Miitomo’s fun image-creation tool should fuel discovery of Nintendo’s first mobile app

Nintendo has the most downloaded app in one of the world’s biggest markets for mobile gaming, and it’s easy to see why it’s spreading — thanks to one of its coolest built-in social tools.

Miitomo’s built-in Miifoto feature has already caught on with fans of Nintendo’s first mobile app, which is out now in Japan (everywhere else soon). Miifoto enables anyone to quickly build funny photos featuring their Mii avatars as well as their friends’ Miis. In about a minute and a few button presses, you can produce witty visual responses to a comment or a fellow Miitomo user’s post. This creates a bold separation for the app, which is essentially a social network with some light gaming mechanics, when you compare it to Facebook or Twitter.