What is the Pokétch?

The Pokétch, short for Pokémon Watch, is the gadget Generation IV puts on the bottom screen of the Nintendo DS. It is made by the Pokétch Company of Jubilife City, whose president hands the applications out like prizes as your journey progresses. You earn the watch itself early, by collecting three coupons from clowns posted around Jubilife, and it arrives running four apps: a digital watch, a calculator, a pedometer and a list showing your party's health.

Twenty one more apps arrive over the adventure, and they quietly run the whole game. The Dowsing Machine pings for hidden items on the ground. The Berry Searcher maps ripe berry trees anywhere in Sinnoh. The Marking Map tracks the legendary Pokémon who flee across the region, and the Chain Counter keeps score while you hunt with the Poké Radar. A coin toss, a friendship checker and a drawing pad fill out the set.

Some apps are pure period charm. There is a kitchen timer, a roulette wheel, an analog watch for players who missed the digital one's novelty, and a memo pad for notes you write with the stylus. The pedometer even became a tool of the glitch hunters, who counted their steps through Diamond and Pearl's void with it.

Later gadgets in the series would be sleeker, but the Pokétch set the template every one of them follows: a regional company's device, a screen full of small useful toys, and a clock that is always, faintly, counting your steps.