Let’s talk about Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp!

So, chances are, you already know there was a special Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct late last night (or early this morning for those in the UK), but if not, I highly recommend heading over to watch it. Also, go pre-register now if you haven’t yet.

I mentioned a while back that I was a bit apprehensive about an AC mobile game. Not because I didn’t think it’d be good or my general aversion to mobile games, but because AC could easily fit into a lot of terrible tropes in mobile gaming involving awful energy bars, lots of waiting, and not much to do or even being a very puzzle focused game focusing more on minigames than any of the big aspects of Animal Crossing itself.

In a way, I was partially right–the game does seem very “Kingdom Builders” style with its crafting, earning craft materials through quests and gathering/general grinding, and building up an area, but the thing is: There’s no energy bar in sight which is a really good thing. And while some things WILL have a timer (Amenities):

The good thing is there will be a lot of other things you can do in the meantime. You can fish, you can bug catch, you can gather stuff, you can help villagers, you can craft some other things.

There’s so many options and with the game being real time too, you also have a lot of time to do it.

While you’ll mostly be customizing a camp site, there’s a lot of great new interactive items–a pool, a merry go round, a skate park… And seeing the villagers interact with them in all new ways is just really awesome??

I love seeing things get expanded like this and making the villagers feel more real in a way.

Speaking of which, friendships you can grow with villagers! I love that you can essentially lure them to your camp site and then they can continue to show up randomly for you to befriend.

I think my only worry is if they may lose friendship if you don’t play for a while. I really hope that isn’t the case (and they didn’t say anything that made it sound like such a thing), but I can’t help and worry regardless. I hope I can befriend every villager though–especially my favorites.

Catalog completion also makes a return!

Which is always a favorite past time for me.

Of course, a mobile game can’t be a mobile game without some micro transactions :P Regardless, I don’t think they look too bad. Leaf Tickets can be used to get things like nets (makes fishing easier), honey (makes bug catching easier), speed up things, and/or craft even if you may be missing some items. You can earn them ingame as well.

The prices genuinely aren’t terrible though.

Also I love the net and honey features and I hope those make their way into a future AC game.

Finally, I’m SO happy we have our own little “house” to decorate??

Sure, it’s just a mobile trailer, but you can decorate the inside, outside, and even upgrade it and I’m thrilled with that.

But yes, I can’t wait until late November for it :) I’ll rush through Ultra Moon and hopefully have Super Mario Odyssey done by then and the game can help distract me from my sadness about Style Savvy 4. With it being real time, I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time in it ^___^ And seeing what other new things await. We already saw some new NPCs with the trailers, so who knows if we’ll see some new villagers in general. I hope there will be nice new clothing too!