It’s hard to describe in words how cute the little animals inside are Peridot Yes.Virtual pet, starring in the next release Pokémon Go The developer, Niantic, seems to have designed it scientifically to allow you to say “awww”. They have big eyes and colorful bodies, and they really respond when you give them some attention. I’ve only been able to play a small subset of the game’s pre-release versions, but I’m hooked.
I had a chance to try a hands-on demo Peridot Last week in Los Angeles with Senior Producer Ziah Fogel at the Summer Games Festival.The game is essentially a cross between the two Pokémon Go and Nintendogs, with all the augmented reality and location-based gameplay you’d expect from Niantic, but with a more focus on caring for your virtual pet. You only have one Peridot at a time (more on that later), and your main goal is just to keep them happy so they grow into a well-adjusted adult that can then be bred to create more cuteness.
When you start the game for the first time, you’ll see a baby creature—each peridot is unique—and take care of giving it a name. I panicked and named my lovely pink buddy “NFT”. (Check out the correct pronunciation here.) From there, there’s a quest system that revolves around your pet’s desires. They may want to be touched or eat a certain food. My little NFT (again, I apologize for the name) really wanted to see some flowers, so we wandered over to a nearby restaurant where the hostess stood with a bottle of roses. My peridot saw them through AR and cheered up immediately.
Niantic is quick to point out that there really isn’t a penalty factor here. Your pets may be a little sad, but they will never get hurt or (pant) die. Peridot is a game built around positive reinforcement. Making them happy helps them grow. It’s also a game that places a lot of emphasis on haptic interactions. You can pet your little one by stroking it on the head (there’s even some nice haptic feedback), and you can play it by throwing a tennis ball and it bounces off walls and trees in a realistic way. To forage for food and other items, you draw a circle on the screen and your pet will dive into the water and come back with whatever it manages to collect. Depending on what surface it feeds on – like sand or water – you’ll get different kinds of items.
Peridot It seems to favor single-player, sedentary games more than games like Niantic Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom“A lot of this game is about the nurturing side of things,” Fogel explained. “And you can do it at home alone and have a lot of fun out of the living room.”
but Peridot Do have real-world points of interest (think Pokémon Go), they appear as habitats. You can see these habitats in trees and buildings – there are bubbly streams on the ground to let you know there’s habitat nearby – and they play an important role in allowing you to breed with other players’ virtual pets. Peridot can be nurtured into adulthood (in the current version, Fogel says it takes one to three days, as peridot goes from baby to teen to adult), the idea is that you can try a specific type of peridot that has Creatures with unique characteristics, such as unicorns or snowmen. Babies will have characteristics of both parents, which you can enhance by using associated nests. This sounds a bit complicated, especially if you’re trying something very specific, but I’m going to have to spend more time on the final version to get a better feel.
One of the odder features is that since you’re only dealing with one peridot at a time, breeding also means saying goodbye – albeit not permanently. “When you breed with your current adult dog, the way it works is, you can track that one, so you can go back and play some more,” Fogel said. I ended up with a bull-spotted baby snowman with the unfortunate name “Web3”. (Seriously, I’m sorry.)
Peridot There’s also a photo mode where you can take cute photos of your pet, which ties into a planned feature: the ability to train your peridot and teach it tricks like sitting down or rolling over. There’s no word on when it will be implemented, but Fogel said it’s just one of several interesting features planned for the game. “The killer feature that we haven’t built yet is like a dog park,” she explained. “You don’t have to go into the lobby or anything – you just hop into the park and see a bunch of peridots running around. That’s something we’re looking forward to building. We’re really excited about it, but it’s technically Challenging.”
Peridot There is no release date yet, although it is currently undergoing a soft launch in Malaysia. When asked about a wider rollout, Fogel simply said: “I hope soon.”