First Details Of Niantic’s Pikmin App Surface Online Following Beta Launch

First Details Of Niantic’s Pikmin App Surface Online Following Beta Launch

Earlier today, Niantic began testing its new Pikmin mobile app in Singapore leading to many new details about the app and its features surfacing online.

According to reports, the app allows players to grow their own Pikmin by walking around the real world, and subsequently send their new friends on expeditions to places they have walked. It also includes other features to encourage walking and daily play such as a “lifelog” of the player’s activities.

You can check out a summary of the key details below as compiled by VGC:

Starting Out

  • The game starts off by giving players a bag of Pikmin seedlings, which grow into full-fledged Pikmin by absorbing “step energy” generated when players walk around.
  • Once enough energy is generated, Pikmin can be plucked and named. There are currently seven available Pikmin types:
    • Red Pikmin
    • Blue Pikmin
    • Yellow Pikmin
    • Purple Pikmin
    • White Pikmin
    • Rock Pikmin
    • Winged Pikmin
  • There are also “Decor Pikmin”, special variants of Pikmin wearing clothing based on the place they are found.
    • Decor Pikmin can be grown from  Big Seedlings.
    • Regular Pikmin can also be transformed into Decor Pikmin through special interactions in real-life locations.
  • As players walk around, they can find new seedlings and obtain new items from their Pikmin squad. Items are turned into nectar which can be used to make Pikmin bloom flowers.
    • Pikmin flower petals can be collected by tapping on them .Flower petals can come in four colours: red, blue, yellow, or white.
    • Petals are used during a special Flower Planting mode, a type of walking mode that forms flower trails as you walk.
    • As a benefit, Seedlings are easier to find, and Seedlings planted in your item bag grow faster.
  • Currently, there are no microtransactions in the Pikmin App.

Expeditions

  • Players can send Pikmin on expeditions to places they have previously visited to collect more seedlings and items.
  • Players select an Expedition from the Expedition screen, then select the Pikmin they want to embark on that campaign.
    • The UI will indicat which item they’ll collect at the end, the time required and how many Pikmin they’ll need to send.
  • Pikmin can also pick up postcards on exhibitions, which use pictures submitted by Pokemon GO and Ingress players to show the Pikmin on their adventure.
    • The app does not use photos on the player’s device to generate postcards.
    • Postcards currently cannot be sent to other players.

Lifelog and Daily Lookback

  • The Lifelog is a personal record of the player’s daily activities that they can curate with text and pictures to record things they’ve done.
    • On the Lifelog’s Entries screen, players can view the number of steps walked, flower planting results, places visited, photos captured and written entries created.
  • At the end of each day, the Pikmin App will generate a Daily Lookback, which is an animated summary of the player’s Pikmin App progress from the past day, visible only to them.
    • This summary will include the places visited, the places where the player planted flowers, and the number of steps they walked.
    • In some cases, if players walked a lot in a single day, they will earn a chance to get a free item by playing a propeller mini-game.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

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