Keep these amiibo stocked!

I haven't really gotten into Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, but this new update that's on the horizon may sway me a bit. Acc??ording to Tiny Cartridge, gaming items are coming, including kiosks for newer and retro Nintendo systems, 3DS and Wii U game r??acks, and even an amiibo display, complete with a TV screen.

This is literally a giant advertisement, but I can't look away. I'm really tempted to recreate the ??store in the header above. Right now these items are set to debut in Japan next month.

Someone’s Happy Home is a game store [Tiny Cartridge]

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This game has gone to the dogs

Millions of people love puppies. Millions of people also love Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. What happens when you put those two things together? Like chocolate a?nd peanut butter, you ge?t something spectacular!

Here's to hoping this trailer is just the first in a line of puppy-themed videos from Nintendo. Perhaps next it can stack three labradoodles on top of one another for a Tri Force Heroes trailer or even make a video featuring an array of puppies ripping the cast of The Cat Mario Show to shreds!

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People love first-party games!

According to Nintendo, September's release of Super Mario Maker boosted sales of the Wii U by over 110 percent as compared to August. Of course, the secretive nature of game sales means we don't know exactly how well the console did. Nintendo also claims Super Mario Maker sold "more than 500,000 combined units" over the past mo?nth, including both digital and physical sales.

There's some other sales information in the press release (the 3DS sold 25 percent better in the January-September period than it did during the same period last year; Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer sold almost 115,000 copies during launch week), so it looks like Nintendo's in a solid place right now??.

Since release, Super Mario Maker has been well-received by critics, including a positive review from Destructoid's Chris Carter. The game has also been the battleground for a friendly competition between game journalists Patrick Klepek and Dan Ryckert that resulted in over $12,000 raised for the American Heart Association and the ??Brain & Behavior Research Founda?tion. The final stream in the feud was viewed by over 7,000 people, and resulted in a victory for Klepek.

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Do you trust him?

I'm ?not sure whether to laugh or cry while looking at Louie. He initially seems funny in an off-brand Donkey Kong sort of way, but the longer I stare, the more unsettling his appearance becomes.

He's headed to Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer bearing gifts -- exclusive items from the Mushroom Kingdom. That'll happen on Octobe??r 2, 2015 in Europe (launch d??ay) and presumably sometime soon everywhere else. The game releases in North America on September 25.

I love Animal Crossing and, no joke, I'm fairly into interior design, but I can't say I'm feeling the call of Happy Home Designer. Our own Ben Davis gave it a seven out of ten in his review.

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Comfortable living

Animal Crossing's home design feature was actually the thing that got me hooked on the series in the first place. Back when I was addicted to building houses in The Sims, one of my friends came over for a visit and brought along his GameCube and a copy of Animal Crossing. I watched him mess around for a ??bit, putting fish- and fruit-themed furniture in his hous??e and moving it around, and I immediately thought, "I need to get this game so I can decorate my own house!"

There was more to Animal Crossing than just home design, of course. But now, with Happy Home Designer, we have an Animal Crossing game that reall?y is just about interior decorating. They took one of my favorite aspects of the original games and turned it into a standalone title, and while it's missing that ov?erwhelming sense of freedom afforded by previous titles, it still holds up fairly well by solely focusing on this one mechanic.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (3DS)
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: September 25, 2015
MSRP: $39.99

Happy Home Designer puts the player in the role of interior decorator as an employee of the Happy Home Academy. It's your job to listen ??to clients' requests, fulfill their needs, and add your own bit of flair to their home design??s. There are more than 300 villagers in need of decorating advice, and Isabelle will visit with requests to design public facilities around town.

Each villager request will have a special theme to follow pertaining to their vision of an ideal home, such as "a tropical resort," "a forest of books," or "a bamboo playground." They'll bring along a few pieces of their favorite furniture which must be used in the design, but the rest is up to you. Design their yards,?? the exterior of their homes, and of course the inside as well, an?d try to fit the theme to make the clients happy.

Isabelle will also drop by occasionally with requests to design larger public spaces, such as restaurants, schools, hospitals, and more. Many of these buildings have multiple rooms to decorate, each with their own set of requirements. These were the most fun for me, because I got to use items which I never wanted to use in my own home in previous Animal Crossing games, and the layouts were a lo?t different than what I was used to working with, so everything felt new to me.

Every new request adds new items to the catalog of furniture at your disposal. Any of these new items are sure to make the client happy, although ultimately it really doesn't ma??tter too much. They will be pleased as long as the? furniture they brought along is used, and it's actually not possible to say that the house is finished until those items have been placed, so there's really no way to make any of the clients unhappy.

This was the most disappointing thing about the game to me. I was hoping to be graded on my designs, with the ability to make clients happier with more thoughtful interior decorating skills or upset if their house turned out to be a disaster. In reality, they'll be just as happy if you take time designing a beautiful house as they will be if you walk in, unpack their boxes, and say that everything is finished without adding or moving anything at all. It's terribly unsatisfying, but I suppose it does give players the freedom to play however they like without the fear o?f upsetting any of the villagers.

Fortunately, your designs can be graded by other players if you choose to upl?oad them to the Internet via the Happy Home Network. Houses and public facilities can be rated by four different categories: cuteness, coolness, uniqueness, and the "I'd live here!" factor. If you find an interesting design online, you can visit that ?person's house to walk around and check it out before giving an assessment. It's a pretty neat feature and a good way to get some feedback, but it's not quite the same as having the game score your designs.

That being said, designing rooms is still super fun, and easier than ever to do. Just drag, drop, and rotate furniture with the touch screen, add more items from the catalog, duplicate items with the L and R buttons, drag unwanted stuff to the trash can, and voila! No more slowly pushing and pulling furniture into place (but you can do that too if you want). Also, there are no bells to worry about, so the only limit to the amount of items which can be added to a room is the space afforded by the floor plan. Decorating rooms in Animal Crossing has never been simpler. There ?are also options to add ceiling fixtures, create your own custo?m designs, have Cyrus refurbish stuff, add background noise other than music, and more which can all be unlocked with Play Coins.

Once a house or public space is finished, you're free to go back and visit it whenever to hang out with the r??esidents or offer a remodel (although public spaces can only be remodeled after they have all been built). Villagers who have been helped already can be found walking around town, and new potential clients can also be found wandering around with thought bubbles above their heads. Finished public spaces will also be used by villagers, and their roles within the buildings can be chosen by the pla??yer (meaning you can decide which villagers are customers or employees).

Happy Home Designer features support for amiibo cards. The game includes one amiibo card to start with, and more can be bought in packs for $5.99. The cards can be used to design homes for special villagers who wouldn't normally come by as clients. I got Lyle's card, for example, a higher-up at the Happy Home Academy, so I got to decorate m?y coworker's home. The cards can also be used to summon villagers to public spaces, so the town can be populated by all of your favorite villagers.

That's essentially all there is to Happy Home Designer. Just design homes and admire the finished projects. But even for such a simple idea, I still find myself going back in to see which villagers are looking for a new home and how interesting their theme sounds. It's strang??ely add??icting, and designing homes for some of the more offbeat villagers like the mad scientists, wrestling fanatics, and criminal masterminds is really fun.

I just wish they had built in some kind of grading rhetoric for how well your designs resonated with the clients. There has always been a grading mechanic for your own homes in previous Animal Crossing games, where the Happy Home Academy would award points based on how well the furniture fit together, how everything was arranged, and so forth. It's?? strange they would scrap that idea for a game built entirely around the Happy Home Academy, but that's the way it is.

I would recommend Happy Home Designer for anyone who really enjoys designing and decorating virtual spaces. If finding the perfect furniture for your house in Animal Crossing was your favorite part of the series, then you'll surely get some en?joyment out of this game.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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100 cards, different sizes by country

The first set of collectible cards with amiibo functionality are releasing at the end of this month, July 30, in Japan in conjunction with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. In Europe the cards launch October 2 alongside the game. In both territories, card packs are blind (you won't k?now what cards you're getting), containing three cards, including one special card.

There are 100 cards total, at least to start, and the packs ar?e selling in Japan in 300 yen ($2.40 in exchange ??thanks to the flagging yen).

In America and Canada, however, card packs contain six cards each. While the cards a??re still nebulously dated for fall, I assume they'll launch September 25, which i??s when the game will be available in North America.

Does anyone remember the GameCube Animal Crossing's eReader cards? Fashion is cyclical, or something.

Also, where the fuck is Bob, the cat?

Animal Crossing Amiibo cards launch 2nd October [Eurogamer]

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Egg to chicken, amiibo to game

In an interview with USgamer, Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival creative lead Aya Kyogoku was asked if amiibo Festival was conceptualized as a game involving amiibo?? or if the amiibo integration was added later in the development cycle.

"Initially when the amiibo was announced, there was nothing really said about Animal Crossing amiibos or any plans for that matter," Aya responded. "But as the Animal Crossing team, we were confident that if there was one, it would be really cute... honestly, we just wanted Animal Crossing amiibo. We wanted the company to make Animal Crossing am?iibo, so that's why we made a game that works with them."

So there you have it, as the egg came before the chicken, so too did the amiibo come before the game in this case. Now if only amiibo were as readily available as eggs, especially considering amiibo Festival requires at least one. 

"Honestly, we just wanted?? Animal Crossing Amiibo": Nintendo's Aya Kyogok??u on Evolving The Series [USgamer]

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Also, AC: amiibo Festival announced

Today, during Nintendo's E3 showcase, the publisher took some time to talk Animal Crossing.

The decorating-focused Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is coming to Nintendo 3DS on September 25, the company announced just before revealing another?? spin-off for Wii U. 

That's called Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival, a new party that requires at least one amiib?o figure to fuction. You can play it this holiday sea??son -- if Nintendo makes enough figures, that is. Good luck with that!

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