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Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Tips, Cheats & Strategies for Managing Your Campsite

Nintendo may be a latecomer to the mobile gaming boom, but the gaming giant has yet another new game and potential big hit for both iOS and Android platforms, called Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Tdeschis game has you playing the role of campsite manager, and among other things, you’re free to decorate your campsite in any way you wish, whether you want to make it fun, cute, or sporty. You choose the furniture, you choose the features, and you make those choices with the goal of attracting more animals in mind, hence the title of the game. You will need to help these animals find food and other items for their camping adventures, and that’s going to earn you some valuable resources, namely Bells and crafting materials. And speaking of crafting, that’s going to be the main mechanic of this game — you will use your materials to create different types of furniture and amenities.

Many games that involve some degree of crafting are on the complicated site, we’d admit. And with this game coming with some unexpected depth to it, that might turn out to be a challenge. Or there may be other aspects of the title that you may not be able to pick up right off the bat. But worry not, as our Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp strategy guide for beginners, which is the first in a series, will set you on the right path as you learn how to play the game, and learn about its many features.

1. Know The Basics

For those who are new to the Animal Crossing franchise, the premise is usually simple. You live in a town where the residents are animals, and you’ve just moved there, buying a new house and serving as the town’s mayor. This time, you’re a campsite manager, and your main objective is to attract a huge population of animal campers, and to make sure they have a reason to stay there. This is generally an open-ended game, but there are some goals that you should be focusing on, such as completing quests to befriend animals, invite them to your campsite, reach level 20 friendship for all the animals, and improve your friendships as you try to level up. Of course, there’s also the crafting mechanic to take care of, as well as other less important, but nonetheless vital tasks.

2. Keep On Collecting

When playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, you shouldn’t necessarily be thinking too much about meeting your inventory quota and not going over it. What you should do instead is to keep on collecting items, meaning each and every item you encounter in the game. Each of the items in here has an eventual purpose, so while you might not need it to play a certain quest or fulfill a certain request, you’ll likely need it in the future. You don’t want to be caught without certain materials when you need them the most, right?

In order to ramp up your collection efforts in the game, you might want to tap everything. There are some items which are a no-brainer for you to pick up, but there may also be others that won’t be immediately obvious. Each time you arrive in a new area, tap on everything you see; that way, you’ll learn which items can be collected, and which ones cannot. And as a bonus tip, the above qualifiers also apply to the butterflies, bugs, and fish you will encounter. These are resources you need enough of, so if you get a chance to collect them, make sure that you’re doing the right thing by tapping on all that you see. There are items, such as the fish nets and the honey jar, that could allow you to gather the items in bulk form.

3. How Does The Rotating Animals Mechanic Work?

As of the moment, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp has a total of 40 animals. This is a number that may change when future updates are released, but for the meantime, that should be more than enough for you, as you work toward the goal of making friends with all of them. But there’s also such a thing as a rotating schedule, which means the animals will toggle in between areas, meaning your current area may have certain animals at one point, but not have them once they move to another area.

To be specific, the rotations take place every three hours or so, which means that if you see an animal you haven’t befriended yet, you have that short period of time to act. You’ll have to interact with all these animals, meaning feeding them, giving them water, or doing any other things the game may ask of you. Eventually, though, animals will run out of requests, and that will require you to wait some time before they get replaced in the rotation before you can add to your quests by working alongside these creatures.

Looking at the rotating animals is quite easy. Just tap on the in-game map, and check the “moving in” timer to see who’s going to be available next. You might want to turn your phone’s notifications on if you want to manage things better and ensure you’re always on top of the situation. Remember that it’s all about keeping up with the rotation period and completing all the quests the animals have asked you to work on.

4. What Else Is In It For You When It Comes To Rotations?

If we may further explain how the rotation mechanic works in this game, it works in such a way that the times are based on where you are located, and which time zone you’re in. For example, if you’re located in the East Coast of the U.S., which follows EDT, the rotations happen at 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., and so on. Separate from this, the Market Place has six-hour rotations at 7 a.m., 1 p.m. 7.p.m., and 1 a.m of the next day. Take note of these times, and remember that you can get items and friend points if you’re able to fulfill the quests each visiting animal asks you to complete. It’s still possible to talk to these animals after completing their requests, but that’s just about it — you won’t be getting any other rewards in the game for talking to them.

So if you’re trying to earn every item and friend point you can earn in one day, that means you literally need to be up all day, or get no more than three hours of sleep. That’s because you need to check in within each three-hour time span, and complete all the requests made by the new group of animals. The animals at your own campsite do not follow a similar pattern of rotation, and would only leave if you decide you want to send them away; then again, any animal on your campsite cannot make three requests in one go, instead of sticking to just one request/quest or piece of dialogue in a real-time hour.

5. You Can Get More Quests By Doing This

For each three-hour interval, you will get three quests for new animals. And if you want to keep busy and add to the number of requests you have, you can call them to your campsite — it’s just as easy as that. Any animals that are currently at your campsite will stand their ground, and they’ll keep you busy by giving you one new request per hour. As for which animals you want to work with first, it’s all up to you — the important thing here is completing all the requests they have, regardless of the animal type.

6. Keep On Crafting

As we mentioned in the game overview, crafting is a very important part of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. If you have the required materials, you can start crafting right then and there, but take note as well of the long wait (in most cases) before the items are completed. Also take note that you are encouraged to keep on crafting even if there’s nothing else that’s currently needed. You can always sell the items you craft, and while you might not get much money back for the sale, it’s always a good idea to get rid of your surplus so you can enjoy the benefit of added currency.

7. How To Collect Rewards

Instead of regularly informing you about your rewards via pop-up, the game will let you know if you’ve got new rewards if you check the mail from time to time. The drawback, in case you haven’t noticed, is the fact that its will take some time before the items become available to collect, but regular mailbox checks are strongly rewarded. Just tap on the umbrella icon in the game’s menu, and you’re there — you can collect new rewards right then and there.

8. The Basics Of Inviting Animals

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is, at the end of the day, a game where you have to craft in order to invite all the available animals over to your campsite. So if you want to invite all the animals possible in the game, you just need to have the complete set of furniture being requested by the animal. Call them once you’ve got everything complete, and they will head over to the campsite.

Once you’ve gotten an animal to accept your invite, you can just wait until they arrive — there’s no need to craft new furniture. You can get rid of the furniture created, or keep it instead in your inventory — the latter is most advisable, as some animals may require that specific piece of furniture.

Friendship is built in the game by talking to the animals and giving them gifts, and once you’ve convinced them to head to your campsite, as detailed above, that would also open up some new conversation options, as well as side quests. Once your camp already has nine animals, that’s going to force you to swap out one animal and bring another one in — the game only allows for a maximum of eight animals in your campsite.

One simple trick you can try once you run out of animals is to look for other players that may appear on the campgrounds; add them to your friends list, praise them (i.e. sending Kudos) when you see them, and pick up more crafting materials such as fruit, shellfish, and fish from their campgrounds.

Once your animals’ friendship reaches level 10, that marks a key milestone, as that means you will earn double the materials each time an animal gives you a quest and you complete it. Friendship level 15 will allow you to earn triple the materials, and if you have the tier 2 amenity associated with any given animal, that’s going to allow you to get them up to get to level 15 faster and without issue.

9. Don’t Mind The Connection Errors

Some of the game’s earliest players have noticed it, and we’re not sure if you’ve been getting these errors as well. We’re referring to connection or server errors, which, if you remember recent titles such as Pokemon GO, are a result of the load on servers simply being too intense. That may lead to you getting kicked out of the game that you’re currently playing, but unlike other games, you won’t get dinged for what may appear to some as a “rage quit.” The best “home remedy” for these connection errors is simply to restart your mobile device, and hope that the game does finally load up and not kick you out.

10. There Are No Penalties For Delinquent Loans

At some point, you will get to expand your camper, and that’s going to lead to your character incurring some debt. That debt will be through a loan, and typically, you can use Bells to pay the loan off. But since you have the leverage by virtue of creating your own terms, you can go delinquent for as long as you wish, without having to worry about any fees or other penalties. This may change in a subsequent update, but for now, the main catch here is that you need to pay that loan off in full before doing another expansion of your OK Motors camper. That’s not bad at all, if you ask us.

11. How To Spend Your Leaf Tickets

If you’ve been playing the game for some time, then you know just how hard it is to get more Leaf Tickets. These are the game’s premium currency, and since it’s rare to load up on these Tickets, you’re probably better off not spending them unless it’s very important. So if you want to make your Tickets count, use them to increase the number of crafting spots you have remaining, or to load up on your Inventory and Market Slots. We can’t stress it enough that crafting is a key mechanic in this game, so you want to have as many slots as possible at any given time. As for buying consumables with your Leaf Tickets, this is not at all recommended, unless you’re willing to part ways with some real money to ensure you’ve got a good reserve of the premium stuff.

This should be obvious, but you definitely do not want to spend Leaf Tickets to speed up a crafting task. As we mentioned, there may be some times when you can use the Tickets to get some crafting materials in a pinch, or times when you’re completely frustrated and want to speed things up. But there is absolutely no excuse for using this currency on speed-ups, that’s for sure!

12. How Do You Get Leaf Tickets Anyway?

When it comes to getting free Leaf Tickets, the good thing is that Pocket Camp is quite generous in the early goings. But once you’ve familiarized yourself with the run of things, that’s when it can get hard to earn this premium form of currency. Leaf Tickets are earned by leveling up, completing Stretch Goals, and if you have one, connecting your game to your MyNintendo account. That might not sound like much of a hurdle, but as it is in most other games, it gets progressively harder to level up, with level-ups taking especially long once you’ve reached level 15 and beyond, and you can only complete so many Stretch Goals in the game. We’re hoping that Nintendo launches a special events feature that allows players to earn more Leaf Tickets, but for the meantime, you’ll just have to make do with the Leaf Tickets the game offers.

13. Campsite And Character Design Is All Cosmetic

At the start of the game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will give you a Nintendo Mii-style avatar, ensuring you start out the game on a spiffy note. You can then choose your personality type, and while this would have an effect on how the story plays out in other games, Pocket Camp isn’t set up that way; all the personality type does is affect the type of clothing your character wears in the game, as well as the aesthetic feel of your campsite. Just be very sure before choosing a personality type, as you won’t be able to change your clothing later on in the game!