Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

[BogusMeatFactory]

Well folks, the Nintendo Direct discussing the new Animal Crossing mobile app has come and gone and I was very curious to know what everyone thinks of it? For those that don't know, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a full fledged Animal Crossing game that has you managing a campsite, allowing you to decorate the campground itself, as well as your camper van.

The core of the game has you exploring small locales, each with their own hook i.e. the river fishing zone, the bug catching zone, the ocean fishing zone, the market place zone, the fruit gathering zone and the camper customization zone. In these zones, villagers will come and go and have missions for you that involve bringing a variety of bugs/fruit/fish to them. Doing so, nets you a boost in your relationship level, crafting materials and some snazzy dialog and cutscenes of you participating in silly activities.

These animals move around and refresh their requests every 3 hours. If you want a particular animal villager around that currently isn't around, you can use a calling card to summon them. If you want to refresh their requests sooner than the 3 hour timer, you can use a request ticket to get 3 more requests from an animal villager. None of these things can be purchased with the in-game tickets or real world cash. They are earned as log-in rewards, level up rewards, and daily task rewards.

You can also have the animals stay permanently in your campsite by meeting their criteria of a certain relationship level and a series of furniture for you to craft (but you do not need to have it placed in your lot to have them stay thankfully). At your campsite, they interact with the environment and furniture a lot more than in the normal animal crossing games and offer you bells and rewards on a very regular basis (much shorter than the 3 hour refresh previously, but I don't entirely know what that exact time is). The rewards they give you can range from simple crafting materials, a ton of bells, or unique crafting materials based on their category (cool, sporty, natural and cute). Those special materials are used in making the large-scale amenities that take a lot of time and are, again, not purchasable with real world money or even tickets.

Bugs, shells and fish all refresh very regularly, spawning every couple of minutes and rare bugs and fish are very common and I have yet to see an animal request some of the super rare ones (which I have fun multiple of). You can fish and catch bugs in mass with nets or honey which are only obtained through level-up rewards, daily and long term task rewards or included in special ticket deals. When the game launched, there was a 72 hour sale that included nets and honey with the purchase of tickets, but not a single one has popped up since, so they don't seem to be reliant on microtransactions for them. You can not buy them outright with real world cash.

Fruit is on a three hour timer and can be refreshed instantly with fertilizer, which again, can not be purchased with real world money and only earned as in-game rewards.

Crafting is the big draw for the game. Instead of outright buying furniture (which can be done on a much smaller scale with unique items from Tom Nook's nephews in the market place (for bells only... not microtransactions) you have to craft them using materials earned by doing requests for animals. The time to craft these items range from 2 minutes to 12 hours. Outside of the huge amenities, which take somewhere between 12 and 72 hours dependent on the scale of the amenities, I have not seen a single piece of furniture take longer than 12 hours and those were very rare item requests. You can speed up the crafting process by using the in-game tickets, which can be purchased with real world cash, or the most common way, through in-game rewards like leveling up, log-in bonuses or daily tasks. I have accrued and used over 600 tickets in this small time. You can also use tickets to replace any crafting materials that you don't have to make something, but that is completely unnecessary, as you can get said resources very readily.

As for crafting itself, you start with one crafting slot for the large scale amenities and another slot to make furniture. You can buy two more crafting slots with tickets and the cost is miniscule. We are talking 80 tickets. You only really need to expand it once, because if you have three crafting slots working all the time, materials do become scarce, but also... it is really unnecessary in general.

What do amenities do? They raise the max level cap for your friendship levels with animals. By crafting and upgrading your amenities you raise the cap (max is 20) for animal relationships. I do not know what your personal level cap is. I am level 31 currently and haven't seen an end.

Your camper is your house essentially. You can expand the size, add floors and decorate it, all with bells and not microtransactions. There are some custom paint jobs you can do, like a splatoon paint job that you can pay with tickets, but the fee is small and again, I have never felt the need to use them. The campground is just a larger scale common area for your animals to interact in and it is very flexible, with lots of space to decorate.

Let's talk about the multiplayer aspect of the game. Human players are seen in the game as avatars that are in the various zones. You can friend request them and visit their space. They also have fish/fruit/bugs/shells for sale in market boxes that you can buy from them, the price being set up by the player but it has a max-bell cap so they can't charge an arm and a leg. I have used this feature a lot to buy fruit I may have run out of. People have been good at keeping prices low so that is always a plus (with 5 fruit for 80 bells). You can also give the players kudos, which are a crafting material that I have only seen once or twice in furniture recipe. This material is not purchasable with real world money and is only obtained through friend interactions and through daily task rewards.

Your friends can also help you gain access to the quarry, where you essentially play a glorified scratch off card, breaking 5 rocks from a large number to earn bells and special rewards. The friends that help you get bonus bells as well as incentive to help folks. It would cost 20 tickets to play without friend help, versus getting 5 friends to help you and there has been zero need to pay tickets. Everyone helps all the time. (Before I go into the quarry, I have 15-20 people helping me when I only need 5).

Overall, I love the app. It is a fun animal crossing game with a much bigger emphasis on decorating. If you didn't like decorating, don't play this game, as it is the main focus. For those that scored the Australian game file and are playing it now, let me know!

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[Tanooki]

I'm awaiting the official drop, and I dont' want to read your post to ruin anything you've learned beyond what was in that direct video alone.

I think it looks like a total AC package tentatively based upon your needs of being an instant gratification toolbag or not is a FREE or pay game. Or if it is so ass kickingly awesome you could throw some coin at it in time as a thank you payment. I've done this on rare occasion for a damn good job well done when the game isn't thin or lacking.

I saw you can earn things like the old way from conversing or buying, but now you have this almost terraria level crafting and barter system which is awesome. It didn't appear to take more than part of a day or a day in the clip to make some furniture so I can't see them being too jerky about dragging it out painfully too long which is excellent. I think I saw the fishing and bugs other pick ups, probably has dino bones too I would guess but didn't remember seeing that. The camper while smaller has a nice style and you have your camp site to go nuts on too so it's almost like the camper is the bedroom and the site is your house from previous outings.

Since it's at my fingers, I could see this be a total Pokemon Go killer in my book. I'd rather piss time and drain my battery on something far more rewarding as Animal Crossing. I'm sure it's heretical but I could be happy with it going mobile since you could always have access in your pocket, but I know if it hit Switch I'd still nab it since I could still take it around.

I know I can fake an account in the down under region I read and load the game, but I'm too scared I'd lose my progress once the US one pops up as I have doubts the data will transfer so I'm riding it out impatiently.