Introducing Miitomo
I’ve been following the development of Miitomo, Nintendo’s first phone app, since it was first announced. It did an open beta stint in Japan, where it is quite popular, and finally just released outside of Japan yesterday. As soon as I knew it was released, I downloaded and created my Mii over lunch break.
I designed my Mii to look similar to the Mii I use on the Wii U and the MiiVerse. Alongside of look, you can also customize voice sound and personality. I think mine ended up fitting me quite well.
While dressing up and answering questions the game prompts you with is one part of the game, the biggest element is what happens when you start adding friends. To do this, you can add a friend face-to-face, meaning someone who is in the same room as you IRL. Or you can connect your Twitter and/or Facebook allowing the app to search for your friends in these social networks who also use the app.
Note, I like that this app only selects friends who use the app. So it doesn’t just dump out your whole friend list and encourage you to spam itself on those who have nothing to do with it. As far as I see, Twitter and Facebook are just a way to connect people who are already playing.
I also notice that the app starts recommending friends of friends. I made a choice pretty early on to only add folks who are directly in my social media circles, because it would get overwhelming by adding friends-of-friends really fast. To me, it defeats the purpose of getting to know folks if I have way too many people on my list. There’s only so many names I can keep up with. Sorry to friend-of-friends who try to add me. 🙁
The app encourages players to:
- respond to friends’ answers – either through hearts or in comments
- get new outfits and change fashion
- play “drop” mini-games to earn new fashion pieces
- visit friends (which seems to happen automatically)
- take and share miiphotos both in app and on social networks
This all seems pretty simple when you list it out, but the app has just been released, so it has a lot of room to grow. I’m having fun learning little interesting facts about friends I wouldn’t normally know – especially those I only know through social media. It’s a game that provides a way to connect people through slice-of-life moments, which can end up pretty fascinating… depending on how much you put into it.
Looking forward to making more Mii friends!