Nintendo’s Pictonico! Turns Your Photos Into Minigames

Looks like Nintendo isn’t quite done with mobile yet. The company surprise-announced Pictonico! today, a new free-to-start mobile game launching on Android and iOS on May 28. The hook is simple: take a photo of yourself or a friend, and the app turns it into one of 80 minigames. It’s co-developed with Intelligent Systems, the longtime Nintendo partner behind WarioWare, Fire Emblem, and Paper Mario, and the WarioWare DNA is pretty obvious from the trailer.

The minigame premises are exactly what you’d expect from anyone connected to WarioWare. Plucking a nose hair off an angry mom, helping your hungry boss with lunch, zipping your son’s mouth shut so he’ll quiet down, and skydiving with an old friend are all on the list. Nintendo also made a point of clarifying that your photos are not sent to Nintendo, which is good to hear for an app built entirely around your camera roll. The app is free to download with a handful of demo minigames included, but unlocking the full set of 80 requires purchasing one of two content volumes through an in-app purchase. Pricing wasn’t officially confirmed in the press release, but App Store listings show the two volumes priced at $5.99 and $7.99.

Pictonico! is drawing pretty obvious comparisons to Face Raiders on the Nintendo 3DS, which used the system’s cameras to turn photos of real faces into enemies for a shooting gallery. That was one of the most charming uses of the 3DS hardware, and a photo-based minigame collection from the WarioWare team feels like a natural spiritual successor on mobile. It’s also the second Nintendo mobile game in less than a year, following last September’s surprise launch of Fire Emblem Shadows, which didn’t really land particularly well with critics or commercially. After a long stretch where it looked like Nintendo had walked away from mobile entirely with the Switch 2 launch, the company appears to be recommitting to the platform.

At the time of publishing, Nintendo of America hadn’t posted the English trailer on its YouTube channel. It’s only available on the Nintendo Today! app. So you can find the Japanese trailer below.

Pictonico! Japanese Trailer