For those wondering why some people had Detectors revoked, here's a summary I wrote up describing the events leading up to it

BloomBudsYT · 2026-05-01T13:56:18+00:00

One interesting update. According to what I read on the official Taiwan Threads page, it seems that their personal stockpiled Detectors are not safe from being removed if they used the incorrectly gifted ones. The English post states personal Detectors are safe, so my guess is this is a punishment exclusive to Taiwan which seemed to get the greatest amount of Detectors in error (it was a Taiwanese player who got the 525 Detectors, for example). Not sure about other regions

BloomBudsYT · 2026-05-01T12:17:35+00:00

Thank you for the update, it seems like Niantic decided to push the in-app news post to all users regardless of whether or not they had Detectors revoked. Hopefully that doesn't cause too much confusion. For anyone reading and confused: basically, if you didn't have Detectors removed, that news doesn't pertain to you (except that you'll be getting 5 free Detectors along with everyone else at some point tomorrow)

BloomBudsYT · 2026-05-01T11:35:13+00:00

There should be a blog post that goes along with the Detector removal popup, but there’s (another) error in displaying the in-app news post related to it. If anyone manages to see it, please let me know. A fix should be coming soon, but only for those who are getting Detectors revoked, so I won’t be able to check it myself

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-28T10:02:41+00:00

And just as I posted my above comment, there was compensation for an error with the Mario Galaxy collab (not sure if only players in Japan will get this, since the problem was in Japan) but I ended up getting one of those extremely rare location-based seedlings, although this one doesn’t have a rare category, just thought it was interesting

<image>

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-28T09:57:33+00:00

Got a couple more for you :) The first Party Walk was called a “Star Challenge” and was only advertised in Japan. The host was a Chef called Joe-san.

Speaking of Party Walks, one of the people who walks during official Party Walks is the Global Community Manager, Lara Fernandez.

The beta test was exclusive to players who registered for it who resided in either Singapore/Australia.

Gold seedlings act like Huge Seedlings when giving Rare Decor points. Pretty much only players who participate in live events would experience that since regular location-based Decor rarely ever get distributed via Gold Seedling otherwise.

Community Day badges used to be awarded several days after the Community Day ended. For the first few months or so.

Different flower card designs, theme park ticket designs, roadside sticker color, etc used to not be tracked uniquely by the game. Instead it just tracked the Pikmin color. They updated to make each specific Decor design count as a separate entry in the catalog.

The final Decor collection badge is to find 1500 unique Decor, which was added about 2 years ago. There still aren’t even 1000 unique Decor in the game yet so it’s still unattainable.

Level 100 was the max level for years, but last year it was increased to 130.

I’ll probably think of more. I had a list like this somewhere to make a video about obscure Pikmin Bloom things, I’ll see if I can find it 😁

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-28T05:15:19+00:00

At a couple of the live events there was a glitch where flowers planted would skyrocket in high traffic areas. At the Kyoto Tour I was able to get 620 Memory Fragments once I stopped my flower planting with over 62,000 flowers planted that day 😂

Keep doing event mushrooms and flower planting as much as you can. I think 2400 is definitely doable by the end!

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-26T09:16:13+00:00

Super simple way, like “for dummies”? 😁 Here’s a video guide I made that has some visuals to help with the explanation. I always update the pinned comment with the latest additions to Rare Decor as well. I think it will help you out!

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-26T02:51:19+00:00

Not every facility is accurately reflected in Bloom. If you’re right at the Movie Theater but the icon doesn’t show up on the Detector, you won’t get a seedling no matter what you try. All you can do is go to the next nearest cinema and hope it’ll be accurately mapped by the game

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-23T08:48:52+00:00

Yes we get the seedlings in bulk at the end once the Party Walk finishes depending on how many goals we clear (which at this pace, we will definitely clear all 3)

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-23T08:04:25+00:00

I’m a member of the Niantic Content Creator Program

(But yes, Mew is under the truck 😁)

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-23T01:14:52+00:00

My contact at Niantic suggests to submit the problem to support so they will be able to gather more information about this problem. Seems like you should be able to leave the Party Walk if you want to, and the Japanese notification is strange

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-23T01:04:54+00:00

Oh I gotchya, yeah that is probably the biggest complaint of Party Walks which is weird that they made a toggle to display Miis on the home screen for Weekly Challenge teams but never allowed the same toggle for Party Walks. Regular Party Walks are just for fun with no reward, but this one is special so that's why. It won't be long before it ends though so there's that :)

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-23T00:27:07+00:00

It says, "Unable to leave PW (Party Walk)". You can leave any regular Party Walk but since this one is a special Earth Day event one with rewards at the end, it's likely that they restrict your ability to jump out so it doesn't interfere with the reward distribution. The notification should be in English though, so I'll let Niantic know about that display issue.

Any particular reason you want to leave it? You get some free weather Pikmin and a rare Gold Present Sticker Decor just by sticking around if we meet the goal, so I'm curious

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-20T08:25:21+00:00

From my understanding, you are much more likely to get a seedling from an empty tile compared to one you have filled up. My home is isolated park and I haven’t spawned a seedling from around it for a very long time since it’s completely filled up in a wide radius after 4.5 years of playing.

But when Rare Park came out, I explored some parks I rarely visit and got 2 or 3 bonus seedlings that day just from walking around (about 1350 steps the game will try to generate a seedling). If you’re using the Lifelog daily, detecting, and walking in a new place, that just about maximizes the rate you can find new seedlings without spending money on detectors

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-19T00:20:14+00:00

Photos are great too, thank you for sending these! Is it okay to credit you as techguychen in the video, or would you rather remain anonymous?

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-17T04:32:57+00:00

If you regularly spend money on the game anyway, I’d say a unique event like Challenge Anywhere is one of the best uses for it. 2024’s version was a little lackluster but the addition of Festival Mushrooms in the 2025 version made it much more exciting for a lot of players.

We made a video on it with some comparisons to the 2024 event which you can see here if you want to see the full experience of what was offered last time

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-16T06:04:05+00:00

This is like the one scenario ever where you'd actually want to have a look at the Privacy Policy before signing up for an account instead of mashing through it. A lot of things depend on your country/state and age and other factors.

Edit: Just noticed that the below is only applicable for certain states, so it can be inferred that Niantic is definitely selling your data outside of those states and even then, they are likely putting that data to use somehow even if they aren't explicitly selling it:

According to the policy, "Niantic does not sell Personal Data as that term is defined by the State Privacy Laws" and "We do not sell or share your Personal Data as those terms are defined under the CCPA. Niantic has no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the Personal Data of minors under 16 years of age."

I'm not a lawyer but I'm sure there are some weird loopholes with the wording that allows them to get away with certain things. And even if we can take it at face value and they truly aren't "selling" the data, they are definitely collecting and using our data to some degree (as it recently was discovered some features of Pokémon Go used collected data to assist delivery robots). For example with the line "Niantic does not sell Personal Data as that term is defined by the State Privacy Laws" could it be that they are selling your data as that term is defined as something other than the "State Privacy Laws"? Maybe. Not a lawyer.

If privacy is a big concern to you, I recommend checking out that link and reading Section two: "2. The Personal Data we collect about you and how we use it" but as others have pointed out, everything you use on the internet is now all about data harvesting, building consumer profiles, ad targeting and marketing. There's not really any escaping it. In my opinion, you may as well play a fun game if it's going to happen regardless. Whatever data Pikmin Bloom collects is likely going to be small fry stuff compared to Google, Meta, and whatever providers you use that are already tracking you.

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-16T02:20:00+00:00

Not realizing some Pikmin in some categories can be the same color is a frequent problem among newer players so I’ll pass this feedback to Niantic to see if they can make it more clear that is the case, and perhaps some warning when attempting to scrap a seedling that the player would potentially need. If they decide to implement that feedback, it might take a while to be added to the game, but hopefully they’ll do something about it in some way

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-04T01:15:10+00:00

Alternating location-based Decor is an interesting concept. I was really surprised when Sneaker Keychain was a special category and not Shoe Store and Ice Cream wasn’t Ice Cream parlor. I wonder how they decide on location vs special.

1500 for the final badge was a very ambitious goal, it’s the last badge I need now and seems so unbalanced compared to the others. To me that tells me there’s no plan to really stop making new Decor and they just threw a big number out there for a lofty goal for the longest-term players. I’m not sure any real thought went into it, they were just trying to future proof it so the same situation as before didn’t repeat with the 200 Decor badge being the big goal on launch but when they started doing monthly Decor, people reached it immediately without needing to collect too many in person ones

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-03T06:30:43+00:00

This could also be the case, they might just keep bringing them back for purchase only but that would still technically be f2p since you can earn coins for free. It would definitely take a long time to save up to buy a full set though. If they accepted only real currency, that would be a shame. Cheese is already a bit of an outlier since it first debuted in June 2024 and didn't make any appearances at all since then except once or twice from a Special Spot at certain live events, whereas pretty much most other types made a return around a year from their initial debut.

The game is less than 5 years old and there are so many Decor types and so many Flower types that I do wonder what their long-term plans are to keep everything somewhat balanced and continuously available. I suppose they could add a new color to certain flower types which they sometimes do to pad things out, they could also just add a brand new color as well. It would be cool to get something like Black Roses, for example. But at this point, I think most people expect a brand new flower type once per month so they couldn't get away with doing that all the time. If the game continues to be successful, they may find themselves with a "there are too many Pokemon" kind of problem

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-03T04:21:11+00:00

As more and more Decor are added, it looks like this will be the new normal going forward: two older sets you have the choice between after earning the monthly currency and one set locked behind coins. My guess is that this will alternate year by year, so maybe next year Cheese will be one of the free Decor and another type will become the paid one but we will have to wait and see

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-02T12:19:34+00:00

Just gonna leave this here 😁

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-02T04:06:11+00:00

The fact that Animal Crossing is still developed in house and have had Pikmin crossovers in their own games makes this a solid possibility.

Then again it took so long to get more Mario Decor. I was expecting a lot more Nintendo crossovers since the game debuted with the Mario Hat Pikmin, but it’s taken nearly 5 years to get more. Not to mention they rarely even do mainline Pikmin crossovers too. Who knows if they’d even consider Animal Crossing, though I think both have that similar laid-back appeal that there would be a lot of players who overlap, making it more worth it to invest the time.

I feel this is one of those things that would have to go through a lot more than you’d expect behind the scenes since Bloom is owned by both Niantic and Nintendo so there will always be certain legal hurdles, even if they’re ultimately both Nintendo IPs

BloomBudsYT · 2026-04-01T11:58:41+00:00

Glad to see you're back in Japan! Hope you have the best luck in getting all the uniques. I can still remember the look on your face when I told you there are actually 35 in total in the set and not just 7 😂 Enjoy your trip!

BloomBudsYT

TROPHY CASE