On November 22nd, the Animal Crossing franchise released its new mobile adventure, allowing longtime fans and new explorers alike to delve into the world of Pocket Camp. In this world players can build their own camp through the friendship they gain from a variety of classic Animal Crossing characters. The player must collect items as a gift for their companions in order to increase their friendship rank, and gain materials for crafting items. Once an individual character has reached a specified level, the player can invite them to their own camp. Doing so requires the player to build that friend’s favorite items, these elements can range from furniture- like tables, chairs, or couches- to small knick-knacks – like teddy bears, teacups, and houseplants. This app features different zones into which these friends will appear, rotating every 3 hours to allow an influx of new faces. These areas also hold resources needed to complete friendship tasks, including fish, fruit, and insects. The constant collection of new items, friends, and tasks gives this game its addictive factor.

In the beginning, the user feels overwhelmed and entranced by the sheer amount of things to accomplish, but the overall experience makes you feel warm inside. The Animal Crossing animation style creates the light-hearted atmosphere that you can’t help but enjoy. I also thoroughly enjoyed the customization of not only your character but the campsite as well. As you level you can further your individual style with the new furniture you unlock. The downfall of this game comes in the time commitment and loss of interest further down the line. Higher levels require hours of tedious crafting to gain new companions for your camp, causing a decline in the overall enjoyment of the game. Running between areas can take up a large portion of your time during this game, and crafting has an extreme range in time, some items can take 10 minutes while others can take multiple hours. The game relies on the user constantly checking on the app to exploit the time cycles. Overall this game provides ample content for the beginning level but plateaus after several days of gameplay.