Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a spin-off of the Animal Crossing series, developed and published by Nintendo for iOS and Android devices. It was released worldwide on November 21, 2017 (Australia saw the game's release one month earlier).

The game places the human player character as a camp manager. Their campsite can be decorated with furniture and visited by guest animals. There are seven recreation spots outside the campsite to meet up or befriend animals, shop at, gather items, or customize the player's camper. Like in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, player avatar is designed up to the player's content without relying on in-game "questionnaire" and furniture placement is done using (obviously) touch controls. As usual for an Animal Crossing game, this game contains lots of characters to meet and furniture and clothing items to collect. Basically, players can build their own dream campsite featuring their favorite animals. New content and events are added periodically via updates. Version 2.0.0 adds the cabin, basically giving the player another place to decorate and invite their favorite animals in.

The game has a Microtransaction currency (Leaf Tickets) that can be used to bypass Item Crafting or timers. They can also be obtained by completing Goals in the game.


 * Addressing the Player: Like in the main games, even if the player treats the name picked as mere online handle common in online games, which this game is.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Having an animal's friendship level reach level 7 will reward the player with said animal's default clothing. Most events and fortune cookies will also reward clothing items.
 * And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: Outside of crafting, players can obtain furniture from certain requests, fortune cookies, and various events.
 * Anti-Frustration Features:
 * Fish are attracted to the player's lure much easier compared to the main games. Not to mention, fish and bugs spawn a lot faster.
 * Obtaining a rare fish/bug/shell/fruit will automatically save the player's progress unlike the other items, so the rare fish/bug/shell/fruit will not be easily wiped from game resets once obtained.
 * Furniture/Clothing items are divided by category, so players can browse for a particular furniture/clothing item by simply searching by category. Version 1.6.0 adds sorting by source, series, theme, and number owned, the latter of which makes finding duplicates easier.
 * During garden events, the player will be notified if their garden has rare creatures in it. This notification can appear regardless of where the player is currently at, even at another player's campsite.
 * When viewing a friend's profile, their garden status will be displayed, saving the trouble of making sure said friend's garden is well-watered or has empty spots to place rare creatures (garden events only).
 * Players can find out required furniture for an animal by viewing them in said animal's profile in the Contacts. Also, after obtaining those furniture, the player can choose to auto-arrange them if the player wants to invite said animal but does not want to rearrange the campsite themselves. Until version 1.6.0, the player was able to decide whether the auto-arranged furniture can be kept or switched out back to the previous layout after that (said version now automatically reverts back to the latter without player input, eliminating likely mistakes of keeping auto-arranged furniture).
 * As of version 2.0.0, the manual arranging option is no longer present, streamlining the invitation system even further. This is combined with the Fast Forward Mechanic of skipping the invitation cutscene to cut even more time spent on the inviting process.
 * If a player wants to request Shovelstrike Quarry help from multiple friends, the player can simply choose which ones the player wants to ask for help, though up to 10 can be selected at a time.
 * What's more, if the player already has at least 5 friends helping for that day, the game will kindly point the player to enter the Quarry the normal way should the player, accidentally or not, presses the "Use 20 Leaf Tickets." option, saving the player the trouble from accidental Leaf Ticket loss. But this still only applies for one free Quarry session.
 * If the player does not feel like completing an animal's particular request, the player can skip it. This will not work if the request is the last one in the chain.
 * Occasionally, balloon gifts can be found on the map. Tapping them will give the player items, with the gold ones giving crafting materials and sometimes tools. This can help a lot if the player is short on items for requests.
 * At the garden, the player has a choice of planting, harvesting, and watering multiple flowers at the same time, reducing the time spent in taking care of them.
 * Some items do not count towards Catalog completion, so completionists do not have to worry about missing out on special items like the Tourney trophies. This also affects platform-exclusive items, like the rainbow event items for Android and the red-and-yellow event items for iOS, reducing the frustration for players that only play on one device or do not have the other device. The rewards from the "hard tasks" (tasks in red) that can only be done after completing all four regular tasks in garden events also do not count, basically turning them into Bragging Rights Reward. The My Sweetest Friend event rewards are also exempt from the Catalog, as the present depends on the animal's personality yet the player can only give the best-friend confection to one animal.
 * Version 1.4.0:
 * The player can now see how many of a particular item (as in fruits, fish, bugs, shells) is currently in their inventory upon walking over one or picking one up, instead of having to check said inventory for it.
 * A checkmark can be seen on the Map button to let the player know if there are any requests that can be fulfilled without having to open up the Map itself.
 * This update finally automatically sorts crafting materials (starts from the common, then rare, then the event-only) instead of ordering them by when they were first obtained, saving the player the trouble of having to scroll just to sell a common crafting material.
 * The player can now obtain event-only items from certain past events (often thought to be Lost Forever) by exchanging stamp cards with Tommy at the Market Place. YMMV when it comes to how it's executed, considering that it involves Leaf Tickets.
 * The player can choose to favorite all furniture tied to a particular animal in their Contacts. This can be useful for inviting new animals, as this can save time (and taps) looking for required furniture by simply grouping them in the Favorites tab (which is the default first tab as of this update) in the Craft menu instead of checking the Contacts multiple times. The player can then clear the list by removing the Favorited tag on those furniture.
 * Version 1.6.0 finally allows the player to sort animals in the Contacts list by either theme or friendship level, not just filtering by species.
 * Every shell found on Saltwater Shores has a distinct appearance unlike in the main games. This is seen from the update that introduces the pearl-oyster shells in this game, which do not share the same overworld appearance as the scallop shells, which retain the generic pink shell look in the overworld.
 * With the addition of the first Fishing Tourney fish as regular non-event catches (albeit rare) in a later update, players who missed out on Fishing Tourneys will not need to worry about missing out on certain fish species for Catalog completion.
 * Version 1.7.0 basically streamlines everything related to the garden, even including the event-related mechanics, making garden management much quicker.
 * Flower Festival is an event that involves trading flowers for limited-time event items, though unlike the usual gardening events, no rare creatures are involved and the seasonal flowers featured there can be cross-pollinated. It was thought that it will involve a lot of luck due to the nature of cross-pollination itself, but it turns out that simply cross-pollinating the same type of seasonal flower will have a chance of producing the rarer seasonal flowers (otherwise the player will get the same flower used; no chance of failure at all), especially ones that cannot be bought from Lloid or given as request rewards.
 * Version 2.0.0:
 * An amenity can finally be upgraded without it having to be present on the campsite first, treating it the same as building a brand new amenity.
 * Players can finally buy Market Box items directly from each other's profile without having to directly interact with their in-game avatar.
 * In general, player-to-player interaction has become streamlined. Players can finally give kudos or lend a hand (Shovelstrike Quarry) directly to friends from the Friends list. No more having to visit them on their respective campsites and additional steps in helping out, respectively. Not to mention, a friend's garden status can be viewed from the list too, much like their Market Box availability status.
 * Version 2.1.0:
 * Pete's Parcel Service (requires player level 3 at minimum to use) basically speeds up item request completion by having him instantly send the required items to the target animal if the player already has them as long as the player has met said animal at least once.
 * The garden mechanics is improved once again, including being able to water friends' flowers without having to visit their garden, know which rare creatures a friend needs (the same applies to the player from their friends' perspective), and share multiple rare creatures in batches. The game may also recommend a list of other players, not necessarily listed in the Friends list, after the player did a capture, providing more options and even spreading the help beyond the Friends list and the random players present in the current cycle.
 * Anti-Grinding: The cabin seems to discourage quick Relationship Values grinding as it basically functions like the campsite but chatting with or doing any request for an animal there only yields 1 friendship point per three hours and that is it. Animal-specific furniture requests that are triggered at certain Friendship Levels still require going to the campsite to place the required furniture and animal, though.
 * Anti-Poopsocking: Fruit trees will regrow new fruits three hours after it is shaken, Item Crafting takes time, planted flowers bloom after a few hours, and players can only do a certain amount of requests per cycle. Since everything runs in real-time (like the main games), this is inevitable.
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit:
 * Up to eight animals can be kept at a player's campsite, not counting special NPCs that appear only in events or part of their special furniture. The same rule applies for the cabin.
 * At first it used to be that only one special character can show up even if the player placed multiple special NPC furniture. No longer the case as of version 2.0.0, where up to four of these characters can show up on one location (so theoretically, up to eight in total if there are special furniture also placed in the cabin). Obviously, no two of the same character (like K.K. Slider) can show up at the same place. The only exception to this limit so far is the Snowboy, represented by his snowfall snowman special furniture, as he will always show up regardless of whether the headcount limit is reached or not.
 * Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Animals at a player's campsite will either sit, stand around, dance, chat with each other, eat/drink, or even interact with certain furniture/amenity.
 * Ascended Meme: Thanks to the global stat tracking (unseen by players), the game is aware of how often things are fished out, captured in a net, crafted, etc. One particular stand-out is the fact that as of the first anniversary, the giant dharma is acknowledged as the most crafted furniture by the playerbase, resulting in a shirt depicting said item given to all players that time for free.
 * Boring but Practical: See above. Crafting cheap items with minimal time taken is the fastest way of building up duplicates to dump on Gulliver, especially if the player just focuses on the exclusive animals that have a chance of coming with him upon return.
 * Bragging Rights Reward: Since the whole point of the game is decorating the player's campsite/van/cabin, much of the collectible are pretty much this just so the player can show off their display. The non-Catalog items are even more so, since they are not needed for 100% Completion.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory:
 * In Fishing Tourneys, the player can rent a golden rod using Leaf Tickets to always guarantee catching two event fish at once per successful fishing. This allows said player to speed up their total size progress compared to others that don't rent said rod.
 * If obtaining special Memories count as "victory", then relying on Leaf Tickets to purchase event-only fortune cookies as well as utilizing the stamps system (which requires said purchase) can be considered this.
 * If the player wants to, they can instantly clear a map in Blathers's Treasure Trek using Leaf Tickets instead.
 * But Thou Must!: Much of the dialogue options lead to the same outcome just with different wording. Particular example goes to the "lost item" request, which the player cannot refuse out of once initiated.
 * Canon Immigrant: The Isabelle scooter (see Shout Out below) actually originated from Mario Kart 8 under the name City Tripper. It is now a rare fortune cookie furniture.
 * Cap:
 * Up to 40 furniture items can be displayed at a player's campsite.
 * A player starts out with 100 inventory limit for miscellaneous items (fruits, fish, bugs, shells), which extends up to a certain limit via level-ups, but can be extended further with Leaf Tickets. As of version 2.0.0, the max limit is 750.
 * As of version 2.0.0, up to 3,000 combined amount of clothing and furniture items can be kept in a player's inventory.
 * Crafting items come with their own max limit, ranging from the minimum 30 for essences to 9,999 bags of friend powder. Like with the inventory limit, these items' caps can be extended via level-ups, but unlike the former they cannot be extended via Leaf Tickets.
 * Relationship Values cap out depending on the thematic amenity the player has built and the animals associated with said theme, starting at 7 and, as of version 2.1.0, maxing out at 30.
 * A player can keep up to 100 friends in the friends list, counting pending requests.
 * A player can hold up 9,999 of each type of snack.
 * Up to 2,000 gift items can be kept in the player's Message box.
 * Subverted with the Bells. While the counter maxes out at 9,999,999, the plus sign (+) is added to the right of the counter to indicate that the player has more Bells than the game's counter can display.
 * Carnivore Confusion: What started out in the main series still carries even to this spinoff...
 * While there is no catchable, regular octopus yet, the Splatoon 2 fishing tourney features one as seen from that game. At that time, Octavian was the only octopus character the player can befriend. This is made worse by the fact that Chip eats the player's catches, including any Purple Octopus they have caught, once the gold trophy has been reached.
 * Goose is a chicken whose wanted furniture before recruiting him is a plate of turkey. Yeah.
 * Then there is the cowhide rug, which the cows and bulls in this game do not mind standing on.
 * Character Customization: The start of the game has the player customizing how they will look. Despite this, the player can still change the look anytime, including gender. (only the name cannot be changed)
 * Christmas Episode: Known as Holiday or Toy Day events.
 * For 2017, it came with a crafting event.
 * For 2018:
 * Its seasonal event item is the bell ornament, which can be used to claim, aside from Leaf Tickets, a Toy Day tuxedo jacket, two portions of frosted Yule-log cake, and a snowy Toy Day tree.
 * Fauna's Toy Day Cookie and the White Gothic Rose Cookie make their debut.
 * To promote the cabin being newly added to the game, walls and flooring themed after this (festive tree and snow) are offerred to players for a few Leaf Tickets as limited-time event crafts.
 * In the same fashion as the above, premium clothing items can be crafted during the Coat Collection event.
 * This holiday finally gets its first gardening event. Of course, Jingle is the host. Speaking of Jingle, his special furniture also makes its debut. This holiday also has its own themed Gyroidite Scavenger Hunt and Fishing Tourney.
 * The snowscape terrain set is added. Costs Leaf Tickets for each part.
 * One day before Christmas, the game gives all players a Toy Day dollhouse.
 * Collection Sidequest: Most events use this as their gimmick, ranging from request rewards in crafting events to rare creatures in garden events.
 * Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
 * Decorating themes are color-coded, though not all essence-tent pair share the same color (example: orange hip essence, light blue and pink tent).
 * One Google collaboration event marks the first time that obtainable furniture in one platform differs in color with the other. Android users get items with Google's color scheme of red, yellow, green, and blue (which are also the colors of the seasonal flowers), while iOS users, for obvious reasons, end up with a different color scheme (red and yellow in this case).
 * The colored bell-jar bouquet obtained from the My Sweetest Friend event depends on the personality of the animal the player gave the best-friend confection to. Lazy and uchi animals give yellow ones, jock, cranky, and smug animals give blue ones, while normal, peppy, and snooty animals give red ones.
 * Commonplace Rare:
 * Some seemingly-common furniture like the washing machine are special request-exclusives only, requiring the very rare sparkle stones to craft them.
 * Even a few items that are considered "common" in the main games can end up "rare" or "hard to obtain" here. Some are fortune cookie only (ex. the cycling shirt), some are event-only (ex. the bone shirt).
 * Console Cameo: Players are given the Nintendo Switch (gray) furniture for free in one event. Other Nintendo console items can only be obtained via limited edition fortune cookies.
 * Continuing Is Painful: Missed out on past events like Holiday 2017, Rover's event, and Lottie's event, but the player wants the featured items? Until a proper event featuring the past event items is launched, enjoy wasting Leaf Tickets (and real money) to get them via stamp cards!
 * Crossover:
 * There are free item giveaway events that involve Mario. So far, the free giveaways include the Big Bro's Hat (before it temporarily became craftable in the event mentioned below) to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Super Mario Run, the Toad Hat to celebrate Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker being ported to the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo 3DS, and Cappy to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Super Mario Odyssey.
 * March 2018 introduces the Super Mario Crossover Event, a crafting event divided into three parts, all featuring Mario-themed furniture and clothing. Of course, the event materials involve mushrooms.
 * Events involving Google collaboration can also count. iOS-only users tend to get the short end of the stick because of this, though...
 * The game also has a series of Splatoon 2-themed events. It is the first crossover to incorporate event fortune cookies, though thankfully no Memory is associated with them.
 * The very first Pokémon crossover in Animal Crossing history debuts on October 2018, featuring its own version of scavenger hunt event where instead of gathering gyroidites, players gather Poké Balls. Particularly, the theme centers around the Pokémon Eevee, so it is safe to say that this event is tied to Pokémon Let's Go nearing its release date.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Unlike Digby, Redd debuted as part of a special furniture first before appearing as a garden event host. If the player has Redd's mask emporium placed on their campsite while his event is ongoing, he can still appear next to the emporium instead of near the garden entrance.
 * With Brewster appearing as a garden event host for the first time long after his special furniture made its debut, it is safe to say that the same rule applies to all special NPCs that can appear as a garden event host.
 * Double Unlock:
 * A few furniture items require a basic form of another furniture to be crafted first before the former can be made. These are never shared by the same animal, so if the player has yet to unlock a particular animal, they will be stuck with uncraftable furniture until that animal is unlocked.
 * A Memory has a specific unlock requirement. The basic ones simply require certain animals at a certain level to be present at the campsite, but unless the player has just newly joined, it will take a while to unlock those animals via level-up first before befriending them in order to invite them to the campsite and reach the required level. The special ones, meanwhile, not only require specific animals (same rule applies), but also certain event-only furniture that can only be obtained via the fortune cookie system (provided the event is still on-going).
 * Starting from the debut of Brewster's Sweet Harvest, all garden events offer additonal prizes (so far mere Palette Swaps of the regular prizes) that are not counted by the Catalog. If the player wants to get them, they have to complete the "hard tasks" (distinguishable with being color-coded red). But to even access those tasks to begin with, the player has to fully complete all four regular tasks first.
 * The overhauled Goals system turns many rewards into this, as obtaining a milestone reward from the non-Stretch Goals requires completing the required tasks first, which reward the player with item(s) upon completion as usual. If the rewards are located in a later part of a particular Goal chain, even if the player has completed the (yet to be seen) tasks to reach them, the player has to clear the current part of the chain first before proceeding to the next.
 * Since the introduction of Blathers's Treasure Trek, more prizes require this as it is possible for the given reward to be in the form of maps for said prizes, which require them to be played in this mini-game to claim the depicted prizes. This naturally requires certain items to progress through and clear them, like Bells for crafting material-related maps, friend powder for Bells, etc. The animal maps (except for Teddy's map which is given as starter animal map once this mini-game became accessible) are notable for being the only maps obtainable from Gulliver's service.
 * Early-Bird Cameo: The blossoming dress, which is worn by Isabelle during New Year's 2019 but the player can craft it themselves during the same period, is first seen on the Isabelle kite, a New Year furniture from the year before.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: As expected for a constantly-evolving online game. Since the first anniversary, there are notable differences compared to the game's early days.
 * Before the Gyroidite Scavenger Hunt, there were the normal crafting events, which require special crafting materials that can only be obtained from completing requests or clearing certain Goals. Also, until the Super Mario Crossover Event, there were no (non-special character) crafting event items that cost Leaf Tickets.
 * The very first gardening event is widely agreed to be the most frustrating gardening event. The flowers in this event (except for the most common one) could take four hours to grow, meaning the player could risk making them dry out if they do not check often, the only time the event flowers can suffer from this. Also, the spawn and catch rates were the most unforgiving among all gardening events.
 * There were no fortune cookies (thus, no Memories), so Leaf Ticket usage was highly limited (either for crafting certain event furniture, plain speeding up crafting, or expanding inventory/Market Boxes).
 * Early fishing tourneys set a low bar in completing and reaching the gold trophy, with the low 4,200 cm for the first tourney and the player could get every reward stamped until 6,050 cm. As more tourneys occurred, the size milestone became higher and higher, and later tourneys tend to include unique prizes post-gold trophy. The rate of getting double fish was also a bit higher in the early tourneys. Oh, and the music for when the player uses an event throw net was different compared to the later ones starting from the sixth fishing tourney.
 * The event reward system in general has changed a lot since the early days. Crafting events rewarding more furniture items or extra event materials instead of mere Bells and seasonal event materials, gardening events allowing trading for essences before these were cut in later gardening events, fishing tourneys rewarding more event nets instead of snacks or seasonal event materials (and the earliest ones even reward fish tanks for display)... the list goes on. In general, expect more "filler" rewards like Bells, snacks, or seasonal event materials in events nowadays.
 * Elegant Gothic Lolita: Lottie's Gothic Rose Festival, which rewards gothic-themed items. Also, the Palette Swap version from the White Gothic Rose Cookie set.
 * Everything's Better with Chocolate: Poppy's Cocoa Cookie's theme, of course.
 * Experience Meter: The player's level display also counts as this.
 * Fast Forward Mechanic:
 * Version 1.6.0 allows the player to speed through animal dialogue by holding down the touchscreen instead of tapping multiple times. The relationship level-up animation can also be skipped starting in this update, though this is done by simply tapping the screen.
 * Version 2.0.0 now allows the player to skip various in-game animations.
 * Fetch Quest: The main game mechanic outside of the usual crafting and decorating.
 * Five Second Foreshadowing: Rarely, the player will express one of the two emotions when they are about to eat a fortune cookie. A "glee" emotion will guarantee getting either bronze or silver fortune (or even rarely for the event cookies, gold), while a "surprise" emotion will guarantee getting either silver or gold fortune (the latter only applies to event cookies).
 * Furry Confusion:
 * The Purple Octopi from Splatoon 2 can be caught in a crossover fishing tourney. Despite its origin, it behaves like normal fish, including being edible (for Chip anyway). This in a game where the player can befriend Octavian, an octopus camper.
 * The birdcage is back and still features the same non-anthropomorphic songbird inside.
 * Other than Lloid (who is an NPC that hangs out at the garden), there are no proper Gyroid items the player can collect. Instead, scavenger hunt events have them collect Gyroidites, the small version of Gyroids that do not appear to be living unlike their regular brethren.
 * The player can display the cow skull at their campsite/cabin and none of the cows/bulls will bat an eye.
 * Game Breaking Bug:
 * While fishing at Lost Lure Creek, it is possible to get the attention of two fish at the same time, which causes the app to spontaneously close due to it not knowing what to do in such situation. Fixed in version 1.7.0.
 * Notably during the Bloomin' Booty with Kapp'n event, for some reason there is a random chance that visiting a garden (the player's or a friend's) will cause the game to softlock with the Player Character walking around in circles, necessitating a reset.
 * Another one acknowledged by Nintendo: Players with version 2.1 of the game may encounter frequent game crashes due to a bug.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: Gotta complete the catalog!
 * Guide Dang It:
 * The cross-pollinating feature is back and still requires more guides as usual.
 * How Gulliver works. Basically the player just dumps random furniture/clothing on him, up to 10, then pick a direction to send him off, wait 6 hours, then finally get the rewards. However, there is more to that if the player wants to get non-generic snacks, higher quality snacks, or even exclusive animals/maps. Direction influences the snack theme, each item has a hidden value that can influence the rewards system including a higher chance of getting a bonus reward, and said chance can also be boosted with another method by dumping all duplicates (no "solos") if the former method is not possible, but the game does not tell the player this.
 * A minor one, but requests involving clothing/furniture suggestion requires knowing the nature of the animal that will receive this as well as the item's theme category. Some can make it easy for the player by providing options with at least one item that fit the animal's theme (that Cute-type Apple would definitely love a Cute-type lovely bed...), some can be implied from even other hints such as their default clothing or preferred furniture seen in their character info (that Cool-type Agnes has some Cute stuff mixed in as seen from her dazed tee and preference towards three of the Lovely series items as wanted furniture, so a Cute-type fluffy dress would be a fine clothing suggestion...), and some can be correlated (Cute-type animals tend to also have preference for the also cutesy Hip-type items), but even with this basic knowledge (though the player can be forgiven for not knowing ALL items' themes; hundreds of items), the game can still throw the players off in some way (I didn't know that Harmonious-type Margie also loves Cute clothing!). Fortunately, this is only for Video Game Caring Potential.
 * Halloween Episode: October has Jack visiting, obviously. Events include Jack's Halloween-themed garden event, his special furniture, and Muffy's Creepy Cookie to complete the theme. The Spooky terrain set makes its debut in October 2018. That month's fishing event even follows suit, down to having Jack as the host instead of Chip. On the day of Halloween itself, players are gifted with the pumpkin head headwear.
 * An Interior Designer Is You: One of the main aspects of the game (and the series in general).
 * Item Crafting: For the first time in Animal Crossing, the player can craft items using crafting materials. This can only be done one at a time, though, unless the player opens additional crafting slots using Leaf Tickets (up to three in total).
 * Last Lousy Point: Inevitable, considering how this game runs on time-based events.
 * First off, the non-Special Catalog list. The Market Place-only items appear randomly, so expect waiting for a while until that one furniture/clothing item shows up before feeling satisfied. Also, the rarer fish and bugs will take some time before they appear and the player can attempt to catch them. In the case of fish, since it depends on silhouettes, the player will not even know what they will reel in until the fish pops out.
 * Secondly, the items only available in Timmy's and Tommy's fortune cookies. Expect to open hundreds of cookies until the struggling player gets them all. Granted this is only better than...
 * The event-only items, categorized under Special. Woe betide the player if they are not a "whale":
 * Special mention goes to the event fortune cookies. Buying them without Leaf Tickets/real money is not easy, as they have very low appearance rate at the Fortune Cookie Shop. And when the player finally gets to open them, due to the nature of fortune cookies, expect to get duplicates of 3-star items, or if they are lucky, a few 4-star items. The spotlight furniture? Do not even bother unless the player is willing to empty their bank account trying their luck in getting the coveted "gold" fortune that nets them this. The worst offender so far is the Splatoon 2 cookies, which feature 2 spotlight furniture!
 * The Fishing Tourneys also suffer from this, starting from the debut of the third tourney, where there is at least one prize that is not present pre-gold trophy . Prizes given every milestone are randomly selected, but thankfully no duplicates will be given until the player gets one of each in a given total size range. However, considering there are many other items pre-gold trophy the player has to go through, this trope is still in full effect. Want the sunken treasure chest? Want to take the tourney banners as souvenir? Want to steal Chip's look? Want Splatoon 2's Super Sea Snail? Nine times out of ten, the player can expect getting these last.
 * There are certain animals that do not appear on the overworld upon leveling up, requiring the player to use Gulliver's service. Due to its mechanics, it is possible to spend weeks or months trying to recruit these exclusive characters, even if the player manages to consistently trigger the bonus rewards every time the bird comes back, as it is possible that the bonus is just extra snacks instead.
 * Loading Screen: At least for the ones that are shown every time the player moves between recreation areas, these are peppered with either in-game tips or random quotes/thoughts from an animal depicted on the screen.
 * Version 1.6.0 now features random tips/quotes on the loading screen which the player can switch between by swiping to the left or right.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: The player can befriend more than 100 animals in this game. Then there are also the special NPCs to add to the count.
 * Lost in Translation: The common crafting material names. In Japanese, these are named in onomatopoeias to describe the material's common characteristics, which localizations, unable to retain the same format and meaning as Japanese does, end up translating them into the closest material to describe them (so ふわふわのもと (fuwafuwa no moto, fluffy) became cotton). This becomes a problem when a non-event item calls for seemingly unexpected material(s) in order for it to be crafted, like the black rain boots requiring papers, which does not make sense in English, but does in Japanese, since the material's name describes something that flows/flaps (in the wind) (ペラペラのもと, perapera no moto) which can be anything from paper itself to leather.
 * Luck-Based Mission: Basically almost every aspect of this game is luck-based, but the most notable are as follows.
 * Fortune cookies are the bane of every completionist. It is basically this game's gacha system that grants exclusive furniture. Worst offender is the event ones, which are only available for a certain time period. If the player would rather buy cookies using Bells, the event cookies have a very low chance of appearing at the Fortune Cookie Shop. As per rule regarding systems like this, drop rates can be seen by the player before they confirm a purchase just so this mechanic is possible to be implemented to begin with, but it still does not matter when the Random Number God refuses to reward the 5-star, Memory-unlocking spotlight furniture.
 * Gardening events are also notorious for being an "RNG stack", as a player's progress in this event type depends on how many rare creatures will spawn upon the seasonal flowers' bloom, how successful the captures are, and how many other players are willing to share the captures with said player.
 * Getting the bonus rewards from Gulliver upon his return. Even if the player knows what to do to consistently trigger it, getting what they want is still this, especially if they only want the exclusive animals/maps.
 * Blathers's Treasure Trek and its die roll mechanic, of course. There is no way to work around this, as much like the fortune cookies, a roll's result is predetermined by the game and the auto-save is triggered upon rolling, so the result will always be the same even if the player chose to close and reopen the game.
 * Microtransactions: Like many free-to-play games, this game has a premium currency shop where the player can buy Leaf Tickets with real money.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: Justified for the rare creatures as they are either attracted to flowers that are implied to originate from different regions (bugs) or are possibly placed by Chip himself for the player to fish out (Wild Mass Guessing for the fish). Despite this, most of the creatures... are much less than realistic compared to the normally realistic catches (cube bumblebees? Candy fish?) found in the Animal Crossing games.
 * Mythology Gag:
 * One of the rare furniture items obtainable from Timmy's fortune cookie is the board game, which is designed after the main gameplay mode in Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival.
 * Other rare furniture items from the twins' fortune cookies include the metal flagpoles (seen in front of the New Leaf ' s town hall), the model bus (City Folk), Nook's Homes model (as it appears in Happy Home Designer), and the sapling clock (based on New Leaf's town tree).
 * The vineyard phonograph plays K.K. Chorale, a song that has appeared in every main Animal Crossing game.
 * All traveler animals (not the Blathers's Treasure Trek map-only ones) obtainable only via Gulliver's service first originated as islanders in the original Animal Crossing game.
 * Nerf:
 * Starting from Fishing Tourney #4, regular fishing rods have reduced chance of capturing two fish at the same time. It later gets a further nerf in the fifth tourney.
 * It appears that starting from the debut of Brewster's Sweet Harvest, rare creatures' spawn rates (particularly the less common types) have been lowered. This is on top of the increased amount of captures to complete all the tasks. On the bright side, their catch rates have been increased and the event lasts much longer than previous gardening events. This is presumably done to encourage more rare creature sharing between friends.
 * No Antagonist: As usual for an Animal Crossing game, there is no antagonist to speak of.
 * Not Completely Useless:
 * Version 1.4.0 made the "super rare" items (ex. koi, miyama stag, football fish) this, previously being pure Vendor Trash worth a lot of Bells prior to said update. One of the new types of animal request involves the animal asking for either any fish or any bug, and the player can give them said "super rare" item for a chance of obtaining snacks and even fortune cookies.
 * Version 2.1.0, at least for players who managed to accumulate a lot of resources that have become uncommonly/rarely used, made the Bells avert Money for Nothing and certain crafting materials this thanks to Blathers's Treasure Trek, which require the use of these to play. This also makes claiming Bells using MyNintendo points more favorable this time.
 * Palette Swap: Item recolors are nothing new in the series, but notable examples are:
 * The "hard task" gardening event rewards. Pretty much Bragging Rights Rewards, as they do not have Catalog entries unlike their normal varieties.
 * The Google collaboration items (Android-only) have the red-and-yellow variety exclusive to the iOS version. Like the above, both varieties have no Catalog entries.
 * Starting with the introduction of Isabelle's Cafe Cookie, some fortune cookie sets are just outright reskins/recolors of existing sets.
 * For fish examples, Fishing Tourney #4 features a different variety of Fishing Tourney #1's fish, making them appear to be like this. Meanwhile, Fishing Tourney #8 features gold recolors of some of the Saltwater Shores' fish.
 * Play Every Day: Three Daily Goals show up every day and players can claim daily rewards by logging in into the game every new day.
 * Point and Click Map: How the player can navigate between recreation areas in this game.
 * Random Drop: Basically, the entire rewards system (except for ones tied to certain milestones or events) is this.
 * Random Event: Occasionally, finishing an animal's request has a random chance of showing an event related to the given item(s), like making barbecue (fruits, fish) or having said animal show off their collection (bugs, shells). This will result in a bonus crafting item (varies by animal) rewarded. Among all basic requests (not the ones denoted with a "..." in an animal's thought bubble), only the flower-related requests will always show an event.
 * Rare Random Drop:
 * Sparkle stones have a very, very low chance of being rewarded from certain animal requests. Said animal has to be level 10+ and an invisible variable has to reach a certain amount for this drop to even be possible.
 * Gulliver's travelers have 30% chance of appearing as a bonus reward from item trading with him. Considering that most other rewards consist of bonus snacks (and that is assuming the bonus is triggered, which can be either around 50% or >98% depending on the item(s) given) and the player has to wait for 6 hours after trading for the result, it is not unheard of players spending days or even weeks trading cheap items just to meet all available travelers. Starting with the introduction of Blathers's Treasure Trek, animal maps other than Teddy's are also part of Gulliver's bonus reward.
 * As the fortune cookies mechanic is basically this game's take on gacha/lootbox, naturally some of the rare items obtained from the cookies end up being this.
 * Relationship Values: This game's level-up system depends on this, filling up by leveling up an animal's friendship level. Animals will gain friendship points if the player finishes their request, chats with them, changes their outfit if they ask to, finds their lost item (campsite guests only), or builds an amenity. Reaching certain friendship levels will allow inviting the animal to the campsite, changing their clothes, new requests from that animal, obtaining that animal's clothing, or even obtaining new furniture that cannot be obtained elsewhere.
 * Save Game Limits: One per player. Also per install, unless the player links the save with a MyNintendo account. Also, the player cannot play the game with same profile on another device of the same platform (iOS/Android crossplay is fine and still keeps the same progress) unless the player uninstalled the game in the older device.
 * Save Scumming: Believe it or not, there is, but only concerning catching bug/fish after a save. To put it simply, if the player fails to catch a bug/fish (rare creatures from the gardening events do not count), as long as the next auto-save is not triggered, the player can close and reopen the game to have another try.
 * Shout-Out:
 * One of the gardening events is Zipper's Wonderland Event.
 * The Nintendo Switch and the game-exhibit monitor furniture can depict either Filbert wielding a shovel on a mountainous region (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild), Lloid with an outstretched spring arm (ARMS), Isabelle as Mario throwing Cappy (Super Mario Odyssey), or Rosie equipped with a Splattershot (Splatoon 2).
 * One of the rare furniture items obtainable from Tommy's fortune cookie is the Isabelle Scooter.
 * Android users can get a rainbow pinwheel from a Flower Festival event. Its appearance invokes the Google Photos app icon.
 * Not to mention, the two rainbow items (pinwheel and bike) are based on the real thing.
 * Bunnie's fortune cookie items are themed after the tale of the Little Red Riding Hood.
 * Among the premium items offerred during the sixth Gyroidite Scavenger Hunt (which is the Holiday Mode version in December) include the reindeer hat and the red nose, allowing the player to dress up as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
 * Socialization Bonus: Having friends in a player's list allows them to request Shovelstrike Quarry help without Leaf Tickets (though this can only be done once per day). Another benefit is that the player can view a friend's Market Box at any time without having to wait for them to appear in a random recreation area. With the introduction of player-exclusive local produce in version 2.1.0, this makes collecting all fruits much easier.
 * Having a lot of friends also eases speeding up the Kudos Goals event completion due to a large amount of kudos needed to complete some of the goals and, as mentioned in the Anti-Frustration Features above, how easy it is to give mass kudos without having to interact with other players' avatars first, which necessitates waiting between cycles.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": In the English version, one of the picture items is labeled "pic of Sprinkles"/"Sprinkles's pic". The animal's name in that language is Sprinkle.
 * Technology Marches On: Like in New Leaf, this is invoked with the historical theme, specifically on items that were relevant at the time of the previous Animal Crossing games' release. TV with VCR, anyone?
 * Theme Tune Cameo: This game's title tune can be heard in a few situations.
 * As this game lacks the equivalent to the "town tune", animals can be heard humming/whistling the game's theme instead.
 * The first anniversary music box plays its own rendition of the title screen music.
 * Throw the Dog a Bone:
 * After long-time frustrations regarding fortune cookie problems, it appears that Nintendo tries to alleviate it a bit by making certain event fortune cookies free rewards in certain events, starting from the Summertime Bug Catching event.
 * One for players who want K.K. Slider at their campsite but either refuse to pay using Leaf Tickets or had run out of time for his special furniture: K.K. Slider's prize guitar. As long as the player logs in during the event that gives out this item, the player can have K.K. himself liven up the campsite at no cost.
 * Timed Mission: Basically every request and goal the player can do (except Stretch Goals). Animals that do not stay at the campsite will only be available for three hours before being switched out with another, while Timed Goals (including event-based ones) have their own set time limit. If the player is a completionist, then trying their best to buy/obtain all event-only items before the event duration runs out also counts.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: The themed snacks correspond to an animal's preferred theme, so natural animals prefer waffles, hip animals prefer lollipops, cute animals prefer donuts, etc. Giving an animal a matching snack will increase friendship points by nearly or the same as giving them a generic-themed snack.
 * Valentine's Day Episodes:
 * For 2018, all players logged in that time are rewarded with the Valentine chocolate furniture item.
 * For 2019:
 * One of the events is called My Sweetest Friend, in which players are given a best-friend confection each, which is only available for a limited period of time before disappearing on its own regardless if it is given or not. As its name suggests, a player can give the event item to a guest animal in the campsite or cabin. In return, the animal will give the player a present not listed in the Catalog which can be interacted with if placed as decoration to read the letter inside. It also gives a massive friendship boost to that animal.
 * As this holiday is sweets-themed, the seasonal event is called Candy Cluster Muster.
 * The garden event and Gyroidite Scavenger Hunt also go with the Valentine theme.
 * Premium clothing items which are part of the Valentine's Collection are also offered.
 * Vendor Trash: The cheaper items from the standard fortune cookies. A few of these are mere recolors of Market Place items and considering how common they are due to the nature of fortune cookies, they can fill up a player's inventory quickly. These are best dumped on Gulliver for some free snacks.
 * Video Game Caring Potential: The player can choose to give the "correct" clothing/furniture item to an animal (or his/her friend) whose request involves suggesting what to wear or what furniture to give. It is a minor Guide Dang It in determining which, but seeing the animal's happy response if the player succeeded in doing so can give the player a feeling of satisfaction.
 * Virtual Paper Doll: As per usual for an Animal Crossing game, the player character can be customized with various clothing items. Guest animals' clothing can also be customized, though not every clothing item can be worn by them.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: Males can wear dresses, females can wear pants and shorts.
 * You Make Me Sic: In the 2.0.0 update, the Visitors list will also display messages of which player bought which item from the Market Box. Somehow, buying more than one peach renders its plural form "peachs".
 * The same happens to the grapes once they are added to the game, as they already come in a plural form to begin with. In this case, they end up as "grapess".