Niantic’s new game is like playing Tamagotchi in augmented reality
The concept of augmented reality games used to feel like a very novel kind of idea, but when Niantic launched Pokemon GO, they really showed how AR could be used in a more useful way when it came to games. Now the company is back with a new game called Peridot which feels like an AR version of Tamagotchi.
For those who might be too young to get the Tamagotchi reference, these were a hit back in the 90s where kids would carry around small egg-shaped devices where a little digital creature lived inside of them.
Players would have to feed their digital pets every so often, play with them, clean up after them, and so on, and it’s essentially the same thing with Peridot. Gamers will be expected to care for their virtual pets, raising them, and breeding them. According to Niantic:
“After thousands of years of slumber, Peridots (or Dots for short) are waking to a world vastly different from the one in which they used to roam, and they’ll need our help to protect them from extinction.”
One of the advantages of Peridot compared to Tamagotchi is that you can use your phone to “project” an image of them in the real world, so it almost feels like they’re sitting on the ground next to you while you’re at a cafe, or while you’re in class at school, or even at work. It also seems to merge the concepts of Niantic’s other games like Pokemon GO and Pikmin Bloom together.
Peridot is Niantic’s second original title after Ingress and at the moment, the game is still in beta but gamers who are curious can sign up and pre-register for the game for when it launches.
Source: Niantic