Tag: Animal Crossing

Amiibo Festival – Desert Island Escape

If you’ve read my first impressions of Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, you’ll know that I found the board game to be quite boring. But fortunately, the game has other modes as well. I’ve recently spent some time with the Desert Island Escape mode. This mode is just for one player, and it requires three Amiibo cards. The game comes with three cards, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

The cards you scan are the characters that will be stranded on a desert island. The object is to find three logs and a sail, which are hidden somewhere on the island, to build a raft and escape to freedom. You have seven days to accomplish this goal, with each day being represented as one turn for each of your characters. Unlike the board game layout, the island is represented in hexagonal spaces which give you more freedom to explore where you want.

acaf-map2You start with only three days worth of food, so you’ll need to collect fruit, fish, and/or honey along the way to replenish your stock. You can also pick up items such as stones, string, sticks, and cloth in order to make tools. Those tools will help improve your odds of finding food or getting past obstacles. A shovel lets you avoid pitfalls, a fishing rod allows you to catch fish, a slingshot improves your chances against enemy creatures like snakes and centipedes, and a net improves your odds of getting past the bees and scoring some honey.

Each character has a special ability. For example, dogs like Goldie can sniff out nearby items, allowing you to go directly to the goodies you need. Bears like Stitches are good at finding honey and fending off bees. Cats like Rosie can catch fish without a fishing rod.

acaf-rosieOne game, I made the mistake of selecting Eugene to be on my “ugly all-stars” team. Eugene is unpredictable but strong: Some days he can move forward 7 spaces, which is very helpful. But other days, he’ll be lazy and will refuse to move at all! That’s not being a team player!

acaf-eugeneAt night, your characters will set up a tent to rest. You can choose to place the tent on any spot that you’ve already explored. If you have enough items, you can make a tool from the items you’ve collected. When you’re ready to proceed, you’ll eat and sleep. In the morning, you’ll start out the new day from where you pitched your tent.

As soon as you’ve found all of the parts you need for your raft, you’ll immediately assemble the raft and escape to freedom. You are scored based on how much of the island you’ve explored, as well as how much food and how many days you had left.

Unlike the board game, I’m really enjoying Desert Island Escape. It’s quite fun and I’m looking forward to playing it more. I actually think Amiibo Festival may have been better received if this had been the focus of the game. There are 30 islands to escape from, and each one seems to take about 10-15 minutes to complete. I’m not sure if this mode will have much replay value once those are completed, but at least Amiibo Festival isn’t a total loss. Here is a gameplay video featuring Stitches, Goldie, and Rosie:

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival also has other modes that I haven’t unlocked yet. I’ll have more blog entries discussing those in the future, so I hope you’ll continue to visit Jeff’s Gaming Blog! See you next time!

Animal Crossing 2016 Calendar

As you probably know, I’m a pretty big Animal Crossing fan. And when I heard that there was an Animal Crossing 2016 wall calendar, I decideac-calendard to pick it up. So I’ll share my thoughts on it and show you what it looks like.

Each month has a large Animal Crossing character displayed, although each one is unfortunately just a simple character model displayed on very basic backgrounds (stripes, grass, triangles, etc.). It’s a simplistic look, so you’re not going to be blown away by any of the art.

The calendar isn’t just based on U.S. holidays; it also lists holidays for Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, and Australia. The only downside is that it doesn’t include the dates of Animal Crossing events! But it’s made to function as a regular, real-life calendar…not a game guide.

Here’s a look at which character appears for each month:

  • January – Sableac-calendar-months
  • February – Phyllis
  • March – Pete
  • April – Copper
  • May – Leilani
  • June – Nat
  • July – Timmy & Tommy
  • August – Brewster
  • September – Lyle
  • October – Jack
  • November – Blathers
  • December – Jingle

Jack and Jingle (in October and December, respectively) make perfect sense; they are characters from holidays in those months. Nat in June also fits, since he hosts the Bug-Off. Maaaaaybe you could say Lyle looks like a teacher for back-to-school in September. But I’m not so sure about the others. Why not Pavé for Festivale in February? Why not Zipper for Bunny Day in March? Why not Franklin for the harvest festival in November?

There is one other cool feature about thisac-calendar-stickers calendar: It comes with stickers! It has a sheet of over 50 stickers featuring animal villagers, human villagers, special characters, fruit, and trees. You can stick them to dates on the calendar or use them for anything else. But for some reason, roughly one-third of the stickers are pictures of fruit. I think most Animal Crossing fans would rather have more of the characters that they love, rather than fruit and trees. Still, the stickers are a nice bonus.

The calendar may not be perfect, but it would make a good gift for any Animal Crossing fans this holiday season. Check your local stores for it or you can buy it from Amazon.com.

If you have any theories as to why certain animals were shown for certain months, please share them in the comments!

Amiibo Festival Impressions

My copy of Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival recently arrived in the mail, and amiiboI gave it a try today. It comes bundled with two Amiibo figures, Isabelle and Digby. It also comes with three Amiibo cards: Goldie, Rosie, and Stitches. That’s a much better group of villagers than what I got when I bought a pack of the cards separately for Happy Home Designer.

The board game is the only mode available from the start. The game does not take place in real-time; each game takes a month of game time. Each turn is represented as a day, and the game ends at the end of the month (which will usually be 30 or 31 turns). A normal game lasts about an hour and 15 minutes, although you can set a time limit if you don’t have that much time available.

An Amiibo figure is required for at least one player, but it’s not a one-time thing. You must hold your Amiibo up to the Wii U gamepad every time it’s your turn; it’s how you roll the die. That seems really unnecessary to me–it’s like you constantly have to prove that you own an Amiibo just to play the game. Why? It’s overkill.

acaf-mapThe object of the game is to earn the most happy points (music notes) by the end of the month. You can also earn bells along the way, and those can be converted to happy points at the end. You roll the die to see how many squares you advance on the board. Landing on a pink square is a good thing–you’ll score some happy points or bells. Landing on a purple square is a bad thing–you’ll lose happy points or bells. Each space will have a story behind it. Maybe you’ll catch a fish, which is worth a certain number of bells. Or maybe you’ll find out that you accidentally broke your zap helmet, and you’ll lose bells as you pay to repair it. A variety of things can happen, but they rarely seem to be interactive. You just take what you’re given.

acaf-digby

A number of Animal Crossing characters make cameo appearances. For example, Shrunk may appear on a certain day. If you land on a special event space on that day, he will give you a card (after you suffer through a corny joke of his). The card may be used to roll a specific number. You can use it to make sure you land on a good space rather than risking a regular roll of the die.

acaf-shrunkIf Katrina the fortune teller is visiting, landing on a special event space lets you choose a card. I got a card that gave me a bonus any time someone rolled a 1–but the effect only lasts for one week (7 turns).

acaf-katrinaJoan also appears on Sundays to sell turnips, which you can then sell on Mondays through Saturdays. Each space you land on will have a turnip price. You can choose to sell at that price or hold on to your turnips until later in the week. Any remaining turnips will always be sold on Saturday, though.

There will also be seasonal and holiday events. On fishing tournament days, every space is transformed into a fishing space. Whoever catches the largest fish (fishing is automatic) will get the largest bonus at the ceremony. During the harvest festival, spaces will change into ingredients; everyone works together to collect all of the ingredients needed for Franklin’s dish.

acaf-franklinI ended up winning my first game, and I was told that my happy points will be saved to my Amiibo. As I earn more, new outfits and emotions can be unlocked. How exciting. More importantly, I’ve unlocked the ability to play the board game in other months, to experience different seasons and events. There are also other modes to play, but I haven’t unlocked those just yet.

acaf-winnerSo how is the board game? In a word, boring. Choosing when to sell turnips and when to use your special cards is really the only semi-strategic moves you can make; everything else is just random. In that way, it’s much like a regular boring board game. And most of the time is spent waiting as the other characters make their moves. There aren’t any fun mini-games, at least not so far. This is nowhere near as fun as a Mario Party game.

acaf-toasterPerhaps the other modes will be better. But so far, this game seems like a dud. I do enjoy the graphics and the Animal Crossing charm. But that just makes me want a real Animal Crossing game. The graphics alone aren’t going to cut it.

I will have more coverage of the game in the coming weeks, including a video and likely more blog entries as I try out the other modes. I’ll eventually post a review as well, but not until I’ve thoroughly explored the game. So stay tuned!

Here is a gameplay video of the board game as it appears in the month of April. April Fool’s Day and Bunny Day (Easter) are shown.