I accepted my fate and decided to dress up to entertain myself.

Good look.
Good look.
Image: Screenshot

The game, inasmuch as there is one, is essentially to ask yourself questions, and let your friends in the game know the answers to these questions. Every time you answer a question, or listen to a friend’s answer to a question, you get coins. It’s like a digital psychologist, asking yourself about things you already know the answers to, but without any sort of judgement. What’s your favorite way to relax? Colostomies? Cool. Your favorite food? Dirt? That’s awesome. It’s sort of lifestyle-affirming and inane at the same time.

Image for article titled Nintendo’s first mobile app is a Kafkaesque exercise in madness
Image: Screenshot

There are apparently more features coming, but right now, the only ways to entertain yourself beyond Mad Libs-style answers to questions is to dress up, take photos of your new outfits, and to play pachinko for more outfits. In typical Nintendo style, the Miis are the things you use to play the game:

Image for article titled Nintendo’s first mobile app is a Kafkaesque exercise in madness
Image: Screenshot

If you’re really bad at pachinko and run out of coins, you can pay for more through the app, ensuring that a new generation of kids will likely bankrupt their parents with Nintendo products—but instead of games cartridges and movie tickets, it’ll be through in-app purchases for digital coins.

Just what I needed.
Just what I needed.
Image: Screenshot

Oh good.

A “Miifoto”: A picture of your Mii doing a ‘humorous’ thing.
A “Miifoto”: A picture of your Mii doing a ‘humorous’ thing.
Image: Screenshot

My Mii does not sleep, he does not eat, he does not want for anything other than clothes and answers. And somehow those limited wants are a huge drain on your phone’s battery.

Sounds like a moody teenager.
Sounds like a moody teenager.
Image: Screenshot

I do worry that feeding Nintendo this information about myself, my habits, and the human condition, that it will eventually figure out what makes us tick, and decide we are no longer necessary.

Image for article titled Nintendo’s first mobile app is a Kafkaesque exercise in madness
Image: Screenshot

I hope Nintendo is aware of what it has wrought.

The company’s next mobile game will be a version of Pokémon.

📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief

Our free, fast, and fun briefing on the global economy, delivered every weekday morning.