Occasionally Nintendo sends out special guest StreetPass Mii characters, either representing popular executives like Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Amie, or occasionally lead developers from major releases. Just last week Nintendo also issued an 'Honest Abe' Lincoln Mii to celebrate the arrival of Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. in North America.

One 3DS owner has discovered, purely by chance when tackling corrupt SD card data, that you can trick the system into sending you these special Mii characters over and over again. While useful for the various StreetPass games, the biggest use is for grabbing all of those puzzle pieces, in particular those hard to get pink pieces.

The process is pretty simple, and simply necessitates turning StreetPass on and off, deleting the guest Mii and then reactivating StreetPass and SpotPass. You can see the step-by-step and video from tipster Anthony Schwader below.

  1. Use the special guest in all of the StreetPass games you want to
  2. Select SETTINGS and deactivate STREETPASS (This also deactivates SPOTPASS)
  3. DELETE the special guest from your plaza
  4. Hit HOME and exit StreetPass Mii Plaza
  5. Re-enter StreetPass Mii Plaza
  6. Select SETTINGS and reactivate STREETPASS
  7. Reactivate SPOTPASS next
  8. Wait for the beautiful BLUE NOTIFICATION
  9. Hit the HOME button and the NOTIFICATIONS bubble should pop out
  10. Enter NOTIFICATIONS menu and select LAUNCH SOFTWARE at the bottom
  11. SP Mii Plaza will close and re-open by itself and the special guest should come strolling through to greet you

It's a pretty simple and harmless trick, and certainly handy for those with the time and inclination to grab puzzle pieces and make extra progress in the StreetPass games.

Will you be trying this with Honest Abe or the next guest Mii in your region?