Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

It feels like there's been no discussion about this.



For those not in the know, it's a spin-off of the Undisputed Best 3DS Game Of All Time ©, and it's meant to be fairly decent by it's own merits. The reviews haven't been too shabby for this, with Eurogamer, IGN, GamesRadar and Nintendo Life reacting positively in their respective reviews.

Nintendo look to have thrown a decent amount of money marketing it as well, and there's a few Happy Home Designer special edition 3DS console bundles on the way too. I know they did that for Yoshi's New Island as well, but still...



There's new collector’s trading cards with amiibo functionality coming out with the game as well, which should ensure that Happy Home Designer does brisk business.

It's innovation within a key franchise - which I always like - so I'm quite interested in this. Am I the only one?

I'm not the biggest Animal Crossing fan, but what I loved about Animal Crossing wasn't really the design aspect, but more the collection side of the game - finding all the bugs and fossils. This doesn't look like it'd be for me, but I reckon it'll do well off the Animal Crossing name alone.

It's not one that I have been paying much attention to, to be honest. I've had and loved my time with Animal Crossing but it sounds like something that's not for me.

Does anyone even need me to say what I think of this?

I don't know what to think of this.. I did say that I might get it if bored enough at work but I highly doubt it.

I'm warming a lot more to it as release closes in, collecting all the cards is going to be a ballache but apparently that isn't actually a necessity after all. The latest trailers have shown it to be more in depth than first thought as well, could be the perfect handheld game once again.

There's a reason that I haven't talked about this. Jay highlights what I enjoyed about the Animal Crossing games, both of which wore me out in the end; and I still take a fairly nose-upturned attitude to F2P in general.

There's real potential for a good Animal Crossing spin-off game. It's fair to say that neither of Nintendo's two goes thus far fits the bill.

It's not free to play, they're expecting £30 straight off the bat

Fair point. Even more reason for me to be snooty about them trying to flog cards for it as well.

I've said before this is based of the design books in Japan, and what I've seen with some reviews the design aspect is quite rubbish. A character will ask for a bug based room, you only need to put one thing in there and you can complete the room and thats it also everything is unlimited.

So forget the cards but there seems to be no actual point to the game, yes you can spend ages designing a house but in the end it doesn't matter.

I've started to like the normal AC games less and less with each one I've played (still played new leaf for about 70 hours) & even though I don't know much about this one I reckon it's not for me.

masofdas wrote:

So forget the cards but there seems to be no actual point to the game, yes you can spend ages designing a house but in the end it doesn't matter.

This is every single video game made to be fair. A bit philosophical there.

~

Seems that everyone but treesmurf and I has a shite taste in games.

*Runs*

Not really as if I'm playing Mario the point is till finish the level, defeat bowser and save peach.

I would no issue with HHD like some as for what's it doing but if I design a house putting in one random thing which could have nothing to do with the theme the animal wants = completed house.

I would want it to be more robust as the core AC games have those animals that come rank your house, surely they should be in HDD and if I only put a random item in I get 0 points but if I make it look great with stuff that animal wanted I should get 1000 points for instance.

What I'm saying really is I should be rewarded if I put the effort in to design a house.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Seems that everyone but treesmurf and I has a shite taste in games.

*Runs*

It really does taste like the Hulk trying to thread a bit of wool through a needle!

I'm sure the apathy towards the game can partly be blamed on the fact that Nintendo has a significantly less than stellar line-up of games for the run-up to Christmas.

We all want our petty rewards for when we complete petty goals that don't matter in the long term.  

In one month, who'll care (including you) that you designed the lowest common denominator house for Mohammed the German zebra?
In six, who'll care that you beat Ganon in the latest Zelda?
In five years, who'll care that you designed a new marketing system, that has since been superseded?
In twenty, who'll care that you wrote a pop song?
In two hundred, who'll care that you wrote a symphony?
In twelve hundred, who'll care that you wrote a good symphony?
In twelve thousand, who'll care that you, or anyone else of your generation, was alive at all?

Anyway, the (very distorted) point is that everyone has a different view on what a "rewarding task" amounts to (and of course it depends on what the petty rewards are).  From what I've seen about AC:HHD, the tasks on offer won't count as rewarding to many of us here.

Has there ever been a point to Animal Crossing games though?

Like Jay, for me it was generally filling up the museum. But I agree: that's always been one of my reservations about the series. I like having a task to accomplish in games.

Have I suggested my idea for a Telltale-developed Animal Crossing spin-off before? Because I think that could be fun.

Well nobody would think it'd work with Minecraft but that's shaping up nicely so why not. They need to tap in to the sheer number of characters in the game for me, a cutesy RPG perhaps?

Can't say I've ever seen a point in Minecraft either honestly.

masofdas wrote:

I've said before this is based of the design books in Japan, and what I've seen with some reviews the design aspect is quite rubbish. A character will ask for a bug based room, you only need to put one thing in there and you can complete the room and thats it also everything is unlimited.

So forget the cards but there seems to be no actual point to the game, yes you can spend ages designing a house but in the end it doesn't matter.

But if you were required to design the houses in a very exact and particular way, that would detract from the creative license and fun of designing/being given free reign. This way avoids limiting the player which seems like a good thing for a game based around player creativity.

I think the game looks quite fun, but I won't be getting it because a) I've no vested interest in AC, having never played any of the games, and b) amiibo cards no thanks.

Athrun: There is an actual end goal in Minecraft though: get through to the Ender Realm thingy and defeat the Ender Dragon.  That's more of a goal than AC has.

Oh, so it's an actual game? My bad, I got the impression it was just usermade stuff with no real aim or ultimate goal.

@OR I'm not saying exact and in a particular way, but if Bob asks for a room around Space and I put a Mushroom sofa in the middle of the room and then go finished, that some how is a completed room then I move on to the next.

But if I got a rank or something out of it, so putting a mushroom is 1 star but a rocket and a mobile of all the planets could get me 3 stars which then could be used to unlock more content.

masofdas wrote:

@OR I'm not saying exact and in a particular way, but if Bob asks for a room around Space and I put a Mushroom sofa in the middle of the room and then go finished, that some how is a completed room then I move on to the next.

But if I got a rank or something out of it, so putting a mushroom is 1 star but a rocket and a mobile of all the planets could get me 3 stars which then could be used to unlock more content.  

I think that's just simply a difference in how you play games and probably just means this kind isn't your cup of tea. I'd happily spend ages making something how I want it to look just because I want to, not because the game has directed me to do so. Dark Chronicle's town building springs to mind - it had objectives, like person x wanting to live in house y next to z, but even with all those objectives met I'd continue to build and rebuild the town into whatever vision I had in mind.

I'm pretty sure this game does let people rank you online though, at least. So it's not a set objective, but a better looking design will get more people rating it online than one just matching the basic objective.

My mum's got this; she loves her some Animal Crossing. I still don't completely know what's going on myself; all I know is:

a) she's loving this game, and

b) I got to nick the Kapp'n Amiibo card and use it in Mario Maker. Weirdness.