Nintendo sure loves its surprise announcements, and the latest feels especially chaotic even if the game reveal is rather bite-sized. Pictonico! appears to be heavily inspired by Wario Ware and launches next week on mobile phones.
Described (via the official site) as a free-to-start game with “purchases of game volumes” that add to the collection of minigames, Pictonico! looks a lot like Wario Ware and other off-beat Nintendo games; it’s easily explained by Intelligent Systems’ involvement as co-developer.
Pictonico! releases on 28th May, hitting both iOS and Android devices on the same day with a free “demo version” that includes three different minigames. It’s essentially a small taste of the whole package that you can buy in chunks, though the pricing of those DLC packs hasn’t been revealed yet.
For the most part, Pictonico! appears to use photos taken with your phone’s camera (old and new) to create wacky minigames through the use of filters and interactive mechanics. While it clearly isn’t a major release from Nintendo, it’s fun to see the company toy with such ideas on a smaller scale. It also genuinely looks like a great bit of fun for parties and meetups.
In the age of people being (rightfully) concerned about sending their data and personal pictures to tech companies, Nintendo was thinking a step ahead and has underlined it’s not receiving the users’ photos via the app’s store pages. In fact, as confirmed by the official FAQ, a connection is only required for the first launch, changing language settings, and purchasing and downloading new game volumes.








