Niantic Releases its New Augmented Reality Pet Game, 'Peridot'

Building off the momentum from Pokémon Go, Niantic expanded its list of augmented reality mobile games last year with the introduction of Pikmin Bloom, and now reveals another real-world adventure game titled Peridot. Peridot is a Tamagotchi-like pet game where players care for unique virtual creatures and raise them to adulthood.

“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,” Niantic writes in the description.

Similar to Tamagotchi, Dots need to be maintained, and players can pet, play, feed, and teach them new tricks to help them grow. Players can also collaborate with each other to cross-breed and expand the Peridot species for “infinite possibilities of Peridot archetypes” resembling “cheetahs, dragons, unicorns, and more.”

The Peridot creatures come to life through the camera-based augmented reality, and the Dots are able to recognize the difference between real-world surfaces such as water, grass, sand, etc. The app can also be easily integrated with social media platforms for quick and easy photo-sharing of in-game snapshots.

Niantic plans to soft-launch Peridot in select markets on Apple’s App Store and Google Play this April. Learn more about the upcoming title at the Niantic Labs website.

Elsewhere in gaming, Club Penguin Rewritten has been shut down by Disney.