How to Unlock Nintendo Games with amiibo tap

Nintendo’s amiibo figures have been all the rage, with stores selling out of popular characters and other toys fetching a heavy amount on eBay and other sites. The madness will continue, as more amiibos will arrive later this month, including iconic favorites like Wario and Pac-Man.

Thankfully there’s more you can do with the figurines besides using them in games like Super Smash Bros. and putting these toys on display. Nintendo released its new amiibo Tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Bits last week, which lets players unlock limited game demos by simply placing their favorite figures on their Wii U systems. There are a variety of NES and SNES-related demos available, so the more figurines you have, the better.

How do you unlock free games in amiibo tap? Follow these basic steps.

There’s an app for that

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the amiibo tap application. Head over to the eShop and do a quick search for it (or find it on the main menu). Once highlighted, make sure you have the proper space on your hard drive (it’s under 100 MB, so no big deal) and download away.

Once downloaded, access the app on your Wii U game menu and it’ll start up.

Open those amiibos

From there, select one of your amiibo figurines (either the original or Mario Party 10 line-up) and place it on the bottom left corner of the Wii U GamePad. You’ll see a rectangular shape on the system where you need to place it.

The app should recognize the amiibo with a quick display of colors on the screen. After this, you’ll need to confirm that the data confers with your system (it’s a limit of one demo unlocked per amiibo) and if you want, give it a nickname.

Nicknames aren’t necessary unless you want to create a shortcut for certain figurines, in case you want to keep up with their progress on the app, like which game they’ve unlocked. You can skip over this step if you prefer.

Once you’ve entered this data, keep the amiibo figure on the GamePad until the app tells you to remove it. From there, you’ll receive a free random game demo that will unlock into your collection, which you can enter and play at any time.

Again, the more amiibo figurines you have, the more you’ll be able to unlock, so put that collection to good use!

Get your game on

Once you’ve unlocked the specific demos with your amiibos, it’s time to play.

Keep in mind that these aren’t full games, but rather timed scenes that give you a chance to try each title; you only have three minutes per scene. These include a number of scenarios across many Nintendo classics, including Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past and Super Mario World, among others, with a timer that counts down as you play. You can go back and replay them for as long as you wish, but once it reaches zero, the only way to access the full games is to purchase them through the eShop. They cost $5-$10 apiece.

Now, there’s a catch. In order to replay the scenes, you’ll need the amiibo figures that you used to unlock them in the first place. Tap the corresponding figure with the game you want to play and then remove it when the game appears.

Enjoy your game demos, and have fun collecting amiibo!

Want more amiibo fun? Learn how to use them in Super Smash Bros. and get your shopping list early with the forthcoming amiibo wave 5.