Designing a Better Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing is a perfect example of an idea that Nintendo could have made into an amazing franchise, but for some reason they seemed to be satisfied with releasing sequels with only very slight upgrades. Animal Crossing can be made great, here’s how.

The original Animal Crossing was unlike anything I had ever seen before. A sim that ran in real time, 1 hour in the game world = 1 hour in the real word. If something took 2 days in the game, you had to wait 2 days in real life. If you played at night, it was dark in the game; if you played in winter, it was snowing in the game. It was truly revolutionary. There are two keys to making AC revolutionary again, player interaction and extreme customization.

For starters the game should be constantly online by default. All villages reside in the same world which we’ll call the continent. Villages are connected to a central hub called the city. Players can travel to the city to meet other players. Once two players have met they can exchange invites to their villages. The player can also post flyers on special bulletin boards, inviting anyone who reads it. The point of inviting people is to get them to buy things in your village.

 When the player first starts all the shops in the village will be small, with only a couple low-grade items for sale. They start earning small amounts of money in the same way as previous ACs, doing errands for local townsfolk, or fishing and selling the catch. Like in previous ACs, the player can make money by selling. But, the real way to make a profit is to take the money earned and investing it into the shops.

When the player invests in the shop it becomes larger and starts selling more expensive, rarer items. The investment entitles the player to a share of all the sales. By going to the city and advertising their village, the player encourages others to visit and buy items they can’t get elsewhere, increasing their income.

The trick to making this mechanic work is specialization. To continue to grow the shops the player will have to make larger and larger investments. It would take ages to upgrade all of the shops, so the player could decide to specialize in one thing, and invest heavily into it.

A couple of examples; your village could be a fishing village, with a very highly upgraded dock. Players would come from around the continent to catch fish that are extremely rare or unavailable elsewhere. The player who wants to catch a rare fish, for his aquarium, museum, or whatever would come to your village and pay a fee to use the dock; a fee from which you would get a percentage.  Or you could specialize in clothing, the tailor shop upgraded so that it’s the only one selling the ultra-rare Pikachu outfit. If you upgrade the blacksmith shop it will sell tools that are sturdier than what’s available in other villages, etc.

If this method is combined with random item distribution it can be made so that very few villages have the same high-level items for sale. Visitors would only be able to shop for things, not change your village in any way. For example, if they want to pick one of your fruit they have to pay a fee at the orchard shop, which if upgraded sufficiently may have very rare seeds for sale.

The more the player invests in their village the more money they make, which can then be further reinvested.  Once there is demand from players for their items, players can set it so that only the first 50 people to see a flyer are invited, or that only a certain number of items are sold, so as not to flood the market. They can even set it so that just coming to their village costs a fee.

The following are a couple of shops that would be included.

Shop               Upgrade

Tailor               Rare & customizable clothing

Blacksmith      Sturdier tools

Orchard           Rare fruits & seeds

Dock                Rare fish

Furniture         Rarer furniture and wallpaper

Arcade             Full SNES games

This system encompasses the things mentioned previously, player interaction and customization. It actually makes the players care about the villages they create, and adds a new and exciting type of player interaction. If only Nintendo listened to its fans!