Parents' Guide to Pikmin Bloom

The app can offer players a visual way to track the steps they take. Pikmin Bloom also provides some incentives to encourage users to walk around, planting items as they go to enhance the virtual scenery. Gamers can personalize the app's daily written record of their activity by including photos and notes, and an animated summary recaps their progress from the day before. The seven types of Pikmin in the app have numerous characteristics, such as strength or the ability to fly. The more players interact with their Pikmin, the more their collective friendship level grows -- which can eventually unlock information about where to find special items to help the creature become a Décor Pikmin after it retrieves and dons an item relating to its identity. Once players complete approximately a half-dozen levels, they can send their Pikmin on expeditions to bring back things like fruits and seedlings they've previously encountered.

It may sound like gamers will be overloaded with errands and chores -- but the focus really is on walking. Players aren't required to do things nonstop. At times when they're waiting for things to grow, they may actually not be sure what to do next. If they later don't perform some of the suggested actions, such as feeding Pikmins nectar, the creatures will still grow flowers on their head as long as players walk with them. Accidentally overfeeding Pikmin also won't shut the experience down -- in time, the situation will correct itself. To effectively use the app, users need to grant it access to their phone's activity tracking capabilities, and they'll need to have their phone physically with them for the steps they take to register. The developer also recommends being connected to a Wi-Fi or another network to obtain accurate location information and advises compatibility issues may arise with devices that don't have GPS functionality. That might be a dealbreaker for kids -- or parents -- if having a phone and consistent 5G or other access isn't possible. If connectivity isn't an issue, though, and players are interested in boosting their activity level by offering ongoing character interactions and various tasks, Pikmin Bloom could serve as a fun way to help measure their steps -- which may end up motivating them to take more.