Cursor

The cursor placed between mud and a pond.

The cursor is the mechanism that objects in the garden are selected and interacted with. The cursor can be moved with the left stick on the controller in Viva Piñata and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, or by using the touch screen or the directional buttons in Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise. It is represented by sixteen triangle segments of alternating colors, usually red and yellow, but the colors are different for extra players if playing in multiplayer mode and more than one player is connected to the game.

A resident Moojoo piñata highlighted by the cursor.

When an object is selected, the cursor segments spread out to the size of the object, white particle effects lap the curor, and different actions are available to perform depending on the type of object. Generally, most objects can be quickly looked up in the Journal. Piñatas can be redirected by pressing the button or by tapping on the pinata on the screen, then moving the cursor to the wanted location then pressing the button again or tapping the screen again. Half of the segments of the cursor stay where the Piñata is currently at when redirecting the Piñata to a new location. Other objects that aren't fixed to the ground, such as Produce, Fruit, and Vegetables can be picked up directly and moved using the cursor.

When using a watering can that is limited on water capacity in Viva Piñata and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, the segments of the cursor change color to show the remaining water in the watering can. Blue segments indicate how much water is left in the can, while white segments indicate the maximum capacity of the can. Transparent segments indicate unavailable capacity of the can.

In Viva Piñata, when the garden has not been upgraded to maximum size, the cursor can go outside of the garden area to reach the garden area that a maximum sized garden covers. When the garden has been upgraded to the maximum size, the cursor can no longer go outside the garden. In Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, the cursor can go outside the garden when no tool is selected. This is required to access functionality such as the Tower of Sour, which can no longer be accessed through the menu.

When placing objects, it is possible to rotate objects at non 90 degree angles by holding the button and moving the Left Stick left or right.