Continuing along, we have our day 2 recap which… may be our last full recap unless I start like… documenting every single request I do. Regardless, I’ll go over my accomplishments in the last 24 hours, current things, and also why I haven’t actually streamed the game like I hoped to.

So, the main goal of Day 2 was essentially extreme Amenity Building. As I mentioned last time, I had hit the level limit with some of the Villagers and so, I needed to start working on every Essence’s Tent to get that level cap up. Thanks to a donation to buy some leaf tickets, I was able to not only max out each tent, but get the first level of each of the next tier of amenities which are what I’m struggling to level up now.



Right now, Cool and Natural are at level 3, Sporty is at level 2, and Cute is at level 4. I’d love to get Cute to level 5 today and maybe even make the Merry-Go-Round, but Cute Essences are the… worst to earn and I still need 12 more just to get the Tree Swing to level 5 (not to mention it’ll take 48 hours on top of that).

I actually used to have a lot of Sporty Essences, but had to start selling them because I had too small of a space for them an you got so many for early goals. Speaking of goals, I only have four left which are all placing furniture type goals–I need to place 4 of each of the Polka-dot Series, Sleek Series Kiddie Series, and Blue Series to finish them off. I’ll get 10 Leaf Tickets for each one.

Thus, there are only two ways for me to get essences right now without spending real money:
-Befriending villagers (Which, thanks to the Amenity building, I can now get each of them to level 15)
-Shovelstrike Quarry (where you’re lucky if you get more than one) – Not only is it random which kind (though, it at least tells you in advance), you can only play once a day for free/through friends. You can only play every 3 hours if you pay with Leaf Tickets (a cost of 20) to access it.
-Or, of course, you can use Leaf Tickets to make up the cost of Essences missing. However, For every Essence you’re missing, it’s 20 Leaf Tickets, so if you’re only missing about four, that’s still 80 tickets.

You can technically sometimes get them randomly when talking to a villager at your camp as well, but I find it’s quite rare.

I feel like Everything involving Essences are just very very broken. You need to make all the buildings to continue to level up through leveling up your friendship with villagers, but that same way is exactly the main way you’re supposed to earn them in the first place. The cost is way too much with Leaf Tickets and it also sucks that you can’t really sell to friends. Many of my friends aren’t bothering with Cute Villagers at all and have a large amount of spare Cute Essences, but unfortunately, you can only sell Fruit, Bugs, Seashells, and Fish to other players.

This seems like… such a huge oversight because wow would I love to sell clothes or help friends when there’s stuff being sold that I don’t want that they might. And also crafting stuff too? But nope, not possible! There’s not tons of friend activity in this game and while I can understand most of it, the limit on what we can sell to each other is silly. (Also, on a side note, I wish we could tell if we gave Kudos to a friend already… That way I won’t revisit someone I already gave kudos to after they give kudos to me again… Similarly, a tab just to see who needs a hand rather than searching through your friend’s list).

In the end, I spent nearly all my Platinum Points on MyNintendo for stuff in the game as you can get crafting materials and bells and Bells continue to be the bane of my existence in this game only second to Essences.

A good amount of that money I actually ended up putting towards my loan at OK Motors.

I had expected the 50K one to be the last, but now I have a 100K loan after they increased the first floor of my RV again… I’m guessing the next upgrade will be increasing the upstairs to match, but I’m curious if that will be it or there will be more. I really want to know what happens when you finish, but who knows when I’ll have 100,000 to pay this one off–let alone future ones.

In the meantime, I managed to move two more villagers in. It’s mostly slow right now because beside bells and crafting material issues, the timers have gotten… so long for like 90% of what I’m trying to make. Right now I have one item at 5 hours, one item at about 4 hours, and another at 2 hours… Many have been 8-12 hours at this point and this is one of the biggest parts of why I’m not really streaming it.

Right now, I’m kind of stuck. My inventory is full so all I can really do if there’s no new requests is run around catching things and immediately having to sell them. Earning coins is just so slow this way too as most items just do not sell for much and it’s better to put them to requests so it just genuinely feels like a waste. And even with shaking trees, I’ve only found bells that way once now.

Maybe I progressed too fast, who knows, but with the long crafting times and full inventory, I’m mostly just… waiting and that’s not really much to show at all.

I was very happy to unlock Peanut at least and I just… buried her in requests (finally using my request tickets) until I could. She’s the only one of my favorite villagers available right now so…

Next, I’m hoping to focus on getting Sandy, Bitty, and Hopkins leveled up. Mostly because I really want their level 15 gifts–Sandy gives the Afternoon Tea Set, Bitty gives the outside Light-up Heart, and Hopkins gives a cool gameboy thing. I hope Sandy will show up again soon–haven’t seen her in a while and I sadly used all of my call tickets already :/ (And it’s 30 to call a villager without one…)

Also, as you may have noticed from some of the pictures, I found an outfit I’m okay with for now:

There’s a lot I’m hoping to get though. I think the Bubblegum Shirt and the White Tights are my biggest priorities and maybe one of the boots too.

I’ve also finally decorated my RV a tiny bit:

But I’m still going to hold off doing so fully until I unlock more villagers and stuff.

And finally, another cute screenshot to end on:

And well, a little bit of Day 2. Now that I’ve played the game for nearly a full day, I really wanted to expand more on everything, talk about what I’ve done so far, and just other random thoughts. I do still think the balancing is the game’s biggest issue right now, but that doesn’t really make it less fun. You can find a playlist of a bunch of my playtime over on Youtube (though, you can watch straight from the site too).

So, for starters, let’s go over what I HAVE done. I’m currently level 19 and I have 11 Campers hosted thus far. And unsurprisingly, my character should look pretty familiar:

Now if I could… just get an outfit I really liked. To start, I had this cute sweater:

But I’m wearing this dress now:

Which works, but I want something cuter. And with long sleeves.

Unfortunately, the only things you can sell to other players/friends are items you can gather–fish, bugs, fruit, and seashells. You can’t help eachother with crafting supplies, clothing, or furniture which seems like a huge miss. Not to mention, anything you put up for your market is gone forever. If it doesn’t sell, your only option is to destroy it so don’t use it for storage when you get low on space which will happen a lot.

Honestly, I absolutely hate the limit on gatherables due to how many requests use them up and you will run out of them very quickly. Some are also rarer to even get and it’s just a huge pain to have to run into limits and then toss things which you are very likely to need again soon.

Anyway, going back to my own playthrough, I decided to pick the Cute theme–I was stuck between that and Natural, but Cute was pink sooooo :P This meant my first friend would be Rosie:

During some requests, you’ll get cute scenes like this similar to Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. They also make adorable gifs:



I’m definitely hoping to make more gifs of some of them, but here’s a collection of some I haven’t done gifs of:

But yes, this was my original camp layout due to picking Cute:

And there’s just so many cute tidbits in this game such as calling up characters and just getting a box out of nowhere:

And the new fishing nets and honey things are amazing and need to be in a main game:

Anyway, after Rosie I managed to unlock several other characters too:

Also your pose when you level-up is adorable:

Unfortunately, despite all the emotions and interactions you can see your villagers doing, your own character doesn’t really interact as much nor can they emote outside of cutscenes.

You can also run into other people’s characters as well–both friends and random people:

One thing I wished I did sooner was head over to OK Motors as you actually can customize your RV for free:

Of course, I ended up switching to a fancier special design that I saved up quite a bit for:

I kind of wish I could combine the two somehow… One nice thing as well is once you buy a design, you can ALWAYS switch back to it for free which is great. Your RV even has some furniture to start, though, I ended up emptying it for now. I’m not sure what I want to go for just yet with it, but because I will need to make extra of some pieces of furniture, I want to unlock as much as I can first.

I also love the climbing ladder animation when you get the second floor. I can’t wait to upgrade my RV again… but I need to pay off 30K for the second floor first.

The game also features special items which allow certain special Villagers to show up. They cost Leaf Tickets and are only around for a limited time (though, they might return in the future). Right now, items for Tom Nook and K.K. Slider are available:

Focusing back on the campsite itself, I managed to finally get the Cute Tent:

And this actually leads into a bit of one of my most frustrating things with this game: Requiring buildings people may not want. You can only build one amenity at a time and they cost *a lot* to build and take quite a bit of time. The tent takes 12 hours for level 1, instant for level 2, but 12 more hours for level 3 (the max level). And you need a Level 3 Tent of each Essence type (Cute, Sporty, Natural, and Cool) in order to unlock more amenities (which continues for each tier–you then need to max out the level of whatever Amenity you made to get the next tier of that essence’s amenity). The Tree Swing, which is the Tier 2 Cute item, takes 48 hours to make. The Merry-go-Round is the next cute item which requires that Tree Swing to get to level 5.

So far, I have the Level 3 Cute Tent:

The Natural Tent at level 1:

And I’m currently building the Tree Swing which has over 45 hours to go… The thing is, even if maybe you don’t want those items, the Villager’s friendship levels are locked to them. You can only get a villager to level 7 without building their tent. And only to level 10 after building the tent until you build the next tier item which allows them to get to level 15. I’m assuming there will be one more item that allows them to get to 20 which is max level. And all villagers have “friendship” prizes–one at level 7, one at level 9, one at level 10, and one at level 20. Level 7 is always a shirt, either the one they are wearing or one similar/matching their style, level 9’s is always a Sparkle Stone which are used in some of the rarer crafting recipes, level 10’s is a crafting recipe, and level 20 is their photo.

Right now, I have Cherry maxed out at level 7 and because I can only make one Amenity at a time, I can’t work on it right now (I’m also out of cotton after making the Natural Tent…) because I’m still waiting for my Tree Swing to finish :/ On top of that, I’ve found Cute Essence to be the hardest for me to earn, partially as you get less requests from those at your camp site which means less opportunities to essentially level them up for more chances. I also swear there’s less quests that give some and it shows up less at the Quarry, but maybe that’s just me.

Overall, it’s not only just a massive brick wall, but also frustrating to get things I’ll never really use. I get why it’s like this–especially as it’s one of the biggest features, but it is a bit disappointing regardless.

I’m definitely still having fun, but that does put a damper on things and it’s the first time I’ve been super tempted to just buy a bunch of Leaf Tickets or something because this just really sucks. I also can’t decide what to put my bells towards–loans, more furniture for hosting characters, the amenities, or clothing and things. Bells are such a pain to earn–mostly coming just from requests and the Quarry, and you really don’t earn much from selling things you get which makes it just kind of disappointing and I’m much more… nervous about them. Right now, I mainly want to get these tents done because I don’t want to hit more friendship caps so that’s my current goal, but the long amenity wait is just… absolutely awful.

On a brighter note, here’s a cute screenshot to finish this off:

Though, this time, after playing for several hours. For whatever reason, Australia ended up putting it up for download on the Google Play Store today instead of next month when it was planned. Because Animal Crossing is a real time game, I didn’t want to miss out on anything so I did my best to download it as well (I just… hope I can change my country in the game to match properly so I can connect it to my Nintendo Account…).

After playing it, while I had a lot of fun, I also felt a bit… bored at points too. The game feels very sectioned in a way and I don’t know if it’s intentional or part of the fact that this is technically a month early.

To explain what I mean, everything is kind of on a 3-4 hour rotation. Villagers on the map switch, shop merchandise switches, trees grow fruit back, etc. You do have a inventory limit as well (at least for things like bugs, fish, fruit, and seashells–about 105 total) so you can’t just stock up on everything in advance either.

In general, what I’ve found I’m having the hardest time earning is just… bells. NPCs only buy furniture (which cost money to even make and because you unlock more villagers visiting your campsite through items, I’d rather not sell any until I have everyone incase items are used again) and most of the gatherables sell for very little (Anywhere from 10-100). When you get about 100 or so from completing quests, it just feels more worth it to save everything until you get a request from a villager asking for things.

And between the item limits, smaller split up areas (I really hope we can upgrade our campsite at some point to have more room to place things), and the bell problems, I feel like there’s a lot of artificial waiting that even the Leaf Tickets don’t really help with. As it is, I’ve found it cost a ridiculous amount more for a few missing crafting supplies versus speeding something up. I had to spend about 80 for 3-4 Essences I was short of, but if I wanted to speed up the 12 hour build, it only would’ve been 55 which seems really odd to me.

It’s possible they’re still trying to balance it all out and I do think most of my “issues” can be sorted out with some patches and updates as the game goes on, but right now I just wish I could find better ways to earn bells.

In the meantime, I think I’m going to start putting everything away except for whatever villager I am trying to attract until I figure out how I want my camp site to look in the first place.

On a different note, clothing seems to be based on face type again and if anyone gets a nice pink top or dress and some white tights (and ballet slippers or cute shoes) they can sell me, let me know ;~;

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??

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??

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!