Pikmin Bloom, a new mobile game developed by Niantic and Nintendo, was revealed yesterday. Pikmin Bloom takes place in the Pikmin franchise and, like Pokémon GO, is designed for people to walk.

Niantic CEO John Hanke shared more details in a teaser for the announcement, highlighting how this collaboration took place, the motivation behind the project, and how they hope it will encourage walking:

Like Pokémon GO, Pikmin is kind of a collectible game, but not quite. Players can collect plant-like creatures that can grow from seeds, grow in size, and eventually bloom. To do any of that, Pikmin require walking, similar to how PokéEggs require walking to hatch.

Interestingly, the game features a type of “Shared virtual reality” for all players playing in the same area – the further you walk, the more flowers there will be and everyone can see it.

The more you walk, the more Pikmin you will collect. Players can also feed and play with their Pikmin, but the core of the game is firmly planted when walking:

• Step counting is the core mechanic of the game.
• There is a useful tool that remembers your day and creates a video of your walks.

Words from the developers

Niantic’s John Hanke and Madoka Kataoka had a interview with Eurogamer and shared the following:

“[Pikmin Bloom] it doesn’t demand your attention at certain times, but it’s there when you want to give it your attention. “ Niantic founder John Hanke told Eurogamer in an interview via Zoom this week.

“If you want to pay attention to something else, maybe you are walking with a friend and talking to him, or in a coffee shop and ordering a coffee, you can save the game at any time. If you are planting flowers, they will keep planting, if you are still walking, you will still count your steps. If you were playing another Niantic game, you can do it without it competing for your attention. “

“The style of play and how often someone can play Pikmin Go is quite different from Pokémon Go.” said Madoka Kataoka, UX design director at Niantic Tokyo, the studio that worked with Nintendo on the app.

“I think they work quite well together.” He added, mentioning that during the app’s initial development, prototypes of other unnamed Nintendo franchises were created, but they didn’t fit into Pikmin Bloom’s intended game loop either.

“We experimented with many other Nintendo IPs, but famous IPs don’t always mean the best fit for our goals and the experience we wanted to offer.” Kataoka continued. “From all the prototypes and demos we did, we saw that Pikmin fit and balanced those goals and the vision that we had.”

Parting words

We are still debating whether or not to cover Pikmin Bloom on a separate site, and will let you know relatively soon.

The launch of Pikmin Bloom begins today in Australia and Singapore, before launching in other parts of the world “in the next few days.”

The game seems relatively straightforward, with more mechanics to come – the Pikmin series is also combat-oriented, just as Pokémon is towards Trainer Battles. So far, no word has been shared about future content.

You can get more information about the game on the official website: pikminbloom.com

Niantic’s post and Nintendo’s Pikmin Bloom release starting today appeared first on the Pokémon GO Hub.