PERIDOT

AR, procedural generation and creature comforts coalesce in Niantic’s Peridot

From the original Tamagotchi to Neopets and Nintendogs, there’s a long history of people forming emotional connections with pets that only exist on a screen. It’s not hard to see the appeal: all the belly rubs, nuzzles and sense of being needed you get from a doe-eyed animal companion, with none of its messier realities. So when Niantic, having racked up over a billion downloads with Pokémon Go, looks to repeat the trick, it’s worth paying attention.

Releasing on May 9 for iOS and Android, Peridot puts an AR spin on the Tamagotchi formula, allowing you to hatch, raise, and care for a digital ‘Peridot’ – or ‘Dot’ for short. You can eventually look after a few at once, but initially you’re presented with a choice of three eggs for your first Dot. Each blends procedural generation with handmade assets, plucked from a pool of physical and behavioural traits, known as ‘archetypes’, that are drawn from both real and mythical creatures.

Peridot director of production Ziah Fogel was previously lead technical director for Pixar. She knows a thing or two, then, about animated creatures that pull on the heartstrings. Fogel explains how you raise the Dot from a baby to an adult, through feeding and playing and all the things you’d expect from a virtual pet: “You can walk with it, you can play fetch, you can teach it tricks – all those kinds of things will fuel its attention meter, and ultimately that is how you grow your creature.” Unlike the rather unforgiving lifecycle of a Tamagotchi, your Peridot won’t digitally perish if left alone for too long, either.