Has anyone had the chance to play Nintendo’s mobile version of Animal Crossing yet? It’s called Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and come out just a few days ago. TL;DR at the bottom.
I’ve been playing since launch. I always knew it was going to be an Animal Crossing: Lite mobile game but I was hoping for a bit more substance given the series’ unique charm and subtleties.
Needless to say, if you have played any of the last four core games in the series you know what to expect. An economy based on the collecting and selling of items and memorable interactions with villagers to complete tasks for money or items. Basically a collect em’up life simulator with real time progression systems. It’s a game that is typically played in many short bursts over a long period of time which amounts to a huge time investment if you want to get that swag.
Pocket Camp on the other hand is quite similar to the core games but has micro-transaction currency called Leaf Tickets. It eschews some of the mechanics of the core games which leaves something to be desired. For instance, when fishing, it’s much easier to get a bite from a fish so you don’t have to do any precise casts to get their attention. Each fish will bite within three pokes at the hook whereas in the core games there was more tension as it could take as few as one poke or as many as seven or eight to hook them. The same simplification as applied to bug catching. No longer do you have to sneak around. Simply tap the bug and your character will automatically sneak and prompt you to tap and catch. One may say these changes were made to fit the mobile platform where the only input is a tap but the implementation of these mechanics leaves a lot to be desired.
No longer do you have to interact with villagers to inquire about chores or jobs. The game automatically populates fetch chores only, none of which require you to interact with another villager to complete them. This leads to a straightforward go pick some fruit, catch some fish or bugs and “deliver it to me,” style fetch quests which get tiresome quickly. Nintendo even stripped the mobile version of random mini games with the villagers you could play for bells or items. An example would be if you spoke with a villager and just asked them “What’s up?” or “Tell me something,” instead of just delivering a line of text and getting friendship experience they may ask you to play rock, paper scissors for an item or they will have you place a wager how much X item costs. If you are close you win a prize or they take some bells from you. Little interactions like that which take away from the tedium of just doing fetch quests.
Economically speaking, Pocket Camp is quite a departure from the core series. Firstly, selling items is awkward as you mainly do it through a menu without having to speak with the likes of Tom, Timmy or Tommy. These characters do exist in the game (maybe not Tom) but they only buy furniture items as opposed to fish, fruit, bugs, etc. The sale price of fish, bugs and fruit has been cut drastically. Seemingly, 1/10th of the sale price from the core games. A piece of fruit is 10 bells where as local fruit would be 100 bells. Apply this to nearly every item you can sell. Planting is out of the mobile version entirely so farming fruit is out of the question, along with more expensive foreign fruit which could net you a pretty penny. The stalk market is gone from what I can tell, too. The same goes for fossils, gyros, scuba diving and the rest. There are less opportunities to earn money. As if that wasn’t enough, the price for items sold by shop keepers does not seem to have decreased and maintain their core series value. On the whole, what the player sees is serious inflation due to a massive income reduction; it just takes a lot longer to earn the bells you need to directly buy items. The economy is one of the biggest driving forces of the core games and the fact that it has been deflated is worrying because it gives way to my largest complaint of all: Crafting and micro-transactions.
To be fair, the crafting system in the game isn’t horrible at first. You do some favors for the villagers, do some timed or stretch goals and you’ll get some crafting ingredients. Steel, cloth, preserved fruit, wood, friend powder, some kind of gem, whatever. There are a lot of different crafting ingredients. At the start of the game, crafting basic items takes from one to five minutes. You can unlock more items to craft by inviting people to your camp, which involves increasing their friendship level and your own character’s level. Once I hit level seven or eight on my character, I noticed crafting times began to increase up to two or three hours. Then, I noticed the friendship level required to invite a villager to my campsite rose from level two all the way to five. Currently I’m at level 21 and some items are taking as long as 12 hours to craft and most villagers require 7 level to invite. Well, what can someone with limited time or no patience do? Spend Leaf Tickets to instantly complete a long craft or to catch more fish and bugs in one go. What else can you spend Leaf Tickets on? Entry into the quarry there you can earn bells direct from mining ore. Buy special items that are only available with Left Tickets as opposed to crafting or bells (there are only two that I’m aware of so far), expand your inventory space, expand your own market place where other players can buy your listed goods and maybe some other things.
How much does it all cost? As if that really mattered to someone loves the core games. Well, 1,200 Leaf Tickets cost as much as $40 bucks. From what I can tell, to instantly craft something costs between 15 (the minimum I’ve seen) up to 50 (the maximum I’ve seen). So, if you buy in bulk that’s about 30 Tickets/1$. It would cost about $.75$ to $2 to instantly craft something. Mobile games be mobile games, I suppose.
Inventory management is a logistical game in and of itself. Some of us hate our bags and some of us love them. I find myself somewhere in the middle which is why I’m indifferent to how Pocket Camp handles inventory. The traditional Animal Crossing inventory is totally gone. You get somewhere around 100 inventory slots that does not require management for things like fish, bugs, sea shells, etc. Furniture does not have an inventory ceiling as far as I’m aware which makes it more of a catalog. Crafting ingredients are a separate inventory with the max number of ingredients ranging from the hundreds to thousands per ingredient. If you reach a maximum in either inventory, you need to sell something to the ether for 1/10th of it’s selling price from the core game. It also has to be said that you can’t drop anything on the ground. Usually, you’ll keep 5-10 common things villagers want and keep one of each rare item to post on your marketplace from time to time. The term simplify has been brought up a few times and this is no exception.
Lastly, the museum is gone along with mail the post office and the bank. The availability of fish and bugs does not seem to be affected by time of day and seasons were totally thrown out the window. Loading times and menu selections exist when traveling from camp site to campsite as opposed to a free roam village and I can’t confirm at this time that holiday events and fishing and bug catching tournaments are in the game. Everything is broadcasted to the player; there is no mystery or room for using your perception to judge how you are progressing. An example would be friendship levels with the villagers. I believe there was a system for this in prior games but it was never shown to the player. There’s a lot of other minutia that have been left out but that list could go on and on. If you were ever surprised or excited by something in the core games you can expect it to be missing from the Pocket Camp version.
THIS IS WHERE THE GAME DOES WELL
After complaining for multiple paragraphs, is there anything redeeming about the game? Is there something I would want in the core series? Actually, there are. The campsite in general is a huge improvement. The campsite is divided into four areas, two of which you can place floors and items. The other two are designated for an “amenity,” like an upgradeable yet static skate park or garden. Plus you have your camper at your campsite which acts like the house from previous games and is fully upgradeable too. I like this idea and hope they flesh it out to fit the core games in the future. The more I can display and show off the better! The inventory system is ho-hum but it does have an upside - the ability to purchase more slots. Yes, Nintendo gave us more drawer space in New Leaf but being able to get more inventory space is a nice addition. Occasionally, you may have scrapped up enough bells to buy all three of Timmy and Tommy’s shop inventory. Normally, you would have to wait until the next day to see more items. However, in the mobile game, he restocks throughout the day all while the Able Sisters and Kicks rotate every now and then if you buy all their goods. Restockable store inventory is hard to be dissapointed with.
BACK TO PESSIMISM
I have never really delved into mobile games before. To be frank, I hate the idea of micro-transactions. I would much prefer Nintendo to make a full fledged game and charge for it. While I have made fair progress without spending a dime, I don’t care for the business model they have implemented with Pocket Camp and intend to keep my money in my pocket. Nintendo has managed to make an Animal Crossing: Lite where you can make it without spending anything (to my knowledge), which is something I admire but the degradation of the economy and mechanics of the game turn Animal Crossing into a bathroom visit affair at worst and bored at work at best. I just hope Nintendo does not move the core games in this direction.
In the coming days, I’ve been hoping to complete a few sets of furniture but it seems I have a long road ahead as I only poop once or twice a day.
TL;DR
- Mobile Animal Crossing game was released the other day.
- Farming bells has been cut by at 10x and the economy is seeing major inflation.
- Simplified mechanics, which is hard to believe since it’s been dirt simple from the get go.
- Seasons have been removed but fish and bugs don’t seem to change availability by time.
- The inventory system is meh. It’s over all less engaging than the core series but you can buy more slots.
- Just about anything that was memorable or suprising from the core games is gone.
- Crafting and upgrading items plays it the micro-transaction shenanigans. At least you can progress without having to pay but at a very slow pace.
