You Can Play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Right Now, But There's A Catch

Why is it always Australia? I remember people in my school going into Australian servers for Pokemon Go, now this.

No thanks, I‘m not that desperate. Especially two days before Odyssey.

I was so upset at the end of the direct because I was so excited for the game and didn't want to wait a month. Then this happened! It's great when Australia gets something early every once in a while. I've been really enjoying it so far!

I don't mind waiting since Mario Odyssey is around the corner. Hopefully it'll be soon out in Europe though.

Please please please dear Nintendo Life do an idiots guide how to create an Aussie iTunes account. They didn't like my credit card (address issues) and PayPal is region-locked ;-(

Being an Aussie I was excited for this, but then immediately heart broken when it turns out my iPhone is too outdated, being a 5. The earliest model that is supported is the 5s

@Danpal65 it must require iOS 11 then.

@Dj64Mk7 That doesn't seem to be the case it says it supports iOS 8, it'll be the processing chip in the phone. I think the 5 has the A8 chip, but the 5s has the A9.

@Danpal65 Had the exact same thing happen to me. Just randomly checked the app store and went "Woah! It's already out!". My excitement was then quickly crushed. Was soooo depresssing

@Danpal65 ah, maybe it requires a 64 bit chip then.

@Dj64Mk7 Possibly. It certainly looks like it's rather graphically intensive, in line with mainline Animal Crossing at least. That's the cost of progress in game development I suppose, some devices have to be left behind. Unfortunately it was us this time.

I'm just gonna wait for it to come out, and even when it does I don't think I'll be playing much since Animal Crossing isn't that fun to me.

Noticed on My Nintendo you can already collect Animal Crossing platinum coins.

Not that i will, as have never really liked Animal Crossing.

@SaKo I was even set to make a silly comment about it coming out right after the direct, heh.

I want to do this workaround but I think I'll wait for the official release.

@Danpal65 ya gotta cash out

How is it available now if it's not officially due for another month...?

Well this was a nice surprise! Playing it now and enjoying it more than I expected

@Bengyman there's a perfectly fine reason for "always Australia"

In mobile software development, there's something called Softlaunching. It means launching the app early in just a select few countries and is useful for when you need to gauge user-dependable systems such as in-game economy, monetization and retention.

The Australia part comes from the fact that, usually, developers pick countries with the most similar culture and economy as their target audience in order to gauge the game's profitability in a much more controlled environment and adjust prices as needed.

Since they chose Australia, I must only assume they're Softlaunching the game to test their success in the USA, since the two countries are so similar in those measuring terms. Canada is usually the first choice for this, but I think either they didn't want to spend that much money into marketing the app in such a big territory or they're taking care of not overload their servers do they work with a smaller userbase. This is exactly why they softlaunch Pokemon GO there aswell.

My interest in phone games has plummeted since getting the Switch.

Still have an Australian iTunes account from the days of Pokemon Go so have installed and played a little. Won’t go to deep as want to link My Nintendo account, you know, for more platinum points that i’ll probably never use...

@Danpal65
Sorry, but no. The A8 is found in the iPhone 6/6 Plus. The iPhone 5 is based on the Apple A6, which is not bad per se (the graphics are handled by the Power VR SGX543MP2), but it might not support several "modern" graphical technologies, like the latest Open GL and/or shaders. Yet, having installed the game myself, I don't see anything that the A6 can't handle.

@ibis_87 Thanks, that's what I was trying to get at, just got the chip names a bit out of sorts.

I've started playing it and I'm pleasantly suprised! It looks great and is pretty in depth.
Glad that I can play without paying money too.

I thought the file size would be bigger though, FE Heroes is over 700mb but this is under 200...confusing...

So, I've tried the Android version on the Galaxy S8 (the APK version is 0.9.0).

Good news for Android users is that the APK floating in the Net is NOT hacked. It seems to be the one uploaded to the Australian Google Play with no modifications. It does not require any suspicious permissions and is able to download data from Nintendo servers. It also does NOT check your IP, so you won't need a VPN to fake your location to Australia to play.

As for the game itself, it definitely feels like a scaled down AC (in a good way). The familiar graphic style and animations are there, it just has the "open town" from "proper" games broken down to several smaller "camps". Have yet to see how bad the microtransactions are.

P.S. For people with limited data plans: the initial APK is around 58 Mb, later in the game it downloads 2 packs of data about 80-90 Mb each.

Wow. its almost like you could have put the relevant information in the title instead of using click bait tactics.

If I download this version, will I be able to transfer my save data to the US version when it comes out?

@SDF
Unlikely. Cloud saves are tied to My Nintendo account here. Unless you are going to play the US version with an Australian My Nintendo account which does not make much sense. If you are an Android user you MIGHT be able to tinker with local save files (copy the "Australian" local save files, delete the "Australian" copy of the game, do a clean install of the "US" copy of the game and then physically replace "US" saves with "Australian" ones), but there is no guaranty of success.

Join us over at https://www.reddit.com/r/ACPocketCamp/ to discuss the game with others who are excited to play!

One day someone will find a way to install Android on Switch... everyone will be able to play this game and other mobile games on Switch. Best of both world and play them on TV like AppleTV.

It's the No.14 Freedownload in the Australian Charts so far lol.

I think..I'll fly my magical kangaroo over there just to try this game out.
Animal Crossing the sky. (No? Ok..)

A mobile Animal Crossing!? How about for my shiny new switch that I purchased to play nintendo games on.