Animal Crossing: Sweet Day from Nintendo Land

It's no surprise that Katsuya Eguchi, the creator of Animal Crossing and hardware producer on Wii U, is already thinking about how to combine the two. Speaking at last night's developer roundtable, Eguchi mused on how Wii U's Miiverse social network could enhance Animal Crossing's community.

Eguchi said in the past people have had a hard time finding friends to share Animal Crossing with, and we'd agree: unless you know them in real life or frequent online messageboards and social networks, your Animal Crossing: Wild World probably feels more wilderness than Wild World. Now thanks to Miiverse, you should have a much easier time making friends and expanding your online community.

Eguchi said Miiverse is "a reliable and easy system to find friends online and become friends with them" thanks to each game having its own messageboard accessed during gameplay. A built-in friend request would certainly make adding new friends much easier, letting you share your Animal Crossing Wii U town with others around the world.

As the series' creator, of course Eguchi understands the fact you need to know who you're dealing with before you let them tread among your carefully planned town:

You want to be able to trust somebody before you become friends with them.

Sounds like AC's walled garden online will survive, but at least you'll be able to find more people to invite.

Nintendo Land has an Animal Crossing minigame called Sweet Day where four players try to gather (or 'steal') sweets while running away from Booker and Copper. You also get to dress your Mii as Tangy, which is good enough for the Animal Crossing nuts in the Nintendo Life office.

[source live.theverge.com]