Niantic is a developer specializing in augmented reality games. Its first project, still part of Google, was Ingress, the second was Pokemon Go, which used Ingress’s experience and became wildly popular around the world. Unfortunately, other Niantic games were less fortunate – almost no one remembers Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (by the way, its closure was announced only a few months ago), and Catan: World Explorers went almost unnoticed – the game never was fully released.

So, Niantic’s new attempt to “capture the market” of AR games is Peridot, the company’s first original game since Ingress. It will be a virtual pet simulator something like “Tamagotchi”, but in augmented reality. In fact, Peridots (or just Dots) are the same pets who come to our world and need our help – that’s how the developer describes the game.

The released screenshots show players playing with “peridots” in the real world, raising them, breeding new species, etc. So far Peridot looks very similar to Pokemon Go, so I wonder if they will compete with each other in the future.

Niantic is planning a limited release in selected markets “soon”, while anyone can subscribe to the newsletter and receive notifications when the game is released.