Crossing to the New Life - Customised Camping

Back when I started this series, I said that the campsite was a specific area of interest, providing more villagers to be interacting with on a temporary basis and the key behind the Public Works Projects of the game. I also said that customisation has seen an increase, and I’m sure you’ll agree that has been the case – whether something small such as different coloured tools or a larger something such as the new way of expanding your house.

Here, though, with the campsite, the largest of the customisability options come. As stated previously, the Public Works Projects have seen a major upgrade. More themes, with basic and special types. More things to be adding around the town – including paths. And an easy way to place it all accurately. Before we get to that, I’ll give an introduction to the starting of the campsite.

Once ten villagers have moved in, Harvey will arrive on the train. You and Isabelle will meet with him, and he’ll discuss his dream of setting up a campsite within the town to pay respect to the land’s previous use as a holiday resort. The two of you will agree to it, and you’ll find a spot to place it. It will only be small at 16x16 spaces, but you’ll be recommended to find somewhere at 32x32 spaces to fulfil its maximum upgrade potential.

With the site marked out, and an office for Harvey to stay placed within, he’ll explain the details of attracting campers by making the town be the best it can be. He’ll offer some basic PWPs to start attracting some campers, which you’ll be able to place around the town using your own money. You can mark out the spaces where the campers will pitch, and use the rest of the space to decorate the campsite with the PWPs.

When campers arrive, you’ll be able to check in with Harvey how long they are staying for. You’ll be able to visit the tent they’re staying in [or RV with the medium and large campsites] and check in on them. Whether inside or outside, they’ll sometimes want to play a game. After the first day, they’ll also start talking about what they think of the town.

When they are out and about, they’ll be doing the same things as regular villagers will do. You could find them chatting to villagers, doing a spot of fishing, visiting a shop, or even joining in with events if something is on. They’ll also be available for when you organise something through Games Hire and can appear in the arcade games. They’ll act exactly as villagers would, but housed in the campsite.

It will be very rare you’ll get the campsite filled to capacity if there isn’t an event on. When those events do come near, you’ll see an increase in the amount of campers. And speaking of events… The main events found in all the games remain. You’ll have New Year’s, Toy Day, Halloween, and Bug and Fishing Tourneys, the Fireworks show every Sunday night in August, and Bunny Day.

There are also events that you can arrange through the Town Hall to take place on a certain day. La-Di-Day returns as one of these events, but held within set hours rather than taking over an entire day. As well as those events within set times, you can also arrange for full day events such as the Festivale to take place.

When a camper leaves, they will leave a report with Harvey on what they thought of the town, with the points given being added to an overall tally. The total amount of points you earn through the campsite will unlock more Public Works Projects to use. The report will also give hints at what needs to improve to get a greater score from future campers. The points from the reports are also what you’ll need to upgrade the campsite to its medium and large sizes.

These upgrades cannot happen while campers are still around, so when an upgrade is waiting to be started on, no new campers will appear and all those that are still around will stay until their stay is up. Once the last camper has gone, the campsite will close and the upgrade will happen. You’ll then once again choose the points where campers will pitch up and redecorate the rest of the space.

Now, Public Works Projects will still take until the next day to be placed within the town once paid off, but the cost of all items is slightly reduced from New Leaf. Using the PWPs for the town will happen from the Town Hall. Lloid the Gyroid will once again take donations from people, with the other villagers and even campers being a bit more active in supporting the projects this time. Lloid will be based where the project is to be constructed, or by the Town Hall for paths.

And speaking of paths, you’ll have full editing power of them. Speaking to Isabelle and saying you want to edit paths, you’ll head outside with a menu specifically for placing paths. You’ll be placing them a space at a time, and just like editing walls of your house will be charged a small amount per space used. Paths cannot be placed on the beach or over water, but otherwise you’re free to put them wherever.

More than one PWP can be placed at once, and celebrations are no longer mandatory for every completed project. There is no longer a restriction on how many can be placed within the town, and if you want to change the colour of any basic themed project, you don’t need to demolish and replace it. Just look up the list of all the projects placed in the town and request for a respray.

I’m unsure whether I’ll be continuing the series, as it seems I’ve covered the major areas I wanted to talk about. If anything, the last in the series would be another general look at some things such as the villagers themselves and a few events and features that could be added.

Crossing to the New Life Series

Mapping Out the Town / What Do We Do Today, Friend? / Get the Shopping In! / Customised Camping

Crossing to the New Life - Get the Shopping In! [Gaming]

There are a number of places that make up the towns of Animal Crossing, with shops being the main place to get items. With this planned Switch outing, I created a map that included a shopping district full of various shops and places, with the previous part of Crossing to the New Life looking at a few of those places.

Games Hire, Destinations, Favoured Fortunes, and the Arcade were talked about last time, with all four featuring connectivity in a big way. The shopping district features a lot more, though. Those places will be detailed here. The map of the shopping district is here again, so you don't need to refer to the last post.

 

And to start with, the two places that will start the shopping district off. The general store of Timmy and Tommy, with their uncle Tom at Nook’s Homes. Both have seen a bit of a change to reflect other changes within the game.

The general store now stocks something of every item category in the game. So why would you go to those other stores if everything is available here? Because there’s a 100% cost increase on every item on sale. So why would you go here once you have access to all the other stores? The lottery returns. For every 10,000 bells spent at the store, you’ll get a lottery ticket. At the end of every month, you can return those tickets to the store for a chance at winning some rare or even character exclusive items.

As for Nook’s Homes, it is now able to expand to include more designs. The themes available have increased, and for those basic themes you are now able to select from ten colours to paint it. The outside of the home isn’t the only place where customisation options have increased. Remember the interiors? Remember paying a mortgage to have to expand? Not any more. You pay for exactly what you want, with the ability to now have a custom layout across a 30x30 space. You’ll start off with a 5x5 space, and have to expand, with the custom layouts available from the 15x15 space.

The detail of that custom space is all dealt with by Nook, who you’ll talk to to access the room layout menu. With this extra ability, you can design the interior of your house to be as basic or as weird as you want. It doesn’t come cheap, with each piece of wall being 5000 bells [per space used], but it now allows those who really love designing their house to show off to friends an extra way to manage the space. And of course, don’t forget about the dream world you can make through Favoured Fortunes. Such expanded design options will come in real handy for those who go the extra mile, especially since wallpapers and floors can be spread in individual sections of the house now.

You might have been thinking about the 100% cost increase of those items unavailable elsewhere but at the general store, but that has been fixed. Leif’s Leaves holds the shovel, axe and watering can, along with a range of plants. As stated in the last post, Destinations has the fishing rod, bug net, and swimsuit. The post office gets writing paper. The slingshot and timer are available from Games Hire as items you keep. That just leaves the home décor.

New store Interior Antics is where to go for furniture, carpets and wallpaper. By being separate from the general store, more items can be displayed, with the carpets and wallpapers being on display as they would look in your house with signs giving name and price. This store will occasionally get a whole set together – displayed in a special area of the store that can only be bought as a whole package. No discounts if you already own part of the set.

The Museum now takes up three floors. The ground level hosts fossils, paintings, and exotic items [found on the islands you travel to with Destinations]. In the basement is the aquarium, with the insectarium on the top floor. The gift shop and custom exhibits have gone, since everything they offered are now elsewhere.

Gracie returns with her store and expensive items, along with adding a few more items to that collection. The Post Office remains much the same as it always has, aside from the addition of selling paper-based items. The Police Station once again acts as the lost and found and the best way to see if any special characters are hanging around.

Club LOL returns with KK Slider and Doctor Shrunk holding the fort once again. As ever, you can learn emotions from the good Doctor, though he once again returns to his comedy act on stage. KK is still doing his DJ act every night except Saturday nights – where he’ll once again play the songs he’s famous for. However, he’ll also head out of the club on occasion on these times for the fresh outdoors. He’ll be at the beach, lake, or train station’s café at these times.

The Able Sister’s shop sells everything clothing related, much as it has always done. It also features an upgrade. At first only Mabel manages the store with Sable at the sewing machine as always. The main priority will be tops and bottoms, though an accessory or footwear will show up a few days within the week. Labelle returns after an upgrade to bring more accessories into the store, with Kicks bringing a lot more footwear to the store. I had thought whether it would be wise to put Shampoodle in with the Able Sisters’ store, but there would be too much inside, so it has now separated into its own space.

All these places are sure to put a strain on the number of times you’ll be looking at things and visiting the various shops, which brings up a new way to shop. Just as you can sell items in bulk, you can now buy in bulk as well. When in a shop, just select an item to view its name and price, and decide to add it to the basket. Once you’ve browsed and added everything you want, just head to the store owner to buy it all. If you leave the store without doing so, you won’t have bought or stolen it, as it will all return to where it was.

Re-Tail, while not a part of the shopping district, is just as important. It’s the place where you sell things, and get furniture customised. And customisation, as has been told quite a bit, is a larger thing within this ideas haul of mine. With the power of the Switch, I’m confident there will be a greater focus on it – in all areas – and so the next Crossing to the New Life will be looking into the campsite and the town and the various ways to customise them.

Crossing to the New Life Series

Mapping Out the Town / What Do We Do Today, Friend? / Get the Shopping In! / Customised Camping