Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer Launches today in North America

Animal Crossing has a large, dedicated following. While we await the next true Animal Crossing game, Nintendo is wetting our appetites with a spin off title that tasks you with decorating the homes that our good friend, Tom Nook, sells. Will you be joining Nook’s home selling team?

If you aren’t a fan of decorating or creation, then this probably is not the game for you. If you are, there will be lots to do and love about this latest title from Nintendo. Here is what Nintendo of Canada is saying about their latest title:

·         Great working environment: Working for Nook’s Homes places you in the esteemed company of other star employees, including Tom Nook, CEO and wearer of fabulous sweaters; Lyle, Tom Nook’s right-hand animal and real-estate veteran; Digby, brother of Isabelle and all around great pup; and Lottie, the newest member of the Animal Crossing family. Optimistic and outspoken, Lottie will walk you through the ins-and-outs of design. She’s a pro, so listen up if she offers you some friendly advice. (She even excels at posting on Twitter! Lottie truly is a renaissance otter.)

·         Fun day-to-day duties: When you step into the role of designer, there’s no need to worry about daily office tasks like scheduling meetings or checking up on those all-important memos that OMG-have-to-get-out-before-the-deadline. Your tasks in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer are all about having fun and using your imagination. In fact, the motto at Nook’s Homes is “Have Fun!” Well, it’s not the actual motto, but it very well should be! What other job asks you to design the homes and town facilities for hundreds of beloved Animal Crossing villagers? That’s right: None of them! And designing is made simple and streamlined using the touch screen of the Nintendo 3DS system.

·         Creativity encouraged: After taking on new design requests, your catalog of usable items and decorations will grow. And this will totally help with expanding your creative options. When animals come to you with their vision, they may think they know what they want, but by using the tools provided, you can design homes that are more creative and imaginative than the villagers ever dreamed! If someone requests a new home that is “cool,” you can flex your creative muscles and give him or her a house full of snowman furniture, snowflake wallpaper and a relaxing “cold” tub. Why not? You’re the expert.

·         One-of-a-kind benefits: Let’s talk perks! Boy, there are some unique perks at Nook’s Homes. First and foremost: amiibo cards. What are those, you ask? They are the next evolution of amiibo and work with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. Packs contain six random amiibo cards and can be purchased at a suggested retail price of $6.99 each. There will be hundreds of cards in the wild (perfect for trading with friends!), and each card represents a different Animal Crossing character. After tapping them in the game using the New Nintendo 3DS system or the Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer accessory for players who own Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL or Nintendo 2DS systems, the character joins your game and gives you a unique design request or can be assigned to work at one of the facilities around town! There are even some high-profile clients like DJ K.K. and Isabelle that will only visit if you use their respective amiibo cards.

·         Giving back to the village: Designing homes is not the only focus of Nook’s Homes. If you impress them with your design savvy, they’ll even ask you to help redesign the school, hospital or Department Store to help build up the town.

·         Positive reinforcement: Folks who love sharing their awesome work (who doesn’t?!) have many options in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. If you’re working on a particularly creative request, you can share images of your inspired designs on Miiverse or your favorite social media channels using the “Image Share” feature. And since peer reviews are a staple of any well-run business, Nook’s Homes offers the ability to rank fellow designers’ creations in the “Happy Home Network,” which will be available through a software update at launch. Creations can be ranked in one of four categories: cute, cool, unique or “I want to live here.” You can even turn your designs into a QR Code pattern to share in the Happy Home Network that other designers can view.

One of the key features for myself – as a social media junkie – is the Twitter integration. What is the point of designing a great room if I cannot easily share it with people on Twitter. Half the fun is 1-uping your friends design, right?

Once we spend some time with the game we will have our full review up, including a new idea were are implementing in all of our family/kid friendly reviews. My almost six year old son will have his say on each and every title we review, so look for that! We will also be breaking down Nintendo’s newest item, amiibo cards!

Follow me on twitter, @adamroffel, for more information on Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer, as well as pictures of all my creations once they are complete!