Aside from StreetPassing in the Mii Plaza, you can StreetPass with a variety of 3DS games. You have to activate StreetPass through each game, but you don't need to have the game in your system to exchange data for the game. You can have up to 16 games and apps set to StreetPass on your system. If you hit your limit, you'll get a warning next time you try to turn on StreetPass for a new piece of software. Some of the games that have worthwhile StreetPass options include Fire Emblem: Awakening (it pulls in other players' armies and places them on your game map to battle), Animal Crossing: New Leaf (it grabs/updates copies of people's entire AC homes and displays them in your game's Happy Home Showcase, allowing you to buy most of the non-Nintendo-themed furniture in their homes), Shin Megami Tensei IV (creates new demons fused from one of your game's demons and one of the person with whom you've StreetPassed).

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Once you've used the StreetPass data that's been pulled in for any of the above apps and games, you'll be back to zero on your StreetPass count and will be able to grab more. That's what we mean by "cleaning out" StreetPass.

Trick Mii Plaza Into Carrying 20 StreetPasses Instead of 10.

This will help at PAX, will help if you're in a big city and anywhere else where there's more StreetPass opportunities than you can keep up with.

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Once you've made 10 StreetPass connections for Mii Plaza, load Mii Plaza and go to the plaza gate. Select the option to welcome the 10 new Miis into your plaza. Hold down the R button to speed this up. Once you have those 10 Miis in the plaza, you can get puzzle pieces from them, play games with them... whatever. What you can also do, at that point, is StreetPass with up to 10 more people, whose Miis will be held at bay at the plaza gate. The app will keep asking you to go to the plaza gate, but you can ignore this and keep playing with the 10 Miis you already welcomed. In essence, you're able to have 10 at the ready and 10 more at bay. That's 20 Miis at once instead of 10. There's your exploit.

If you go to a StreetPass-heavy area or event and are having trouble keeping up with all the connections you're making, this trick should help you out. It's important to note that you don't have to immediately play with the 10 Miis that you welcome at the gate. You can welcome them in and then just leave them waiting. You can even close the Mii Plaza and play some other game and those Miis will still be waiting for you even as others line up at the gate.

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(You may find yourself wondering how you can tell when you've pulled in 10 more Miis at the gate. Don't go to the gate to find out! If you do, you'll have to welcome those Miis in and play with them. Since it's less fun to play with fewer than 10 Miis at a time, you do want the full 10. How can you be sure there are 10? Go to that Notifications menu we mentioned higher up.)


Follow the above tips and your biggest problem might wind up being that StreetPassing is taking away from the rest of your 3DS gaming time. Well, you can always turn it off.

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If you have StreetPass tips of your own or want to recommend some games that you think make great use of the feature, chime in below.

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. For more handy tips from Kotaku writers and editors, check our Howtu section.