Thursday, November 30, 2017

Making Christmas


This morning I woke up to find that Christmas Time had come to Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. I'm so excited! I absolutely love Christmas, it's one of my favorite holidays. I hadn't even considered that we might get seasonal decorations and limited time crafting from our little mobile game.

Everyone was sent a Santa Hat to help get you in the spirit, and you can find that in your mailbox after you log in. The event only lasts through Christmas, so if there are decorations or outfit pieces that you want, you will want to get busy collecting Candy Canes and completing special Timed Goals. If you want that adorable top you'll want to craft a Jingle Fence, for example.

Candy Canes are a crafting material, like cotton or wood, and similarly you won't be able to just go pick them from a tree. You can get Candy Canes from completely Timed Goals, as a bonus reward when you do favors for your animal friends, and from the Shovelstrike Quarry.

To find what you can craft with your Candy Canes, look in the Special - Limited Time category of your crafting menu. It's the fancy seal with a leaf in it, where you could find the KK Slider or Tom Nook chairs to use your Leaf Tickets on. Take note that some of your Timed Goals that award Candy Canes are to craft these special holiday items. You have to spend candy to make candy, or something like that.

That Snowman decoration is calling my name and it's going to set me back 300 Candy Canes, so it's time to go help some more of my animal friends. Happy Holidays from my camp to yours.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Caff Goes Pocket Camping


Animal Crossing Pocket Camp was released yesterday, and I have been playing a lot. I'm sure the shine will wear off eventually and I'll just play when I'm bored instead of making time to sit down and fish or run errands for my animal friends, but for now I am hooked.

If you are just getting started Isabelle will guide you through making contacts with campers and learning how to do tasks for them to raise their friendship level. She'll teach you about getting fruit from trees, fishing, catching bugs, and how to build furniture, but there are a few little details that she'll leave out.


You are going to want to make some friends, either by sharing friend codes or by befriending players who you'll find around the map, because asking friends for help is the only way you can access the Shovelstrike Quarry without spending 20 of your precious Leaf Tickets. While you will be able to acquire Leaf Tickets as you level, they aren't so plentiful as to waste on the chance to earn a few Bells unless you plan to spend a lot of actual money to buy more in the cash store. When you go to the Quarry you'll see a button that allows you to ask your friends for help, once at least 5 people say yes you'll be able to go in and smack some rocks to find treasures that Lloyd will give you bells for.

You'll want to make sure you check your friend list periodically to see if other people are asking for help. If someone wants to access the Quarry you'll see a shovel next to their name. When you help people you'll be rewarded with Bells in the mail later, so even if you wouldn't help your friend just to be nice you can do it to help yourself get a new pair of shoes. (Be nice and help your friends, this whole game is about being nice.)


Which brings me to what I love the most about ACPC is that it is joyful. So far none of the animals are being grumpy at me, instead every thing is a chance for happiness. When you catch a bug or a fish near another player's NPC or one of the animals they get so excited and applaud your success. It brings me a little bit of joy every time. When you build a new amenity the campers hanging out at your place will come celebrate the new building.


You will run into inventory problems fairly quickly if you're in the habit of collecting every fruit, bug, shell and fish that you see. So far it seems that you can build infinite furniture, but the stuff you collect to give to your animal friends has a low cap. Two bits of good news here, the first being that you will gain more inventory space as you level and the second is that you can sell your excess stuff for Bells. I'd advise holding onto any rare items you come across because the payoff for turning it in as a quest will be greater than just selling it, but the more common items just use your judgement. Depending on how much space you have available keeping 5 to 10 of a fish can have a great pay off so that you aren't trying to find squid all of a sudden when multiple animals desire 3 at a time. Just keep fishing and collecting and the game will tell you when you run out of space. Sell a few items or list them in your Market Box for other players to purchase, and you'll be good to go. Don't let it get you down.


There is a lot more to the game than I am covering here, this isn't in depth by any means, I just wanted to gush a bit about how much fun I'm having with the new Animal Crossing Pocket Camp game. I am having so much fun. Now I have to go, I just saw a tip on twitter that you can shake non-fruit trees and sometimes Bells fall out. I'm going to go check it out while I wait for my next set of quests to come up. I'm saving up to build a massive Tree House for all the cuties at my camp; I hope to see you there.