You might have read on my recent blog post that I mentioned Pikmin Bloom Community Day. Well, it’s not really the community day that you are thinking. Pikmin Bloom is a game after all.

So what is Pikmin Bloom?

Yes, you read it right. Pikmin Bloom is a game of cute pikmins. Pikmin is like a half plant, half animal creature. There were different Pikmin games before Pikmin Bloom was born but I haven't played them; I've only played Pikmin Bloom. Ever heard of Pokemon Go? They both have the same creator - Niantic.

Pikmin Bloom is an AR game which encourages people to go outside, walk and see plants bloom. What better time to see blooming flowers than spring season, right? You can read more about this game in Wikipedia.

As a player I need to feed these Pikmins with nectar, and go for a walk with them and our friendship level will get higher. I can also make the world colorful by planting different flowers. I really believe that flowers can make someone's day brighter. Since I can't get flowers for someone, I'll just leave traces of flowers as I walk around. Maybe I can make someone's day brighter, right?

There are tons of things you can do with the Pikmin in this game so it can really entertain me for a while.

When it was released, it was very popular among Japanese. I even saw some playing it while I was in the train one day. Now, I'm not sure if people are still playing it, maybe because there's not really a place where we should be gathering to play the game so recently I haven't seen other people play it. Well, we can just go wherever we want and send Pikmins on a hunt.

The reason why I started playing this game on my phone is to encourage myself to go outside - even around the neighborhood. With all the State Of Emergency (SoE) declared in Tokyo, people are encouraged to work from home, not socialize and if you want to eat out, you gotta be early because restaurants will close at 8pm. I thought if I play this game, it will motivate me to at least do some walking exercise and quit lounging at home making myself fatter and fatter. 😅

Nowadays I occasionally play the game to collect badges and decors. The SoE had been lifted so people are starting to go out and situation is almost back to normal (I go out now 😂) (although Japan is still in critical status re covid).

Usually there are events and yes, that's the Community Day, held sometimes (I think it's every month?) or when there's something special.

Last April 23, it was the April Community Day and tulips were available for grabs. The game has events like these to get people moving - at least 10k steps. Of course, I wanted to collect the badge so I walked around and found myself in Nishi Shinjuku.

WOW! I didn't know I have walked 1M steps with Pikmin already. Hehe, interesting

I think Pikmin Bloom was so successful in Japan. When it was released, I can see many Japanese downloading and playing the game on their phones - even teens (or maybe it's popular with teens than adults?). The aim of this game is to get people outdoors and I think they have done a successful job at that. I just hope I can continue to play this game with the fitness goal in mind. Maybe hitting 2M steps with my Pikmin comrades? Who knows.

For more information, you can check out Pikmin Bloom's official website in this link.

Thank you for reading and see you around!

All photos in this post are screenshots from the game on my phone unless stated otherwise.