I spoke about it briefly on my Twitter, but I really wanted to talk about it a lot more.

One of the things I’ve noticed a lot of games will do, especially mobile games, is essentially barring things off to a later time. You can only do so much a day and need to wait another day to be able to continue. And I… kind of hate this. A lot of people chock it up to impatience, but personally it’s more about the general stress of constantly feeling like I’m going to run out of time and that is not a feeling I enjoy. Most of my stress and anxiety comes from the idea that there is only so much time to accomplish anything. And especially with recent events in games, it’s a lot more highlighted.

I’ll talk about a few recent games I’ve played that have brought up this system in a few different ways. For starters, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (I promise an entry about Lottie’s Event and the new villagers + essence will be coming soon). The game works almost entirely on timers which isn’t necessarily terrible for the most part, but it is a large difference from a more traditional Animal Crossing game where you essentially have the full day to work towards things rather than worrying about missing out because you didn’t check every 3 hours.

While I’ve gotten a bit more used to the requests and quarry and rarely use my tickets to speed up much there beyond getting newer villagers in, I still tend to freak out a bit with amenities as if I don’t manage to build a tier fast enough, I could end up maxing out a villagers’ level too quickly and lose out on getting them up.

Those who know me know I kind of hate games where I need to balance resources a lot. It’s very tiring to me as it’s just too repetitive gathering the same stuff over and over. And while I wouldn’t mind as much if there wasn’t a limit so times where I DO feel like roaming around and catching as much as I can could work out, constantly running into inventory limits (and yes, I maxed out my space with Leaf Tickets too….) is pretty discouraging and means once I’ve done my requests for that time table, I don’t have much of a reason to keep playing.

With the events especially, there’s a lot of waiting around. Waiting for things to craft, waiting for new requests, waiting for flowers to grow… And then the RNG plays a part in those latter two activities to see if you even manage to get what you need. And the problem here is that the only way to really speed things up is paying. While the Gardening events have been kind enough to give a good amount of Flower food, I can say that not only have I completely used up all the flower food I had, but I also ended up using Leaf Tickets as well due to that same feeling of worrying I wouldn’t have enough time.

Even if I calculate the entire probability of everything, it doesn’t always lessen that same worried feeling and when it comes down to it, some times even if I know how much I can do a day, I can’t always manage that. Some days maybe I can go 18 hours with no breaks dedicated into something, but other times I’m lucky if I can even log in for the day. This also makes things like with the Gardening Event where half the event is locked until a few days before the event ends especially frustrating. There’s no guarantee I’ll be up to it and there’s less time to hope to be.

Things happen. Whether it be an issue with other things I was working on or something more personal, I can’t guarantee I can put work in every single day of an event which is my other big issue with barring things off. When I was still in school, I missed roughly 35 days a year. That is a lot of absences–7 weeks of school. This was due to a combination of my own health (Allergies can vary anywhere between a mild cold to a severe flu in just how bad they are) and my own family’s with sometimes, nobody feeling up to actually being able to take me.

Despite this, I always made up my work and I always got straight A’s on my tests. I had perfect grades outside my attendance and always completed my homework. I’m a quick learner and a quick reader so despite being absent, it was very easy for me to take care of. While this wasn’t as big of an issue in Elementary School, Middle School was a bit harsher about absences, and High School flat out didn’t want to let people graduate if they didn’t have a certain amount of attendance–despite my grades, which lead me to do homeschooling and take my GED instead. Because I was smart enough, I just couldn’t always make it there.

And that’s part of what makes barring off event progress so frustrating. While the idea is to get people to keep logging in, it’s honestly stressful to the point of completely contradicting the reason for mobile games–to relax and take it easy.

Abyssrium as well has done quite a poor job with their most recent event with it requiring you to check in every 3 hours along with spending 500 event currency OR spend $10 to check in every hour and deal with their huge RNG game in hopes to complete a special coral before time runs out. I think the Valentine’s Day Coralite is really beautiful and I do like the idea, but I think the execution is terrible. Trying to keep up as much as you can when even a minute can throw you off sucks. Similarly, the RNG is a pain. I have all the Valentine fish from last year already so it’s very frustrating when one comes up instead of, well, something I actually need. It’s tiring and very repetitive and incredibly expensive to speed up and you could still fail.

That said, as mentioned, this isn’t something entirely done on Mobile games, but also other games as well that may be considered more relaxing. One thing that’s happened more often with PC games are patches/updates that implement timed events. And I don’t mean things like Overwatch where sure, I can buy some, but I can also put in a lot of time playing to hopefully earn a bunch of boxes too, but things like Slime Rancher’s Christmas event. They had a different ornament each day that could be found in boxes. I’m… pretty directionally challenged in games, to say the least so whenever I play Slime Rancher, even with the new map system, I tend to get very lost.

I spent a few hours the first day where I could, but I wasn’t able to find a single box to even try. And I didn’t have time many other days as December is a pretty crazy month for me. In the end, I gave up without getting any ornaments and as someone who loves the Holidays and Christmas, it was pretty discouraging.

And the thing is, the more I miss because of the stress of events, the less likely I am to keep playing in the first place. There’s not really a good reason to bar people off. If someone wants to spend 10+ hours on your game working hard at the event, they should be allowed to without being punished for it or having to pay because they didn’t “wait”.

Some people just want to relax. It shouldn’t feel like a job they constantly have to check into.

So, somehow, this second part of the event managed to be even worse between the ridiculous low percentages and trying to get the new flowers while also sometimes getting the old. I have over 140 Blue Dahlia seeds now. It took me so long to even get some of my first White Dahlia Seeds and then adding on the bad catch percentages (Often, I failed every single one), I just want to thank everyone who kept giving me Butterflies because this would’ve been impossible otherwise.

I know there was still time left, but I’ve been so incredibly stressed because of this, it’ll be nice to just take a moment to breathe again.

I will say the scene for completing it is genuinely really cute:




If I wasn’t so frustrated and had been better prepared, I would have loved to record it. I’m glad I at least took lots of screenshots.

During this second part though, Clothing Crafting finally came! I finally have a dress I really like:

Can’t decide what shoes I like more. I need a cute hair accessory too. I also love the different boxes and how who you’re calling changes based on what you’re crafting.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much time to relax with it being announced that an event will be starting when Rover’s ends… And it’s… exhausting. I want a break. I’m so scared for this event. It sounds like it’s a more crafting focused one, but I’m just so tired. I expected Rover’s event to be sometime in Spring–like March… and this upcoming event, maybe late June, but more likely February.

Now I’m just expecting a Valentine’s Day event too and it’s just… it’s too much.

So, the next part of the event starts in about 30 minutes, thus, I figured I’d finally get this entry done. I’d been planning to write it since the event started last week, but haven’t been… in the best mind space so to speak. Before we get into other Pocket Camp things, I just genuinely want to talk about the event for a bit first. And honestly, I kind of hate it.

Despite finishing the event about two days after it started, I’ve found it very stressful. Even ignoring my general hate of gardening features due to finding it waaaay too monotonous, I just constantly felt I wouldn’t hit the numbers. And honestly, without so many people who shared butterflies with me, I don’t think I would have as I had some awful luck with actually catching them, often being lucky if I caught even 25% of the butterflies that were given out (and yes, that includes when I had butterflies on all 20 flowers).

If you haven’t been playing or maybe just want a quick overview, this is how the event works:
-There are special Dahlia seeds that can be planted that may cause butterflies to show up when they bloom. You can buy blue ones from Lloid ooor you can earn them from doing requests from villagers. You will only get the Red/Diamond Butterflies from the Blue Dahlias. Red Dahlia seeds are gotten rarely from villager requests and mostly from helping friends (which I’ll get to shortly). You will only get Yellow/Topaz Butterflies from the Red Dahlias.
-There is no guarantee a butterfly will be on a Dahlia when it blooms (Unless it is a + seed which also grow faster. Thus far, there’s been no way to get them besides Rover’s initial tutorial).
-Similarly, there’s no guarantee you will catch the Butterfly in the first place. While sometimes I get super lucky (Which is getting a catch rate of about 50% or higher), I mostly found myself failing which just… sucks.
-To get the items, you need to catch a certain amount of each color of butterfly. You need 80 Diamond ones for all the Diamond Butterfly requests and 60 Topaz ones for all the Topaz Butterfly requests. If the datamine continues to be correct, you’ll need 40 each for all the requests for the Winter and Gold Winter Butterflies. I’m personally petrified of how they may be gotten and how to get White Dahlias in the first place. There is no cross breeding with Dahlias.
–The counter only counts Butterflies you catch. Giving them away does not make the counter go down. This is one of the few things I really like about the event and it means you can help your friends out with no worries. Share the butterflies with your friends. There is literally no purpose for keeping them otherwise as they will turn into bells at the end of the event. Butterflies can be placed on ANY bloomed flower–even if they aren’t Dahlias, so always keep some flowers blooming for friends.
-As mentioned, Butterflies will only show up when a flower initially blooms. They will not show up otherwise unless a friend shares with you, so harvest Dahlias as much as you can to trade in for some nice items.

I will say the rewards are pretty great though. Even if you’re not a huge fan of Rover, there’s great opportunities to earn lots of essences and materials thanks to the rewards along with some Potted Dahlias to remember the event as they are pretty nice flowers.

My main issue with it is, besides the monotony and RNG of it all, is that it’s super stressful for me. I find myself constantly wanting to check in to make sure I can get butterflies out as fast as I earn them to help others and also not miss a chance at earning more butterflies (though, at least now that I’m done, that’s sort of more relaxed) from people. Like when the event first started, I find myself checking at least every 3 hours at most and it’s really hard to relax and enjoy it when I just constantly am stressing out. And Animal Crossing is supposed to be a relaxing game so me feeling like I don’t have time to do anything else besides check in on Pocket Camp isn’t good. (If you’re wondering why there hasn’t been another Style Savvy part, this is why)

Besides my insane suffering for the event and dreading that the next part will start in 20 minutes and worrying how that may go, I still have been doing my best to accomplish things in my game.

Such as getting the four newest villagers in:


Sprinkle is one of my favorite penguins so I’m happy to see her in. I’m not too fond of any of their level 15 items, but I have them all in my camp site for now. I’ve gotten over 100 of each type of essence now and due to finishing the Rustic Amenities, I’m mostly just doing a combination of “villagers who aren’t level 15 yet” and “villagers close to level 20”. Once I have everyone maxed out, I’m probably going to organize it for the best chances to get a good amount of essence + materials and just change it up based on what essences I may need more of at the time.

I really like the Rustic Balloon a lot:

Another reason I wish we could place more amenities. The fact that villagers will wave to each other is my favorite part:

Going back to the event, I did my best to at least have fun with some of the Rover items (okay, so just the top but):

I really want to re-do my camp a bit, but I’m still working out what I want to do.

I also love the Rover RV:

I don’t think I’m going to get it (not really my colors), but the style of it is really cool and I hope we’ll see more uniquely shaped RVs in the future. Hopefully in colors as great as my pink lace-y one.

I also noticed the tree colors changed recently so I feel weather will be switching up again soon:

There’s a lot of great new features planned and while I’m still impatiently waiting for new clothes, I can’t wait to be able to change the background of my campsite especially.

Anyway, I’ll end this off with fun pictures I’ve taken from the event:


Now it’s time to suffer during part two of it…

This won’t really be like my normal reviews as this mainly will be talking about my final thoughts, but this will also compare it to the other games in the series and most importantly, address a question I’ve seen come up a lot–is this game better than Fashion Forward. And very simply, that answer can actually be boiled down to why you play the series.

I’m personally not a huge fashion person. I have a style I really like and dream of always dressing like a Princess, but I very much wear what I’m comfortable with and don’t care if something maybe doesn’t match or isn’t popular. Because of that, the main fun for me with the game is dressing up my character, shop, and room. Interior decorating and customization are my main focus and so for me, this game mostly exceeded in what I enjoyed.

I actually found the fashion shows of Fashion Forward to be tiring and too repetitive and I hated that you had the forced little notification about them every single time you sold enough tickets so I greatly preferred the concerts and their catchy songs. That said, if you enjoy more helping the town become fashionable and dressing up everyone nicely and not just trying to make as much money as you can to buy more clothes to dress-up in, the game takes out a lot of what made Fashion Forward really good for this type of game due to how much space the concerts take up.

While hair and Make-up does make a return, there’s not only less hairstyles (My lovely curly ponytail is gone… And there is no better high ponytail besides the normal one this game…), but a handful only unlock once you’ve finished the story. The bangs can still be mixed and matched though. Make-up, I genuinely swear there’s less shades (or at least different ones) for certain colors. There’s also not really make-up sets you can make yourself (or items you can find to make). It’s all pre-set ones that are sold.

You do not get any pay for helping out at the hair or make-up places. You just get Style Points for ranking up. You do, however, get pay for helping out at the Menswear Shop.

Some places take quite a while to unlock which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can make the game feel a bit grindy. I personally beat the game around Rank 60, but I probably could’ve done it a bit sooner if I didn’t mess up so often. I feel it’s important to point out though, you will not always unlock things in the same order as someone else. Some things require a certain amount of days to pass since the last, others require a rank up, I’ve had some “side quests” pop up much sooner than others while also taking longer to get certain other quests. While there is a set number of events that will happen and you will need certain things done before the final story stuff, there isn’t really a guide to follow here.

Going back to Fashion Forward for the moment:
-The Chalet doesn’t return. The only room you even customize sort of like that is your shop. And while it’s fun to customize your shop, the item limit is quite small. There’s a lot I feel I could’ve done, especially with wall and shelf space, that I couldn’t do to hitting the item limit very quickly.
—-Similarly, room customization is kind of awful. It’s a bit similar to Trendsetters where you can switch stuff out, but I swear that there’s genuinely less options in general and I don’t know why you can only place items on your vanity and dresser/shelf and that’s it :/ Why can’t I place something on my table? Like seriously. And just, after Fashion Forward’s rooms and the way the shop works, I find it kind of bizarre that your own apartment feels so… lazy in a way. I get that with the animations, that’s probably why they can’t let you place things all over the floor, but even wall items or being able to place things on your table or just genuinely more options to switch through for what you could change would be great.
—-Not to mention changes to items… None of the animal items are animated. They’re plushies. And honestly, they look kind of… odd.

It makes me sad as I really adored them in Fashion Forward.
—-Your shop’s exterior customization is better than Fashion Forward’s, but not as good as Trendsetter’s. There’s only a few options for what you can switch and one of the things I really wish they’d do is have the same styles in different colors. I’m still constantly split on the display backdrop because I don’t care for the color the one in the style I like is.

The music is a lot of fun and the concerts are always enjoyable to watch. The My Diva thing that will let you put in your character and/or some of your other favorites is a really neat feature and I’ve had a lot of fun with it.

While modeling does not make a re-appearance (Which does make me sad–it was one of my favorite jobs from Fashion Forward and I loved the special photos you could get where your character could hold something special for it), there is a photo feature you unlock that lets you take photoshoots at least–just… no fancy modeling for your character. Which is a shame as you kind of get offered as such and I think being a singer and a designer would’ve been fun, but oh well :(

^There’s tons of poses though and a good amount of backgrounds so the options are there.

Speaking of backgrounds… There aren’t places to travel in this game. Sure, sometimes you travel with characters, but you can’t explore or choose to do so yourself. It’s especially a shame as one place has a fountain and I would’ve liked to take a picture there :(

There’s a lot of new clothing options and many that I really like, but I’m genuinely still bummed about the hair. One of the really nice new features you can unlock is the VIP Booth which allows you to view everything for sale in the Exhibition Hall at once. This is incredibly helpful as time is a big factor in the game.

The game does time differently than the last three games. Trendsetters had it so the month was the same, even if the day changed, while the original game and Fashion Forward both worked in real time. Styling Star actually works the way I’ve always wanted the game to work. The day has its own timer and then when you go to sleep/decide to end the day, the day actually progresses. The start date is whenever you first start playing the game, so for me, that was on Christmas Day (December 25th). I ended up finishing the game in April.

The only thing is the game will force the day to end after a certain amount of time. Going in and out of places makes more time pass. And how long you spend somewhere DOES matter. It’s not like you go in somewhere and time is frozen. And this kind of sucks. I don’t mind certain amounts of time changing the time of day, but I don’t like being forced to the next day.

When I unlocked the designing option (which, you can only sell your designs online–you can’t in your shop), I spent a very long time on my Emblem so I could make my custom shopping bag. When I finished, I lost nearly two days–a whole day passed and when my character “woke up”, it was already night the next day. This also made me start Alina’s story a bit late because Sunday ended up being completely skipped for me. This wasn’t fun and it made me feel like I constantly needed to rush around in order to get things done.

Not to mention I usually liked saving the Exhibition Hall for last so I’d have a good amount of money and empty stock to fill up. One nice thing about the game is the stock system is great–it’s really easy to restock on things and stock space upgrades a lot to the point where you really don’t have to worry about it after a while. I had some issues early on once or twice, but now I have 16,000 slots free and I have tons of clothes and it’s beautiful.

Character-wise: I really love many of the characters in this game. I didn’t find myself too attached to most of the other shop owners (I do love the bakery couple and Florian, the flower shop owner though), but I loved all the singers (Rosie, Yolanda, Alina, and Angelique) and pretty much everyone at NIN10. Also Camilla, Melvin, and Yolanda’s bodyguard were all great too. Oliver was probably the only one I could shrug off a bit–I expected him to be around more from how he was at the demo and what he said at the beginning and he just seemed to be forgotten amongst everything else as I feel like we never saw him except a bit towards the very end. I feel like I loved more in this game than Fashion Forward though.

I also liked how even several of the non-main characters had some of their own stories you got to help with. I would say my only complaint is we didn’t fully get to experience them–like the metal singing or Camilla’s own singing career and things. I get that it probably would’ve been more work, but with such a focus on concerts, I still kind of expected it? I’m also surprised we never heard another song from Angelique besides the opening.

That said… On the subject of singing and voices, I do want to talk about some of my issues with the localization. I’ve said it before that this is a port and if the British slang wasn’t enough to convince you, there’s all the notions of “Style Boutique”–the PAL region name of the game and the use of Celsius (and let me tell you I was very concerned when someone was talking about their room being at like 24 degrees) among a handful of other things.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m still happy to have the game, but for us to be the only place to not get a physical edition and to have had to wait when it’s literally just a port and so all they had to do was… un-region lock it, I just… It just feels a bit lazy and it frustrates me because the series deserves more love than it gets.

I also want to talk about Rosie’s voice. I have no issues with the singer. The singer clearly has a great voice and I’d like to look up more of her music. But her voice doesn’t fit Rosie. It doesn’t fit her personality or attitude or appearance or anything. And especially when you compare it to her Japanese voice which is much more high pitched. She should’ve been somewhere between Alina and Yolanda with a little closer to Alina, but instead she’s quite close to Yolanda’s voice and it doesn’t work. It’s the same issue I have with Zelda’s voice in Breath of the Wild–I have nothing against the voice actress and think she does a fine job, but it doesn’t work for the character, especially when comparing to the voice in Japanese. It’s a generic Princess voice. It isn’t Zelda.

Rosie’s voice is a generic pop singer from a farm–it’s not really fitting for her and that’s the problem.

I also will just… continue to be baffled by Yolanda’s name pick because of all her moon references and her even saying her name means moon (As her original name is Tsukiko) and Yolanda… does not mean moon. There’s so many good choices that would’ve worked so I don’t know why they went with that.

Finally, two of Alina’s songs are actually still in Japanese. And I mean, I guess maybe they wanted her to be like an Otaku but it’s still kind of weird?

Anyway, the game took me roughly 43 hours to complete. I still have like two seasons of clothes to look at, some side stories I know I haven’t finished, and other things I want to do so I don’t consider myself done with it yet. That said, the game does feel almost like a spin-off to the series rather than a new Style Savvy game. With a third 3DS title, there isn’t much difference with graphics (so we still have oddly floating hair and other issues), but the music and choreography is a lot of fun. But it took away a lot of the aspects of a fashion game to do it and while I enjoy it a lot and actually am okay with most of the changes/things removed, I think it could work better as a side thing.

I will say the town felt more alive to me in a way–especially as posters changed based on what was going on in the story versus just whenever you did a model thing in Fashion Forward with a few exceptions.

There’s a lot I’d like to see them do better (And honestly, maybe if they did one on the Switch, we could have a game that has the best parts of all three 3DS games), but I had fun with it. I don’t think the game will be a huge hit with everyone who is a fan of the series though depending on what they mainly play it for.

(Also Make it Glow is the best song. Just saying.)

So, I found the Mario Amiibo! :P Thus, a special update here and not through the videos, the new Mario shirts you can buy in the Design Center!:

And also this tote:

I’ve also noticed that all sales seem to be contained to either the Kirby tee I made ooooor the dress I made which are, coincidentally, the only two I’ve posted the Item ID for. I thought Owner ID would be better since people could look at everything, but it seems maybe that’s not the case?

Regardless, below, you can find all Item IDs for the items I have up for sale! Unexpectedly, everything is pink in some way so enjoy :P I’ll be adding this to Info Page and will continue to update it as I add more.

• Gown – 0005361107
• Lace Sneakers – 0004031118
• Ribbon Bag – 0004071118
• Flower Tee – 0005351118
• Splatee (Splatoon) – 0005431118
• Yoshi Tee – 0005491118
• Peach Tee – 000553118
• Animal Crossing Tee – 0005551118
• Link Tee – 0005581118
• Kirby Tee – 0005621118
• Lace Boots – 0005671118
• Mario Tote – 0005711118
• Cat Bag – 0005741118
• Mario Tee – 00062721127
• Mario Tee (Brick) – 0006791127
• Ribbon Tote – 0006831127

As per usual with the Style Savvy games, it’ll usually be a more video-based playthrough than a blogging one with most things I’ll update with centered to the Info page. It’s not so much that I don’t take too many pictures as much as I just don’t always have a lot to say.

It was a long wait until noon for the game to properly distribute though. It was my first time preloading a game (as I… really do not like downloading games digitally) and I expected it to be up at midnight as usually games only come out at noon on Thursday, but nooope. Regardless, I’ve had a lot of fun each time I’ve played it.

I’m hoping the make-up place will unlock soon as I’m assuming that’s when you’ll have other eye color options. While the color unlocking was fun in Fashion Forward, I definitely prefer having them all available from the start. I really hope I can unlock more customization features soon too–I know they showed a lot of different shop and room layouts in the trailers so I’m sure something will come along eventually. Just need to unlock it.

I really adore the songs in the game and honestly, I don’t really miss the fashion shows at all and much prefer the music stuff. I had fun sometimes with the fashion shows (Plus, it was a great way to get out specific types of stock), but I found it way too repetitive and I didn’t like how it was constantly forced upon you.

Translating-wise, it’s once again the PAL region port so those same fashion terms appear and thus, I always find myself constantly double-checking everything to make sure I don’t misinterpret something. Ignoring that, I’m mostly okay with most changes–the only big things that I think still bother me otherwise are the choice of Yolanda for Tsukiko (Yes, her last name being Artemisia still has ties to the moon, but it’s not what she’s referencing and considering the whole thing is doing this for herself and not her family, it makes the whole point of going with Lady Moon even weaker with the name choice they picked for her) and Rosie’s voice. I love Rosie’s songs and don’t think they’re bad or anything, but from the beginning I felt her voice surprising from her appearance/personality and it’s the only one that feels vastly different from the Japanese voice used. I really think they should’ve used a higher pitched singer to be closer to the original.

Anyway, going onto my own playthrough, I’ve been having fun and did my best to make my character the same as the Demo:

I still really adore the room animations.

And the Cafe is also really cute:

I haven’t been too fond of any of the gift outfits from the brands this time though. Babydoll is probably my favorite, even if not really my color scheme:

Regardless, I did eventually get the salon unlocked–I’m still hoping for better ponytails, but it’s something for now at least:

And I got a couple more brands unlocked:

It’s slow, but steady progress.

Speaking of slow, but steady progress… that is my biggest issue with the game at the moment. The game works on its own timer–I haven’t measured out the specifics, but after a certain amount of time (or certain events), the day will end even if you didn’t go to sleep. I hate this. A lot. I wish they just made it so at a certain time, less to no people show up eventually turning to none after a certain amount and you had to go to sleep to start the next day.

The issue is if you spend a lot of time maybe designing things or working on stuff, you can lose out on entire days. I lost out the entirety of Sunday (which also means Alina’s progress got pushed back for me) AND was already on Monday night due to how long I spent on remaking my Emblem from the last game for my shop’s bag:

It’s not a fast process. I couldn’t go much faster than I did and yet I lost out on a lot of game progress for doing something I was really excited for.

Similarly, I get really paranoid about leaving game events for later being scared I’ll miss them so going to them and forcing the day ahead once done is super frustrating. It’s made me feel really paranoid about being quick when I play rather than taking my time and enjoying things. I’d love to check my online shop and maybe browse it a bit, but I’m worried I’ll lose out on a day again and screw up my own recorded progress and it’s genuinely not a fun way to play.

Overall, I like how it works–that while the start date is your real date, it actually moves the date forward so you won’t be stuck in the terrible issue of beating the game in the same month because the month doesn’t change. But the fact that the day will be forced over is really stressful and it sucks because not everything is super quick in the game. I like taking my time and checking each area in the game and I feel like I’m being punished for that.

I mean, I just turned it on out of curiousity anyway (Thank you to those who have already been to my Design Center shop and bought things!) and apparently it’s already turned afternoon and that’s killing me :/ Regardless, you can find everything I designed up on the Designer Center at Owner ID: 0005121107. I have most of the Amiibo stuff (We sadly don’t have a Luigi Amiibo and while we do have a normal Mario Amiibo (the Smash one I believe plus the Wedding one), we need to refind it.) so I have items for all of those up (if people want some with one of the different patterns, just let me know!). Just a small sample of things:



That said, I wish I went through the Scrapbook sooner because… I would have priced things cheaper X__x Sadly, you can’t edit prices… but I guess I’ll make the Mario Shirt pretty cheap or something.

I do wish the names you used for the Scrapbook were the auto names though :/ And you could have the option to change them in the Design thing after. Due to my aforementioned feeling the need to rush, I didn’t name any of them (Though, I will admit partially because I expected it to just take the name I gave them and wasn’t paying much attention) and I find it a bit frustrating that now all of them have the default name for a design and it sucks.

Despite the stress, I am still enjoying the game a lot though, even if I constantly run into stock, time, and money issues. I’m really not great at resource management–I just like dress-up games :P

To end this off, I’ll talk about the three main sings–Tsuk–Yolanda, Rosie, and Alina. Yolanda genuinely has some of my favorite songs and I really can’t wait to hear them in my own game. I like her a lot.

I also really like Rosie and feel I have a good amount in common with her.

I think Rosie combined with Yolanda would be practically me. I really enjoy her songs as well, but not as many resonate with me as some of Yolanda’s.

Finally, there’s Alina who I’m still getting to know. Regardless, I don’t really care for… most of her songs which makes me feel kind of bad. Despite that, she did give me my favorite line in the game thus far:

So, she’s still pretty cool too :P

I kind of wish our character could sing too. It just looks like a lot of fun.

So, Pocket Camp has been rolling out the features recently, though, still no… clothing crafting feature which I’m sad about as it’s what I want the most (I haven’t gotten all the villagers to level 20 so I’m in no rush for new villagers and I’m not a huge fan of gardening). I expected it to come with Gardening since it was mentioned with it and when it didn’t, I figured maybe with the new villagers but nooope :( They’re already advertising the New Year Event so I just hope it comes soon.

Regardless, let’s go into recent stuff! I’m level 65 now and still have at least a few more levels to hit. I could probably calculate the max if I tried, but I’ll just let myself be surprised. I’ve gotten all of the original 40 villagers to at least level 15 so I’ve unlocked all their crafting things. 13 of them are at level 20 now, but most are 17-19 so I’m sure more will hit that number soon.

I also finally got my last expansion!:

It’ll be 250K to pay it off, but hopefully I’ll hit it eventually. I probably won’t actually pay it until I’m at 300K-400K though.

As for the new features, we’ll start with Gardening! Isabelle was pretty excited.

While my character may also look excited, in reality she’s wondering how much she’s going to suffer through all of this and just hopes they don’t die (Thankfully, they don’t).

The tutorial was pretty cute and I love having a Gyroid friend in the garden at least.

After lots of suffering hard work, I managed to get one of each flower in my garden:

Right now, I’m leaving them up for people to cross-pollinate with. Besides just wanting to help others out, it really does help with Friend Powder earning which is great as I suck at keeping up with Kudoing. I also really love the cute little gift you get when watering friends’ gardens:

It’s just a cute animation to be given friend powder. I kind of really want them to make it so you can gift your friends stuff.

Anyway, once I manage to get at least one of each seed onhand, I’m hoping to start working on getting enough flowers to trade in which I just… am not looking forward to at all :/ Ignoring that I’ll feel bad no longer having the flowers up for cross pollination (as I can’t just use 3 plots or this will take ages… Plus there will be events that use Gardening too), it’s just A LOT of flowers.

You’re essentially given the Potted Red Tulips right off the bat, but to get the rest of the items (16 Potted Plants, 17 Shirts, 17 Teddy Bears, 17 Minitables, 17 Fences, 17 Chairs, 17 Tees, and two Topiary), you need 175 Red Pansies, 165 Red Tulips, and 145 each of the other 15 flowers. That is A LOT of planting and a lot of harvesting and considering all colors besides Red and Yellow need to be cross-bred (which uses up a flower) to get the others? It’s just a ridiculous amount and I really hate it. It’s pretty random and it’s not fun, honestly. I would be less upset if it didn’t eat my flowers to cross-breed them, especially since it can fail, and while I get why it can’t do that, it’s just a huge monotonous grind quest and I really hate it.

At least I don’t have to water them I guess. :/

Moving onto the new villagers, besides well, being 7 new villagers, they’re all a brand new essence type–Rustic! Which also means we got some new Amenities. I really love the last Rustic one which is a Hot Air Balloon. It’s a ways off though.

Regardless, as soon as the update kicked in, I got to work. I invited over Vesta, June, and Marshal, my favorites of the new villagers:

I actually got really lucky and the other four gave on the next rotation without me inviting them. In the end, I was able to get everyone either level 7 or right about to hit 7 so I could invite them all:



And Marshal was my 50th villager!:

I’m up to 51 total now as everyone has been hosted once more.

I, of course, made the Rustic Tent pretty quickly so I wouldn’t hit any issues as I got them to 7:

And quickly upgraded it to level 3:

I also built the Hammock–it’s up to level 2 so far, but it’ll be a while before it hits level 5:

For now, I’m going to keep all 7 new Rustic villagers in my camp site for Rustic Essence Harvesting. And Bluebear is there too because I really want her level 15 gift. Hopefully I can max everyone’s levels and things before the next villager drop…

So, while I’m nearly better, I still have a bit of a cold which has made getting things done not go as well as I’d like it to. Regardless, I’m still trying to at least get some things done and so I’m still slowly continuing my progress in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

For one, the Plum Coat FINALLY shows up for me:

I’ll probably be wearing it until something new comes in that I really like.

I also got the Concert Stage and Treehouse both to level 5 so now I have all current amenities maxed out:

Really wish we could place more amenities/increase our camp site’s size…

Four new villagers were added recently so I quickly got them hosted:

And it’s officially snowing in the game now:

It’s so pretty :D

As it is, the next big update is already on the way with new villagers, the gardening feature, and clothing crafting:

To be honest, I’m not too excited for Gardening yet. Besides the implications of it being a very friend-heavy system (and the friend system is just… such a pain to go through right now–really needs some Quality of Life enhancements), gardening has always been my least favorite part of most games with it. I find it a bit too boring and repetitive. Plus, being allergic to most flowers and things probably adds to it.

I’m wondering what point the garden may be, but maybe they’ll be used for the clothing making or something. Speaking of which…

I really do adore the Fluffy Dress so I hope that really will be available and I can make it pretty quickly…

I’m guessing for the new villagers, we’ll see Mitzi and Marshall at the least since Mitzi was the only cat from the datamine and was on a banner with Marshall. I’m not sure how many others we’ll see (There’s still 7 villagers left from the 11 datamined–we already got the first four), but I’m excited and also a bit sad as I still have… so many villagers to level up.

I definitely want to try and start using my request tickets and stuff more (and playing more in general), but it’s a bit frustrating as I’ve just been… super unlucky with spawns and way too often whatever I need just vanishes and going through the friend’s list to check shops is very… convoluted :( I just wish it all worked a bit smoother.

So, it started right as the new day began and… I… maaaaay have rushed through it ^^; A mixture of knowing December tends to be pretty crazy and also I know I’ll want to build extras of some of these items (Definitely at least one more cake, fireplace, and tree) so I wanted to give myself plenty of time for that. Hopefully I’ll also manage to keep a Candy Cane just to have too.

I really like the items, though, the dimensions of some of them are… really odd so I found myself having a bit of an issue placing them. I still ended up with something nice though:

I also played around a bit with the Holiday clothes–the Santa Hat kills the ponytail so I think the Star Pin looks okay.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep this on though.

On non-event news, the Level 5 Pool did finish!:

The Rock Stage will be level 5 next build while the Treehouse will be level 4. Natural and Cool Essences have not been showing up much for me lately–I have so many Sporty and Cute now though…

And those with Android devices got these adorable shirts and hat:

I don’t know if I’ll ever wear them, but they are pretty cute.

I also managed to pay off the 150K loan and am now slowly working towards the 200K one. Earning bells is never going to be something I’m good at, I swear x__x

And with that, I will end off with this lovely picture:

So, if you frequent Twitter and/or Facebook, you’ll probably know I’ve been pretty sick. While I’m about halfway through my medicine (and hopefully feeling 100% once more), my focus is… very shake-y, at the moment, to say the least. As someone who normally multitasks a loot, it’s so… frustrating to essentially just be stuck staring at one thing and struggling to even accomplish that.

I don’t really like leaving things unfinished and right now, my unfinished pile feels kind of unbearable and there’s not much I can do about it. To make matters worse, because of the previous mentioned problem of not being able to focus, my mind is constantly thinking up ideas (whether drawings, stories, or something else entirely) that I just… do not have the time or talent to put into fruition and it’s pretty disheartening, honestly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to write this entry since earlier this week and wanted to get it up before Pocket Camp came out because I was going to say how likely it’d be to come out the 21st/22nd because the Fortune Event ended then and it was also when the dailies ended for the current round instead of it being the usual 10–of course, I was right with that, but I never actually managed to… get that post done. On the bright side, I did manage to get all the wallpapers in the Fortune event:

As you can see, I apparently got Bitty:

I don’t really think it’s that fitting, but I don’t really like to keep retaking these quizzes. I just wish they’d stop with the “shortened” quizzes–most people would prefer to answer all the questions to get a more accurate result and so it’s frustrating when it’s essentially powered by RNG to an extent because I don’t feel it’s entirely accurate.

As for the progress in the game, it’s mostly been slow… Ignoring server issues since the huge increase of people with the game releasing, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s just not much I can do right now. I did manage to get the level 5 Merry-go-Round completed:

And currently have the level 5 Pool being built so I just have the Treehouse and Concert left to level up. I also have crafted everything I currently have unlocked at least once so the only things I have left are from getting villagers to level 15. I still have 21 villagers to go and I keep debating on if I should use my Request tickets to try and rush these or save them to rush being able to host when new villagers get added instead. Marshal is likely coming in the new batch of villagers due to being one of the options in the Fortune Event and it’s possible some of my own favorites could make their way in that batch too which would be nice as currently my only favorite villager in the game is Peanut.

As for the game itself, the trees and grass also changed shortly before the game opened for everyone and it’s quite nice:

I’m looking forward to us getting snow. I am surprised we didn’t end up having a Harvest Festival ingame, but maybe they felt it was too soon after opening…

My struggles are still heavily with the resource mechanics though–especially with being sick, it makes it hard to keep my stock up since it’s hard to really play much and when I do have those short bursts where I feel up to more, I once again get hit by that item limit wall. Most of the limits and things, I can understand. The timers, the rotations, the crafting things… But the item limit is just such an issue. Especially because you get SO little from selling items, it doesn’t feel worth the effort to get them just to sell them so when your inventory is full, it’s like “Well, now what do I do?”. Prices are what you’d expect for clothing and furniture and to craft, but the prices for selling things from your inventory is just too small to cover that. 10 Bells for “common” stuff is just so disheartening. And it also gives me less of a reason to play when my requests are done honestly and removes a lot of the relaxing part of AC and playing how you like.

While my inventory management continues to be a nightmare, I’m doing pretty well catalog-wise. I currently have all market furniture available, everything from Labelle, and only need one thing from Kicks. I have about 13 things left from the Able Sisters, including one of the dresses (The Plum Coat) that I actually really want :/ But the RNG with it all makes it… frustrating.

In the meantime, when I’ve needed a bit of a break from Pocket Camp due to just running out of things to do or just not having the energy for it, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Tiny Bird Garden which came out on November 15th. If you enjoy Neko Atsume and/or really like birds, you’ll probably enjoy Tiny Bird Garden. It is of the same nature as Neko Atsume (lay out toys and food for birds to come), but a bit more… immersive in a way with NPCs you can talk to and actually getting to talk to and befriend the birds in a way. You can give them treats and hats and it’s just a… very sweet game?

I mean, seriously, look at some of these birds:

I especially relate to Cherry:

And even the NPCs have sweet things to say:

Even the Credits as well:

I’ve managed to see all the birds at least once and give them all their favorite Treats so I just need to figure out all their favorite toys now. They all seem… a lot less picky than the cats in Neko Atsume though which both makes it a bit easier to see them all but also a bit harder if you’re specifically going for one.

Regardless, if you like cute birds and/or just need some kind of casual pick-me up, I really do recommend it–even if just for some positive reminders that you matter.

Right now, Super Mario Odyssey is a bit on hold which makes me… quite sad to be honest. I really love the game, but at the same time I just feel frustrated with it. I think a lot of the Moons are pretty fun, but at the same time it feels like way too much. It just feels packed just to be packed and I just don’t find that very fun. It makes them feel less special. That said, my least favorite ones have to be the high score ones :/ I don’t mind doing the activities a certain amount of times, but there’s… not much fun in spending hours trying over and over to hit a score in the same monotonous activity. And you have to do this in two different ones.

The time trial ones are also fairly frustrating. I’ve long stopped enjoying the races and really just wish the only one was in the Mushroom Kingdom.

I’m sure we’ll get back to the game eventually and I really do want to hit the 999 Moons + get all the costumes, but right now I just feel discouraged and frustrated.

Finally, what I’ve been doing especially these last few months is getting myself a bit lost in visual novels. I love reading, but unfortunately our… living situation isn’t the best to really be situated *to* read books for long periods of time and still be comfortable. Let alone even… keep track of books :(

I started playing My Candy Love aka Amour Sucré in March of last year and it’s been a… rollercoaster of feelings. I talk a lot about the game over on a Tumblr I have dedicated to it and other Beemoov games, but I wanted to bring it up here too for once because there’s a lot I really want to say about it.

I’m incredibly picky with Otome games. I don’t usually have the same tastes in guys as most people so it’s hard for me to find one appealing. Plus, when many games have you dating girls instead and you’re not particularly interested in girls, you’re usually playing more for story reasons then (Which is why I won’t play any… mature rated ones).

I think Otome games can be quite interesting though if they have a good focus on story and characters and that’s generally what I look for, though, I can be picky with art style. And while the art style in MCL can vary (especially with some of the older episodes’ illustrations), something about it still drew me in and I’m not entirely sure what. My one regret is mostly finding about it so late–the game started in 2011 and so I’ve… missed a lot :/ Both onsite event-wise and merchandise-wise.

One thing that’s been especially frustrating to me is there was a short episode available for those who got a code from their booth at Japan Expo in 2013 that was only available for France and there is only video of one of the routes and I can’t find any transcripts of the other routes and this haunts me so much and is killing me slowly because of all kinds of problems. It’s rare, but hey, if you had unlocked the Japan Expo 2013 ring and now no longer can replay the episode, please report it so maybe someone can… finally upload the other routes and dialogue ._.

Moving to the game itself and despite some of my issues above and sadness of missing out, I wish I knew what captured me about the game. I found myself interested in all the characters and definitely found a favorite of the cast. The game takes place in a high school, towards the end of the school year (though, don’t actually try and figure out the timeline–it’s a complete and utter mess).

I think in a way, especially since my school life was absolute trash, it almost feels therapeutic for me. Even though the focus is the 5 main guys, you get two best friends and have a handful of other classmates as well. And even if on episode where you get completely screwed over, people are still there for you and sometimes a lot of it is just what I needed to hear and didn’t realize.

The game currently is at 37 episodes (with 38 coming out any day now honestly– a lot o people are expecting the trailer tomorrow) and you don’t even start dating the guy you want to go for until the end of Episode 28/start of Episode 29 so there’s a long build up (though, you may find the first 10 episodes kind of slow). There’s character arcs as well, some stronger than others, but honestly, I just have fun with it even if I genuinely think they could use a better translator, the censoring is awkward, and some lines are… a bit cringe-y, but it’s just… truly fun.

They have a Black Friday sale going on so I’m debating on buying a bunch of AP and $ and maybe doing a huge story replay to fix some decisions and things I’m not super happy with and also take opportunities to explore the school more so I’ll be less likely to miss dialogue and stuff too.

I would likely stream the big replay too so if someone is interested in the game, but doesn’t want to play, well, that could be an option!

I will say the game is a bit hard to get into–besides some of the older art style in illustrations, the game unfortunately uses an Action Point system. Once you’re caught up, you’ll usually manage to earn enough to play the next episode by the time it comes out, but until then, it’s a very slow grind trying to play each day and can be super demotivating honestly :/

Once thing I do wish Beemoov would do (besides an alternative to the AP system) is just… better jobs with merchandising to their other servers. There’s such a big focus on France as it’s the main server and where the company is located, but it really makes other servers feel left out. The manga, as an example, has only been published in French, Spanish, and German. It’s been years with no update on if we will ever see it outside those languages. The Artbooks have only been in French and English. And most merchandise hasn’t been outside France at all. It’s pretty discouraging (and also makes it all the harder to FIND older merchandise…).

Despite all this, the game’s taking place in France actually helped rejuvenate my love for France’s culture too. France was the first country I ever wanted to go to and the first language I wanted to learn when I was just 2-3 years old. It meant a lot to me and after some issues when I finally got to go to Paris, France, a piece of my heart got… incredibly hurt due to certain things that happened and it’s… really nice to have it mended and just between this and Miraculous Ladybug feel that love for France again (Also my French has gotten a lot better with all the things I’ve been looking up for character reasons so that’s pretty awesome).

Beemoov’s other visual novel is Eldarya which is much more fantasy-styled and more mature in general. It has the same kind of thing with a lot more characters besides just the love interest and the other servers are *nearly* caught up with France’s. It’s fun despite some… problematic decisions in plot, but I’m genuinely really excited to see where the story goes.

While I play MCL more for the characters as the story is mostly just… school with some character arcs, Eldarya’s overall story has me incredibly invested with where it’s going to go.

Of course, I don’t only play Otome game-Visual novels. One of Beemoov’s other visual novels is Henri’s Secret which is just a general romance story–you don’t have a character and you follow Lyla’s PoV for the most part (though, the game takes place mostly from a third person view). Even though the secret was super obvious from the get-go (and you learn it pretty quick in the story too–though Lyla and her friends have yet to…), I find myself still interested in the characters and story and really want to see their reactions when they learn Henri’s secret.

As for a non-Beemoov game, I’m actually super into SakeVisual’s Jisei series. I love mysteries and all the characters are super well-written. The fourth part is currently in production and I genuinely can’t wait. It’s such a good series, the art and voice acting is phenomenal and I haven’t played a game from SakeVisual that I haven’t enjoyed, honestly. I still have to finish Backstage Pass, but… stats and schedule stuff in games is hard for me x__x

But yes, this is what I’ve been up to recently! I’m still doing training in Miitopia, but it’s… very slow so that may be a while. I also do hope to get back to Lady Layton as SOON as I’m feeling better. I miss it, but I’m just… in no condition to do puzzles right now.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving today (Or a Happy Thursday if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving)! Please stay safe if you’re going shopping tomorrow.

As for me, I’ll just be… praying I feel better :)