Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp: Difference between revisions

{{work}}

[[File:Animal crossing pocket camp.png|''Animal Crossing''... in your pocket!|thumb]]

'''''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).

 

* [[100% Completion]]: The Happy Homeroom mini-game runs on the medal rating. The player has to obtain an outstanding score to get all three medals of a level. Consider that medals collected are tied to the player's interior designer rank (which includes rewards for ranking up), so [[100% Completion]] pretty much equals getting the highest possible rank and claiming all the rank-up rewards.

* [[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. Also, if at least one animal happens to request an uncommon fish/bug (black bass, horned dynastid, red snapper), said creature will be more likely to spawn as long as the request is not cleared.

** 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 only making them necessary for Happy Homeroom's event classes. 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.

* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: The sarong and swimsuit from the Beachwear Collection expose the most skin compared to typical clothing items in the ''Animal Crossing'' games. The mermaid dress from Francine's cookie and the colorful palace dress from Julia's cookie also expose the midriff.

* [[Beach Episode]]: Roald's Memory. Also, July 2019's aesthetic.

* [[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]]. Many of the items are subverted, though, since the addition of Happy Homeroom, which pretty much makes use of those to get the highest amount of Medals (required to rank up and claim prizes) possible.

** Clothing items, meanwhile, veer into this if they cannot be worn by animals (wigs/masks, bottoms, socks, shoes, full-body). If the player does not like certain clothing items or has a duplicate of the animal-incompatible ones, other than mere display, the player might as well just sell them or give them to Gulliver. It appears that the Sanrio event classes introduce the clothing items as recommended decor just to avoid this.

* [[Cap]]:

** Up to 40 furniture items can be displayed at a player's campsite.

** As of version 2.4.0, up to 4,000 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.

** Up to 2,000 gift items can be kept in the player's Message box.

** [[Subverted Trope|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...

** 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. With the August 20, 2019 update introducing the proper octopus, this has become even more so, especially with Marina, another octopus camper, around.

** 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. There is even a tie-in "gifts for all" type of event that gives away the chaos tee and the order tee (though the player is also given the option to craft extras) to celebrate that game's Final Fest.

** 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.

** 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. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|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. Gets even more stranger once Blathers's Treasure Trek is introduced, as maps have become common rewards since then, requiring extra effort just to get Bells, crafting materials, animals, and even Leaf Tickets.

* [[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.

* [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]: June 2019's aesthetic.

* [[Four-Leaf Clover]]: Spring events tend to go with the "shamrock" theme which features this in some way. In fact, March 2019's seasonal event is called Shamrock Shimmy, which involves collecting kaleidoclovers.

* [[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 August 20, 2019 update introduced the regular octopus as one of the common fish, so expect characters like Octavian and Marina request one or even cook one.

** For some reason, version 2.5.0 made it possible for players to place more than 10 apples/pears of all things in one Market Box slot (up to 100). This would not seem troublesome except for the fact that players will not be able to see the excessive apples/pears, thus unable to buy them anyway. Thankfully, the seller can just return the excessive apples/pears back to the inventory anyway thanks to the same update's overhaul to the Market Box system. Update 2.5.2 also fixed this.

** One discovered from version 2.5.1's update news (which resolves it): Players somehow ended up unable to log in to their Nintendo Account from the Settings. Keep in mind that linking accounts are required to keep a backup cloud save.

* [[Gotta Catch Them All]]: Gotta complete the catalog!

* [[Guide Dang It]]:

** The cross-pollinating feature is back and still requires more guides as usual.

** 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.

** However, since version 2.3.0, which only shows up to three randomly-selected screens, the event screens (complete with how much time they have left until they are over, serving as reminder) dominate more often compared to the random flavor text.

* [[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 April 2019 Collection event involves backpacks and said month's Fishing Tourney is inexplicably themed after the schoolroom. There is also a Spring Break series of events which reissue past fortune cookies for about a week at the end of the month, as well as introduce reissued special furniture. While non-Japan players might see those backpacks as a way to promote the brand new back accessories outside of event fortune cookies and can imply the "school" pun from the tourney, those some players are rendered confused at the use of Spring Break term here, as it usually occurs on March. Of course, this makes more sense in Japan, as the school-themed event items were introduced in April because Japan's school year starts out in that month, and the "Spring Break" here actually refers to the Golden Week which occurs on the week of April 29.

* [[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 and clothing items. 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, (mostly) Memory-unlocking spotlight furniture. And woe betide the player who wants to 3-medal their tie-in Happy Homeroom classes without spending any money...

** 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.

** 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.

** Any Chip Challenge that requires the player to fish out a certain number of event fish with a certain size or above, since fish size is random. It finally culminated in Fishing Tourney Monochromatic Cat, which became infamous for its sea bass collecting Challenge requiring a minimum size of 105 cm, which is large for its type, as its size average is around 90s and it is possible to fish out "smaller" ones worth 80s. While this should not be bad on its own if it is only very few required, the sea bass is (ironically) the rarest fish in this tourney and the player is required to fish ''30'' of them. Even [[Bribing Your Way to Victory|golden rod]] users are stumped on this Challenge. Remember, Fishing Tourneys are [[Timed Mission]]s.

** Other rare furniture items from the twins' fortune cookies include the metal flagpoles (seen in front of the ''New Leaf''<nowiki>'</nowiki>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.

** From the Sanrio side of things, two of the Sanrio Characters Goals involve collecting 3 and 5 apples. This is a nod to Hello Kitty's weight being 3 apples and height being a stack of 5 apples according to her character bio.

* [[Nerf]]:

** 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.

** Zigzagged with the 2.4.0 update applied to Shovelstrike Quarry. On one hand, items offered in the Quarry end up lasting for 12 hours instead of 3 as in the previous versions, making the wait for certain materials a player wants drag unnecessarily longer than it should be. But on the other hand, the Quarry's rewards have received a buff in the amount given away upon completion and the notoriously rare sparkle stones have been included there as another one of the obtainable materials that can potentially show up.

** A July 2019 update adjusts the Rarity ratings applied to items. As a result, some of the affected may end up getting this, and it is not just in ratings either. Nerfed items have lower selling price, less Happy Homeroom points, and lowered cargo quality.

* [[No Antagonist]]: As usual for an ''Animal Crossing'' game, there is no antagonist to speak of.

* [[Not Completely Useless]]:

** 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.

* [[Play Every Day]]: Daily Goals show up every day and players can claim daily rewards by logging in into the game every new day.

** Starting with the introduction of Sanrio Characters Goals, this has become a Goal objective. Some require simply booting the game every new day, but some require logging into the game every day in a row.

* [[Point and Click Map]]: How the player can navigate between recreation areas in this game.

* [[The Quincy Punk]]: Rock-Star Collection's aesthetic. It has the stereotypical clothing/accessory items related to this, from the mohawk hairstyle to biker jackets.

* [[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.

* [[Random Number God]]: Pretty much applies to almost everything in this game.

* [[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.

** 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 except for purchased Leaf Tickets) unless the player uninstalled the game in the older device or used MyNintendo's cloud saving feature.

* [[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.

* [[Slouch of Villainy]]: Animals that sit on the wicked throne furniture invoke this.

* [[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 becomes a necessity for collecting all fruits.

** Lobo the wolf's event cookie is inexplicably titled "Solo Table". Yep, his fondest Memory is being a (literal) lone wolf in a café.

** Apollo's event cookie is cinema-/theater-themed. While it might be kind of a stretch (the following reference is a music venue, not a cinema) and is more on wordplay, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Theater Apollo Theater is a thing.]

* [[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?

* [[Throw the Dog a Bone]]:

** After long-time frustrations regarding [[Luck-Based Mission|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.

*** 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.

* [[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.

[[Category:Mobile Phone Game]]

[[Category:Video Game]]