Living La Viva Piñata

Everyone who's interested in Viva Piñata™ now knows the basics. You take control of a rich stretch of land and maintain it to attract the piñata animals that populate the world. Much of the focus of the game is on keeping your piñatas happy by giving them a good home, other piñatas to play and dance with, protecting your piñatas from the more threatening denizens that prowl the land, and even mating them to create new piñatas.

A mating dance gone wrong.

The question then is how do these clever concepts translate to gameplay? Fortunately, we've been able to spend some time with the game, and we can offer a few answers to shed some much needed light on Viva Piñata's game mechanics.

In the Beginning
When you are first introduced to the wondrous land that you'll sculpt and manage, you start with only a small square of land to develop. This patch of earth will introduce to how to play the game.

You start with a small set of basic gardening tools with which you can alter your environment and try to attract piñatas. You can access these tools by pressing start and choosing from the radial pop-up menu.

Select the shovel to dispose of the bits of trash that litter your land. Piñatas don't like messes. Choose the bag of grass seed and shake it over the ground to grow grass. Grass grows without maintenance, but other plants, like carrots, will require you to nurture the seeds. Finally, you can select the watering can to water your plants, just be sure not to overdo it!

Rare has created a vibrant style all its own.

Viva Piñata is built specifically with kids, families, and casual gamers in mind, so as you continue to play, the game will give you helpful tips that will walk you through each new step in the gameplay and will also help explain the relationships between you, the land, and your piñatas.

Journal
Viva Piñata centers on attracting piñatas, making them happy enough to stick around, and then maintaining that happiness over the long term. Look to your journal for vital background information on every piñata, their likes, dislikes, and mating habits.

The game starts getting complex when you have to manage piñatas with opposing preferences. For example, if you have a family of bunnycomb piñatas living close to a family of wurms, you need to maintain a careful grass to dirt ratio, and make sure you have some carrots growing.

The Look of Love
Yes indeed, a major component of Viva Piñata is producing baby piñatas, which are delivered by the Storkos in the form of an egg. Once your piñatas are happy enough to want to settle down, you'll spot little hearts floating above their heads. At that point, you only need to move them close enough to one another, and they will start their romance dance.

Those pumpkins sure look tasty.

Provided you built them a home, the piñatas will then head inside and you will play a mini-game to complete the family-building process. Simply navigate your piñata through a maze while avoiding the sinister Loathers, who are intent on disrupting the romance rituals.

Day to Night
In many games the change from day to night is a simple visual change. In Viva Piñata however, the impact of the time of day on events is critical. Many piñatas, such mothdrops and pretztails, are nocturnal, so the time to attract and manage their needs only comes after the sun goes down. You may also find that the mean piñatas take advantage of the darkness to wreak havoc among your happy residents.

Viva Piñata is that rare game that appeals to every demographic, offering something for every gamer. Its simplicity is well-calculated, and its depth is amazing.

Article by Ryan Treit