As Niantic's AR mobile game Pikmin Bloom has been out for nearly two months, players have likely gotten into a rhythm. The exercise-focused Pikmin game asks players to wander their neighborhoods and other key places around the world in search of new Pikmin Seedlings that can be grown with enough footsteps. One way it encourages exploration is by giving Pikmin decor once they're friendly enough with players, with whatever cosmetic they wear being based on the kind of location where they were found.
Pikmin Bloom is gearing up for its second Community Day on December 18, in which players will be able to grow Pikmin faster while working toward a badge earned at 10,000 steps. Before that, the official Pikmin Bloom Twitter account announced that a new type of decor is available for any Pikmin found around "hamburger shops;" each color adorning classic diner food with different kinds of burgers, fries, and sodas. That new decor types are being added is a good sign for the game overall, as it means there's more longevity to the experience and Niantic can potentially put out special event decor in the future.
There are 22 decor categories available as of this writing, those being:
- Restaurant
- Cafe
- Sweetshop
- Movie Theater
- Pharmacy
- Zoo
- Forest
- Waterside
- Post Office
- Art Gallery
- Airport
- Station
- Beach
- Hamburger Shop
- Mini-mart
- Supermarket
- Bakery
- Hair Salon
- Clothing Store
- Park
- Special
- Roadside
With the exception of "Special," which includes one unit wearing Mario's hat distributed by Nintendo; and "Roadside," a sort of catch-all for any place without a category; the locations available for Pikmin Bloom decor establish a few patterns Niantic can iterate upon.
Schools
Among the everyday places included in Pikmin Bloom's decor line-up, it's perhaps most surprising that schools are not an option. On one hand, maybe it isn't the smartest idea to target schools as a place for lots of strangers to walk through - even if higher-education institutions like colleges could also count. On the other hand, a mobile game based on Nintendo characters is no doubt widely enjoyed by a younger audience that could easily fill up their collection while at school every day. It also seems right to imagine Pikmin walking around with pencils, or other signifiers of academia like sharp glasses and blazers.
Fire Departments
Another place it may not be smart to send smartphone-focused civilians to is police stations, as evident via stories of Pokemon GO players being arrested in the past. However, fire departments much less of a hassle so long as players stay out of the path of fire trucks when they need to attend to an emergency. Pikmin found there could wear different kinds of firemen hats, but the bigger purple and rock Pikmin could also have some fun with belts made out of fire hoses. Full-bodied fire trucks could also be used as decor considering airports and stations use toy planes and trains, respectively.
Deserts
Given places like Las Vegas, Nevada and the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt are popular tourist destinations, deserts could fit right alongside forests and beaches as natural environments to pull Pikmin decor from. Various kinds of cacti seem like the most obvious choice for desert imagery to use, though some fun could also be had dressing up one color of Pikmin as an hourglass to incorporate sand directly. Something like a sarcophagus or mummy wrappings could also fit many peoples' general "desert" imagery, but would make less sense to find outside of Egypt.
Observatories
Though observatories are not as ubiquitous as buildings like schools, they are institutions with a lot of potential for costumes. It's unlikely people will be playing Pikmin Bloom on the moon anytime soon, so somewhere like Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory could offer astronomical items. Perhaps the basic red, blue, and yellow Pikmin could be observers with tiny telescopes and the like, meanwhile rarer Pikmin dress up as celestial bodies. If nothing else it would make sense to see a flying Pikmin dressed up like a comet so it could zip after players with a colorful tail.
Pikmin Bloom is available now on Android and iOS devices.