Store, and Google Play.