I built a "Pokémon of the day" app for my kids because I took a sick day.
Because a robotic voice saying 'It is green' was not cutting it.
Somewhere at Amazon HQ, a developer wrote a function that spits out this gem:
"Today's Pokémon is Bulbasaur. It is green. It is a Pokémon."
And then they moved on with their life. Meanwhile, my kids, who are six and four, were looking at me like this was my fault.
So instead of explaining to them that Alexa was not capable of basic storytelling, I decided to build something better instead of resting in bed.
What Makes This Different
Every day, the site features a new Pokémon. But instead of a lifeless one-liner, you get:
Actual artwork instead of a blurry, low resolution icon
Real stats and abilities because kids have questions, and "It is green" is not an answer
A color scheme that changes based on the Pokémon’s type, because some effort went into this
A historical calendar so you can check previous days, because my kids refuse to accept "wait until tomorrow" as a concept
This should have been the end of it. But then the requests started.
"Can it read the Pokémon descriptions out loud?" Yes. "Can I keep my favorite Pokémon?" Now you can. "What if I do not like today’s Pokémon?" Hit shuffle.
Built in Five Hours Using an AI IDE
This was never supposed to be a big project. I spun up a dev environment using Bolt.new from StackBlitz, an AI powered IDE that skips all the usual setup nonsense.
No installing dependencies. No configuring a local dev server. No "Why is my environment broken?" debugging session.
It just worked. I was writing React code in minutes, and five hours later, I had a working app. If I had done this the usual way, it would have taken at least three times as long.
Would I have still finished it? Probably. Would I have been annoyed the whole time? Definitely.
What You Can Actually Do on This Thing
Text to speech. Pokémon descriptions are read out loud because my kids cannot read everything yet, and I got tired of being their narrator.
Random shuffle. Not every Pokémon is a winner. If today’s pick is underwhelming, get a new one.
Search bar. My six year old demanded this immediately. "Where’s Charizard?" solved in under five seconds.
Evolution chains. My four year old thinks everything evolves into Charizard. Now he has visual proof that it does not.
User accounts. You can collect Pokémon, save favorites, and track stats. This feature exists because "Can I keep them?" was asked too many times.
Daily Pokémon emails. If you do not want to check the site, you can get a Pokémon in your inbox every morning. No filler, no spam, just the Pokémon.
Bug reporting system. Because I will break things. You can submit issues, and there is a page that tracks them. My kids think this is funny.
How It Works
For the nerds who care, here’s the stack.
Frontend
React and TypeScript because I enjoy suffering
Tailwind CSS because writing vanilla CSS is even worse
React Router to make navigation work
Lucide React for icons that are not terrible
Custom React hooks to keep things from turning into spaghetti
Backend
Supabase for authentication and database storage
PokeAPI for Pokémon data because I was not about to enter it manually
EmailJS to send daily Pokémon emails
Database Structure
User accounts so you can log in and save Pokémon
Subscribers so emails can be sent daily
Collected Pokémon so you can track what you have saved
Bug reports because people will find ways to break things
Did I Overdo It?
At some point around hour four, I had a moment of self reflection.
Did I need to spend five hours fixing Alexa’s bad Pokémon feature? No.
Did I need to add text to speech so my kids could listen to Pikachu’s bio while eating breakfast? Probably not.
Did I need to build an entire user authentication system for a site that shows a single Pokémon per day? Absolutely not.
Could I have just printed out a Pokémon chart and taped it to the fridge? Yes. But that would have been too easy.
Instead, I used an AI powered IDE, built a full stack web app, deployed it, and set up an email subscription system. For something that my kids will probably lose interest in by next month.
I’m at peace with my choices.
Would My Kids Have Been Fine With the Alexa Version? Probably.
But now they actually wake up excited to check which Pokémon they got. And honestly, that makes it worth it.
If you like Pokémon, have kids who do, or just want something better than Alexa’s deadpan delivery, try it out here.
Or don’t. But then you’ll never know which Pokémon you missed.