Pikmin Bloom first bloomed a year and a half ago as a walk-encouraging spinoff of the already eco-friendly franchise Shigeru Miyamoto once created. Now, with the fourth major entry in the series set to release exclusively on Nintendo Switch, we caught up with the team at Niantic Tokyo to learn more about the mobile game’s latest feature…and try to get Some scoop on potential, inevitable Pikmin 4 content.
“It’s a very secret situation!” product lead Tomo Yamazaki said with a laugh when asked about an event celebrating Pikmin 4’s imminent landing. “Of course, there are things we’re thinking about, but at the moment, we can’t say anything specific, so stay tuned. We’re sure it will be enjoyed by the fans.
With or without Pikmin 4, Pikmin Bloom has been growing and seeing new features sprout from the original walking concept.
“Our core gameplay hasn’t changed because it’s the very foundation of our concept,” explains Senior Product Manager Rica Nakajima. “But we’ve been working hard on new features to add more social elements and bring people more connected.
In terms of these new features, “One example is that we just held the first real Niantic-style event in Sapporo, Japan. It’s a collaboration between the local government and Nintendo. So when the user goes to Sapporo, the user can Seeing some special floral POIs, some landmarks or POIs, one can get really cute seedlings to decorate Pikmin with.
“They also often play postcards,” UX designer Akari Sora further added. “They’ve been enjoying it…we had a banana pikmin but it split into three, but they were trying to make pictures of postcards with connected pikmins. They kept surprising us with new ways to enjoy the game .
But beyond cosmetics and authentic local-themed events, there are some trickier suggestions for those looking for them:
“We introduced the Mushroom Challenge,” Mr. Yamazaki points out in the video. “The Mushroom Challenge is where people make Pikmin fight mushrooms. And then basically[團隊中的]Five people can fight it. We have introduced a new layer of red mushrooms. People can only get red Pickmins. Also, these are very rare and therefore very popular. We have a hard time finding uninhabited mushrooms. Then we introduced new functionality,[比如]Mushroom tickets. Then people can join with mushroom tickets, and even the mushrooms themselves are taken”.
For more on the incredibly delicious Pikmin Donut, Pikmin Skateboard, and other aspects of Pikmin Bloom, watch the full video above. Unfortunately, we couldn’t leave with the team’s adorable Pikmin-themed t-shirts…
