Pictonico! Puts WarioWare-Style Microgames on Your Phone
Nintendo has a new microgame collection out. It just is not called WarioWare.
Pictonico! launched on iOS and Android on May 28, 2026. It was made by Nintendo EPD and Intelligent Systems, the studio behind the WarioWare series.
Your photos become the game
The twist is your camera roll. Pictonico! takes faces and places from the photos on your phone and drops them into short touch screen challenges. The trailer shows people eating corn, getting critters picked off their face and being unwrapped from mummy bandages.
Each challenge lasts a few seconds, and even some of the sound effects feel close to WarioWare. Nintendo says the photos you use are not sent to Nintendo, and the game can be played offline.
Free to start, then paid volumes
You can try a handful of minigames for free. Getting all 80 means buying Volumes, and App Store listings showed two volumes priced at $5.99 and $7.99.
Reviews have been warm. Nintendo Life gave it 8 out of 10, and plenty of players compared it to Face Raiders on Nintendo 3DS, which also turned real faces into game targets.
How it compares to D.I.Y.
Pictonico! makes you and your friends the stars, but you do not build anything. WarioWare: D.I.Y. went the other way in 2010. Players drew the art, set the triggers and tested every second themselves, and the Super MakerMatic 21 walked them from a blank canvas all the way to Trial Play.
Seeing Intelligent Systems back on quick fire minigames is a good sign for anyone hoping the studio has more microgames in it. Whether that means a new WarioWare is still anyone's guess, since Wario sat out both the June show and the September 2026 Nintendo Direct.
Sources
- Pictonico!, Wikipedia
- Nintendo Preparing WarioWare-like Pictonico Mobile Game, Siliconera
- Nintendo reveals "kind of silly" photo game Pictonico!, PocketGamer.biz
- Nintendo's Pictonico! Turns Your Photos Into Minigames, Fullcleared
- Pictonico! announcement (Nintendo of America press release), Nintendojo