Infinity Nikki 1.5’s dyeing and handholding are a natural evolution

The next update for Infinity Nikki has arrived and for casual, occasional Stylists like myself it’s a patch that makes a lot of sense, its crown jewels being the introduction of co-op gameplay plus a dyeing system.

Infold Games’ dress-up RPG doesn’t have fearsome enemies it takes two to defeat. It’s not that kind of story. But even Miraland, with all its quirky and friendly faces, can get a little lonely, and selfies only give you so much satisfaction. What makes photos special is very often their context and their company — and so Infinity Nikki’s co-op mode is a no-brainer: You join one of your friends to explore Miraland together, looking for the best photo spots and showing off your outfits, posing for group photos.

Altogether, taking photos together works quite well. The player initiating the shot controls the camera, adjusting the lighting, filters, and so on, in addition to their Nikki’s pose, as would be the case for a normal picture. The other player, meanwhile, controls only their own Nikki’s pose. It’s similar for handholding: The initiating player can drag the other one around. It’s too bad the act ends when you enter photo mode, so cute handholding photos can only be shot via the title’s screenshot tool.

I’ll have to contextualize this by mentioning that the preview build for Version 1.5 I got to try out wasn’t in the best state. By which I mean: it was a complete mess. The game froze half the time I tried to link up with a colleague, and the dedicated co-op hub area didn’t work at all for us, so we unfortunately couldn’t try out the brand-new co-op game modes ahead of release. A pity, because when the co-op worked on the regular map, we could glimpse its potential.

The other big thing for me in this update is the dyeing system, which allows you to recolor some of your outfit pieces. However, there are a few more limitations than I’d like. First, I wasn’t able to recolor any piece I wanted. It seems that dyeing simply isn’t universally available.

Second – and this is probably going to be the most divisive aspect of the system – it’s integrated into the game’s monetization. Your selection of dyes is going to be limited if you’re not willing to spend a bit of cash to unlock more, which obviously doesn’t feel great. It gives you just a little taste of how powerful this system can be, makes you imagine how this and that piece would be a perfect fit for the look of your dreams, if only you could have it in a certain color, only to lock it behind a wall. As one of the aforementioned casual fashion enjoyers, that’s another barrier that will probably keep me from becoming more engaged.

With the community already a bit aggravated by the creeping monetization in the game, such as the recent indirect change to the pity system that’s to the disadvantage of players, this might add more fuel to the fire.

In terms of features, this update is definitely a great one to accompany the Steam launch — but looking at the first player reports on the technical state of the game, it looks like the development build we got to try out in recent days wasn’t so different from what launched earlier today. In that sense, Infold Games has not been putting its best foot forward at this important moment.