Need more help playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? Yes indeed, Nintendo’s new game for iOS and Android devices has proven to be quite popular with gamers, and we’ve published our share of guides for this new title. And just so we can get you up to speed on what this game is about, this is an easy-paced, almost casual game that combines elements of crafting, collection, and social gaming, as you run your own campsite, build friendships with in-game animals and other human players alike, and make sure you’re fulfilling all requests and building these animals the right types of furniture and amenities. There’s really no true overarching goal to this game — it’s simply a relaxing campsite simulator without any enemies, unexpected game mechanics, or any other similar complications.
Still, that doesn’t mean you might not be needing some assistance in running your campsite. We’ve been focusing on specific facets of the game in recent weeks, and for today’s Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp strategy guide, we shall be looking at resources, and more extensively at inventory management. Join us as we discuss both topics in greater depth, and talk about the different animals and the stuff they can reward you with, as well as the different things you can do to manage your inventory in a practical and seamless fashion.
Guide To Resources
Overview
As we had previously explained in another guide, all of the animals in Pocket Camp have specific resources that they will always reward you with, without fail, whenever you complete a request. It is possible to get one resource from more than one animal, but each animal only has one specific resource that you will always receive after you fulfill their requests. As such, you have to keep that in mind whenever you’re planning things and trying to stock up on certain resources in the game. Also keep in mind the preferred animal type, as that’s going to help you when planning the types of furniture you will be building; once you provide the right furniture, that will allow you to invite the animal and have them in your camp sooner rather than later.
Another important thing to remember when it comes to animals and the resources they can reward you with is that you can expect to get more units of a certain resource if your friendship level with that animal is higher. That means it will be in your best interest to improve your relationships with as many animals as possible, so you can be guaranteed of a ton of resources each time you complete a request.
Cotton Animals
Cool: Agnes and Tex
Cute: Bitty and Maggie
Nature: Rex and Roald
Sporty: Bud
Paper Animals
Cool: Apollo
Cute: Stella
Sporty: Charlie
Preservative Animals
Cool: Agnus
Sporty: Jay
Steel Animals
Cool: Cherry, Kyle, Roscoe, and Sandy
Cute: Carrie and Ketchup
Nature: Beau, Eloise, Fauna, and Goldie
Sporty: Butch, Cheri, Flip, and PeeWee
Wood Animals
Cute: Chrissy, Bunnie, Apple, Rosie, Lily, and Peanut
Nature: Alfonso, Filbert, Hamlet, and Punchy
Sporty: Hopkins, Kid Cat, Tad & Moe
Guide To Inventory Management
Overview
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a game that relies heavily on the mechanics of crafting, as well as the mechanics of collecting items. Crafting materials come in when you’re making furniture, while collectibles are, well, collected, if you’re trying to fulfill animal requests. Both types of items all lead you back to you Items list, which has four separate types of inventory, namely Clothes, Collected Items, Craft Materials, and Furniture. While there is no limit to the number of clothing and furniture items you can have stored in your inventory, you have to take heed of the maximum cap when it comes to collected items, e.g. bugs, shells, fruit, fish, etc., and crafting materials. The latter two have a shared storage space, but you can only gather so many of both item types combined.
If we are to use a simple example, let’s assume that your inventory only limits you to having 100 collectibles. That means you can have 100 collectibles that are all different, or one type of collectible in 100 units. You may also have four of 25 different collectibles, to make it an even hundred. If you remove a fish or a fruit, for instance, the space will be opened up to anything, and not necessarily that same fish or fruit. But when talking about crafting materials, you can only collect so much, say, up to 750 Sporty Essences or up to a thousand Sparkly Stones. Both crafting materials are independent from each other, in the sense that the amount of one won’t have any influence on the amount of the other.
As a bonus tip for this overview, remember that the limits on crafting materials are usually substantially higher than the collectible limit. Take stock all of what we said in the overview, and use that information to help you manage your inventory properly.
1. Craft First, Sell Later
For our first tip, let’s consider the following situation — let’s say you’re close to your cap for a certain crafting material. If that’s the case, go to Pocket Camp’s crafting menu, and work on a new item. You may be tempted to sell your crafting materials, but it will usually be the wiser thing to do to use the materials to create a new piece of furniture, or to make a new amenity for your Pocket Camp. That’s because crafting materials, even the rarest of the rare, won’t sell for much, and because these materials will oftentimes be hard to find, especially if they’re higher up in the rarity tier.
2. Don’t Focus On A Single Specific Item During Crafting Prep
It’s okay to be single-minded at times, as long as you’ve got one pertinent goal that has to be achieved. But you don’t want to do that in a situation like the one we will be illustrating for you next. For example, you may be trying to stock up on wood for a certain piece of furniture requested by a camper, but also have another resource, such as steel, in vast abundance. Don’t work on the wood item just yet; wait until you’ve returned to the Craft area and focused on an item that primarily uses steel. Some time after you’re done with the item, you should ideally have enough wood, while usually having gotten the steel back.
3. Prioritize Certain Collectibles
Some collectible items in the game are rarer than others. You will definitely encounter your share of common collectibles, such as bugs and fish; these collectibles would often respawn once you’ve left their island and come back. However, there are other collectibles that take longer to respawn, such as fruit, which would always respawn after three hours, unless you use fertiizer to skip through that process. You won’t be able to shake a tree for another three hours. Shells, on the other hand, respawn at far more random times; sometimes the shell timer will refresh in less than an hour, sometimes it will take longer than the aforementioned three hours. Whatever the case may be, it’s not highly recommended to move from one island to another, as they won’t magically appear that way.
4. Try This Simple Trick When Clearing Inventory Space
When trying to free up space in your inventory, one simple thing you can do is to make sure you have a few more shells and pieces of fruit combined than bugs and fish combined. More often than not, you wouldn’t have any problem going to the ocean to catch a certain fish, should it be requested by an animal. However, you’ll have to play the waiting game (a maximum three-hour waiting game, to be exact) if an animal asks you for a piece of fruit you currently do not have. As such, it’s better to have more than enough fruit handy, though you won’t have to prioritize fruits that have multiple trees, as it wouldn’t be much of a problem to ensure you have enough of them.
5. It’s Okay If Fruit Falls To The Ground
Catching fruit is easy — just shake the tree, wait for the fruit to drop to the ground, then collect that fruit so you can add it to your inventory. The respawn timer will only begin once the tree doesn’t have any fruit in it. But here’s the good thing about collecting fruit in the game — you won’t have to pick up that piece of fruit ASAP, and you can, in fact, just leave the fruit there and pick it up whenever you’ve got more than enough inventory space. As you can see, this is a bit of a cheat, as you’re essentially using the ground as an additional way of storing your items.
Even if you leave the island right away, or close the app for the day, you don’t ned to worry, as the fruit won’t vanish, or appeared to be claimed from the ground. But here’s the very important catch you have to remember — if there’s a piece of fruit on the ground and you try to shake the tree again, there wouldn’t be any effect, and you wouldn’t be able to add to your fruit totals.
6. Keep Leveling Up, And Reach Those Milestone Levels
You won’t have that much inventory to go around at the start of the game. But as you keep leveling up, you will be able to store more items, specifically once you reach multiple-of-5 levels, e.g. level 5, 10, 15, and so on. Doing so will add to your permanent inventory slots, and once you reach level 30 in Pocket Camp, you should already have an inventory that could store a total of 145 items. By that time, there should be no excuse for not being able to store enough items, and having to sell or discard items just to free things up.
The game will offer you the option to spend Leaf Tickets if you need to upgrade your inventory capacity immediately. Just tap on the plus sign in your inventory menu, and you should be set. Then again, it’s not always a good idea to spend Leaf Tickets for additional inventory. You’re arguably better off using that premium currency to add to your crafting slots, and to instantly gain certain resources so you can fulfill camper requests.
7. Get Social
As we’ve often explained in our Pocket Camp guides, the game comes with a social element, and the ability to add friends to the game after you’ve connected your game to Facebook. That’s perhaps the best reason for you to connect your game, because if you come to think of it, you can achieve greater success if you’ve got other players helping you out.
If you see a new person step foot on one of the islands, you can send that person a friend request. Doing so will allow you access to more Market Boxes, and when someone is already in your friend’s list, you will get a chance to view the first four items in their Market Box. Once you’ve seen what’s in their Market Box, you can visit their campsite to make the purchase. And you’ll also want to add as many friends as possible, as that’s going to prevent your inventory from overflowing, while increasing the chances of finding a required collectible when looking at a friend’s Market Box.
8. Complete Requests Or Go To The Market Box Before Removing Items
If your collectible inventory is teetering on the brink of filling up, you’ll want to follow this hierarchy: fulfill animal requests, fill up your Market Box, and sell more items directly. The first step is important, as you should be checking if your campers have any pending requests before you “86” any item from your inventory. That should free things up for the meantime when you provide the item that any given Camper is requesting. Also, as a bonus tip, if you’re hunting for specific items, you shouldn’t focus on what you want, but rather on what you need. Be smart when hunting for collectibles, as well; that means looking for the smallest (in terms of size) possible fish shadows in the game, if you’re specifically hunting for Pale Chubs.
Now if you don’t have any pending requests, you can then go to the Market Box by accessing the hamburger menu in the upper right of your screen, and clicking on the box with an apple icon. Once there, you can place some items for sale, and when doing so, you have to be sure that you’re listing items that you have more than enough of, and that you’re listing them in groups, instead of individually.
If all the slots in your Market Box are full, that’s when you can go to your menu and sell items directly. Go to the bottom toolbar, tap on Items, and choose the apple icon so you can view your Collected Items and sell the ones you have enough of.