Pokémon Scarlet and Violet did a lot of new things for the franchise, but the game’s final DLC expansion gave us something odd—the ability to traverse the world as a Pokémon. Now, players are using this feature to recreate the popular Prop Hunt minigame natively using the Pokémon they have captured.
In The Indigo Disk, players can access a new mechanic called the Synchro Machine, which allows you to take control of a Pokémon you have captured and roam around the overworld freely. This opens up plenty of opportunities to have fun as your favorite Pokémon soaring around Blueberry Academy or swimming in the seas of Paldea, though the Pokémon community has evolved to use it for more than just recreating old game visuals.
Dating back to when the DLC was first released in December, some SV players noted that getting a full Union Circle of four friends together and using the Synchro Machine could easily recreate one of the most popular minigames from Garry’s Mod and other sandbox titles—Prop Hunt. That entails three players becoming something unique that can blend into their environment while one player seeks them out, trying to spot inconsistencies with their actions in the overworld.
Being able to actively pick and control any Pokémon you catch in Scarlet and Violet makes it simple to find a Pokémon in any of the game’s three areas, capture it, and then become it to blend in—or pick something out of place like a Legendary or Shiny to try and troll your friends.
This fun little game within a game is likely about to pop off in popularity since several Pokémon content creators, Purplecliffe, PM7, Johnstone, and partyarlie, among others, have dropped videos showcasing the simplest way to organize a fun session using the Blueberry Academy map. It is easily divided into biomes with specific spawns, making it easy to catch a relevant Pokémon and blend in if you are new to Prop Hunt.
There are plenty of other minigames that the community has created within modern Pokémon too, including a regular version of hide and seek using your trainer characters and catch challenges where you have a limited time to catch a team of Pokémon before you need are challenged to a battle by another player.
