Nintendo's Pictonico! is a chaotic and unexpectedly good time

Gaming Nintendo Nintendo's Pictonico! is a chaotic and unexpectedly good time It’s like WarioWare, but you and all the people you love are the main characters. By Cheyenne MacDonald May 31, 2026 7:30 pm EST Screenshots/Cheyenne MacDonald I'll admit that I was a bit put off when I learned that Nintendo's new WarioWare -like mobile game, Pictonico!, would need to use pictures from my phone's gallery. I'm pretty selective when it comes to giving apps access to my photos, and the idea of a game possibly being filled with pictures of my own face just didn't really appeal to me. But weird little games are kind of my thing here, and if Pictonico! is anything, it's weird. So, I gave it a go — and to my surprise, it won me over pretty fast. While Pictonico! is free to download, the game itself is not actually free beyond the short demo it offers. Once you complete that, you have to purchase game packs (or volumes, as Nintendo is calling them). Vol. 1 contains 20 stages and costs $8, and Vol. 2 costs $6, with 12 stages. These stages are made up of rapid-fire microgames, each stage requiring you succeed at 10 of these games before you can move on. And the games are wild. You might be shown a picture of yourself or a loved one with a nutcracker-style jaw, which you then need to use to rapidly chomp a bunch of items coming down the line. Or maybe you're a flower whose petals must be plucked. Or a grumpy banana waiting to be peeled. You're informed upon setup that your photos are not sent to Nintendo or shared in any way, which is somewhat reassuring, since you really need to use photos that include faces for it to work. Local storage seems especially important in this case, as Pictonico! would be a fun game to play with your kids. The game gives you the option to choose a specific album so you can ensure that only pictures you approve are used in the game. You could make an album just for that purpose, and fill it with whatever you want. (It doesn't do well with pet photos, but