November 4, 2020 1 of 8
That “1 of 8” is kind of a joke today. It’s 10:58 pm. If I can write seven more posts today, I’ll be very surprised. Particularly since I’m pretty close to dead tired and I have an early shift tomorrow.
In December, I may go back through and straighten out the numbers, making them “1 of 3” or “1 of 1” or “1 of 20” (as if!).
Anyway, I play three phone games, primarily.* Pokemon Go, Harry Potter Wizards Unite, and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. I know I’ve written about Pokemon Go, I think I’ve written about Wizards Unite. Have I written about Animal Crossing Pocket Camp? I don’t know. So that’s what I’m going to do now.
As I’m writing this, I realize that gameplay is actually fairly complicated. I may have to write this a just a basic outline and then go into each item in more detail in other posts (but not tonight; It’s 11:27 now and I’m pooped).
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is, just like it says on the tin, one of the Animal Crossing family of games. In this one, though, the player is managing a campsite for animal villagers to visit. There are four animal villagers at other places in the camp, and you have to bring them items from other (or occasionally their own) part of the camp.
So, the lower right-hand corner is the saltwater beach. You can collect saltwater fish, shells, and coconuts there. Then, progressing counterclockwise, there’s a forest with fruit trees, a freshwater river, with more fruit trees and freshwater fish, and a tropical island with bugs and coconuts.
You trade with the villagers kind of like this. The villager on the bug island wants an apple, and you have one in your bag, so you give them the apple. In exchange they give you things – in-game currency, raw materials for manufacturing things, etc.
Then you take the raw materials to make clothing, furniture, amenities, and so forth.
There are smaller things, like a booth where you can buy fortune cookies that contain more clothing, furniture, and so forth. There’s a boat that you can send to smaller islands to trade for raw materials, clothing, and sometimes the boat will bring back a map that leads you to new villagers. There’s a marketplace where several vendors switch out from time to time. You also have your own campsite and a cabin.
Then, while you’re doing all this, there’s a monthly rotation of events — a gardening event, a fishing event, and a scavenger hunt. Each of these also brings you clothing, furniture, decorations, etc.
Everything cycles around. Every three hours, the villagers leave or arrive at the campground and all have new requests. Alongside this, every three hours the event flowers mature, or the fish come back. The scavenger hunt refreshes more like hourly.
Then, the first week of the month is the gardening event, then there’s a small event for a couple of days, then the fishing event, then another small event, then the scavenger hunt. Then the next month it starts all over again.
Relaxing? Maddening? You decide.
You may be wondering what the point is. I haven’t figured that out myself. You accumulate more furniture, clothing, amenities, and so on. You gradually build more bonds with the villagers. Occasionally they have special events where you can use leaf tickets (the premium in-game currency) to buy limited-time items. They recently had an event where you could buy yukata and interior design items designed by Japanese designer Sou Sou.
Gratuitous Amazon Link time (and then bed!). Today is The Strangers, the first book in the Greystone Secrets books by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Chess, Emma, and Finn, kids of a single mom, are living a happy life until three kids with their first and middle names and birthdates disappear. Then their mom takes off, and leaves them with a woman who protects abused women and children. But the kids don’t take their mom leaving lying down. They’re determined to find out what happened to their mom. The Greystone Secrets series is supposed to be a trilogy. I hope the rest of the books are as good as this one was.
