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Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Guide: A Complete Look at the Quarry and Market Box

We’re back with yet another guide for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and should you be surprised why we’re still covering the game after a few weeks? If you are, then allow us to jog your memory on what this game is about. This is a new campsite management game with a casual, social twist, with the latter covering both the in-game animals you interact with, as well as other human players from around the world. And it’s also available for iOS and Android devices courtesy of Nintendo, as this marks their latest attempt at a mobile mega-hit. We’d like to think that it’s been a case of “so far, so good,” as the game appears to have a large following regardless of the platform it was released in.

Now there are two features in this game that we’d like to home in on for this Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp strategy guide — Shovelstrike Quarry and the Market Box. These features are driven by the social elements of the game that involve some form of human interaction, and we thought that it would be a good idea to discuss them both in greater depth, and explain why they may be important to Pocket Camp players. With that said, read on if you’re in need of more information on these features!

Shovelstrike Quarry

Overview

One thing you’ve probably heard about Shovelstrike Quarry is the fact that you need 20 Leaf Tickets to get in. But what do you do there, and what can you expect? To put it simply, this is a spot near the camp that promises big rewards if you’re able to successfully mine ore in the location. We’ve heard different types of feedback regarding the quality of the rewards, though we’d like to warn you as early as now that the rewards have been described as unsatisfying, in relation to the 20 Leaf Ticket price of admission. We’ve heard stories of players getting about a thousand units of common currency (regular coins) and just a couple units of Essence, and if you compare that to 20 Leaf Tickets, we’re sure you can agree that the Quarry may not be a good idea if you’re not feeling lucky.

Is There A Place Where You Can Expect Better Rewards?

Given what we’ve heard so far about the Quarry, you might be wondering if there’s a place in there where you can expect better rewards to come along. Fortunately, there might be, as there are five specific stones in the Quarry which you can mine, with most accounts suggesting higher-quality rewards than the ones we just mentioned as an example. Then again, there’s no rock-solid guarantee that mining these stones will yield better rewards — a lot of your success will solely be based on luck!

All told, we’d suggest you save those 20 Leaf Tickets on something else, assuming you haven’t connected Pocket Camp to Facebook and added some friends. You’re better off spending your premium currency on a sure thing, rather than rolling the dice and potentially not getting a good return on your “investment.” But what if you have friends who play the game?

The Social Element In Relation To The Quarry

Assuming you’ve connected your game to Facebook and added some of your friends (or complete strangers who happen to play the game) to your friends list, there is a way to access Shovelstrike Quarry for free. Simply send a request to any one of your friends so you can access the Quarry without paying; once this request is granted, you can go mining free of charge, allowing you to earn more resources without the element of gambling coming into play. That should be good incentive for you to add some friends to the game, though you should also be a good online buddy by granting their requests when it’s their turn to visit the Quarry.

Pro-tip: You may have read this in another one of our guides, but assuming you haven’t, here’s one way you can improve your chances of having your friends notice your Quarry requests. Just take the initiative to visit their campsites the moment after you’ve sent your request, then give them some Kudos. Doing this immediately notifies your friends, as simply sending a Quarry request won’t show up on their notifications. Chances are they’ll pick up their phone upon seeing the notification, and log into the game to grant your request.

The Market Box

Overview

The Market Box is the second social feature we shall be discussing in this guide, and it’s another primary source of interaction between human players. Again, this is assuming you’ve connected your game to Facebook — the Market Box will allow you to sell surplus items to other human players, while allowing you to shop around and buy their items if you’re in need of certain crafting materials. So how do you use this tool, and how can you make the most out of it?

How To List Items

First of all, let’s look at how you can list items for sale in your Market Box. The primary way to do this would be to tap on the hamburger menu (the one in the upper right corner of your screen), then tap on the box icon you see on the left side. That’s going to instantly pull up your Market Box, and give you an overview of the items that are currently listed for sale. Tap on an empty box, or tap on a full box and remove its existing content; either way, the next step would be to choose the quantity and the price of the item you want listed on sale. That’s all there is to listing items. As for collecting money from items sold, just tap on any boxes you see with players’ avatars or portraits in them.

Putting Goods Up For Sale

The Market Box will also allow you to take goods from your Items menu, then sell them to other players. In order to do this, choose List for Sale while viewing your Collected Items section. You will then be taken to the menu where you can request for quantity and price, though you won’t be able to sell all of the items that are currently in your inventory. You will only be restricted to bugs, shells, fish, and other collected items, but you will not be able to sell furniture, clothing, or raw crafting materials; the first two items can be sold at the game’s Market Place.

Another thing to remember when selling goods is that you have to set your prices high — that’s no less than double the direct selling (or “buy it now”) price. So if you’re trying to sell an item for 15 Bells, you’ll need to list that item for 30 Bells or more so you can list it via the Market Box.

Buying Items From Other Players

There’s more than one way to buy an item from another human Pocket Camp player. The first way would be to meet that player at any one of your islands; you’ll do this by picking any one of the players that appear randomly with animal campers in three-hour intervals. Speak to that player so you can see their Market Box, and begin shopping for items to buy.

If you want to get even more social, the game allows you to access your friends’ Market Boxes at any time, and not just when they’re randomly popping up in your islands. Opening the hamburger menu and choosing the Friends icon (on the right side of the Market Box button) will allow you to view your friends list. Once there, you’ll see the first four items in their Market Box after tapping on their name. Choosing Visit Friend underneath that box will bring you straight to their campsite, and allow you to buy items from their Market Box.

As a bonus tip, you can also buy items from players who have sent you Kudos, even if you have yet to befriend them in-game. Just go to the Kudos Form menu on the right side of the Friends tab, and you can transact your business from there.

What Are The Best Market Box Items To Sell?

The answer to this question may vary from player to player, but the best way to go about this would be to put up batches of common items and sell them at low prices. Although you can use the Market Box as a way to earn Bells, Pocket Camp offers several other ways of earning Bells that are more lucrative; think of this feature as a way for you to leverage the social mechanics and help your friends, rather than a way to earn a big profit.

We should also warn you that you should be absolutely sure of the items you list for sale in the Market Box. Once an item is listed, you cannot retrieve them and bring them back, so you don’t want any rare items straying onto that list. Don’t sell items that are absolutely important to you and your campsite, and stick to the common fruit, fish, bugs, and shells, just like you would probably do the same when shopping for goods at your friends’ shops.

How To Shop For Items At Other Players’ Stores

When visiting your friends’ campsites, it can often get tedious to shop/hunt/mine for certain items. But there’s a way in which you can save some valuable time when looking for specific items in Pocket Camp. Look for the box icon on your friends list, and see if there’s an apple inside of it — if that’s the case, then that means they have items listed in their Market Box. But if there’s nothing inside the box, that means they have nothing up for sale. That should prompt you to bypass that campsite; why would you visit a camp where nobody’s selling anything?

There are other quick and simple tips which you can use to save some time and smartly shop for items at other campsites. For one, you can check the last login time on your friends list, as that could allow you to eliminate any friends who haven’t logged in for several hours when trying to make a follow-up visit to see if they already have the item. As we mentioned above, the Market Box always lists the top four items a person has for sale, so if a player has only one item an three empty boxes, you can be sure that that one item is the only thing they have on sale at that time. You would want to proceed further if a friend has four items in the boxes, as that could mean they have more than just four.

Pro-tip: There’s no need to walk all the way from a friend’s avatar if you want to see all the items that have on sale. Just wait for the “Camp host:” thought cloud to disappear, tap on the character from the spot beside your camper, and you’ll instantly see their dialogue options, thereby saving you some valuable time and allowing you to visit more campsites in less time.