Editing Pikmin Treasure Hunt

{{game icons|p2=y}}

{{page title|''Pikmin Treasure Hunt''}}

'''''Pikmin Treasure Hunt''''' is a lost ''Pikmin'' browser {{w|advergame}} created to promote {{p2}}. It was released on {{date|13|October|2004}} and seemingly run by Nintendo of America employee "NOA_MATT" from the official NSider forums. Gameplay primarily consisted of recovering [[treasure]]s by visiting various websites. Players would receive hints from their own ship's computer, and even one hint from the president of Hocotate Freight himself. These clues and hints would let the player learn which treasures were on which website.

When the game released there was a competition exclusive to American and Canadian players. The first 100 players who completed the game would get free Pikmin plushies, but the rest would receive a free wallpaper. The sprites used for ''Pikmin Treasure'' Hunt are the same as the ones used on the European ''Pikmin 2'' website, which hosted ''[[Pikmin 2 Virtual World]]'', another lost ''Pikmin'' game''. Treasure Hunt was accessed from www.pikmin.com.

''Pikmin Treasure Hunt'' was never archived and so its gameplay cannot be documented in detail. However it played much like ''[[Pikmin.com SpaceForce]]'' in that it required visiting other websites owned by Nintendo in order to collect treasure. Players started off at the main Pikmin website with an interactive landing site made in {{w|Adobe Flash}} (known as Macromedia Flash at the time) with no Pikmin and just an [[Onion]]. Hints would be provided to determine which website needed to be visited for each collection mission. Browser cookies in conjunction with Flash were used to determine if the player was successful, in which returning to the Pikmin website would show an animation of Pikmin bringing the respective treasure to the landing site. As more treasures were collected, a squad of Pikmin would build up at the Onion. Currently, it is unknown how exactly Pikmin were controlled. However, users of the official NSider forums discussed how they would use Pikmin to snatch up treasures and that more Pikmin could be made using the Onion. The Pikmin were often buggy, as forum posts also discussed how Pikmin would get "stuck". Many players also struggled with certain browsers not properly registering when a correct website was visited, as well as slow internet connections at the time not being able to fully load the necessary Flash assets.