First impressions Happy Home Designer

Today Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer has been released in Japan. Finally, the long wait is over for a lot of people, and for the US the release date isn’t that far off at all (September 25^th). As you know I have my own Japanese 3DS and I debated a long time about whether or not to download the game. Though I was sorely tempted I decided to not do it this time. First of all it would mean deciphering a lot of text, as the animals give you their preferences and wishes, and I’m afraid it will take away a bit of my enjoyment in the game. After all, you want to do the best job that you can as a designer, right? Secondly, I have so many good games to play at the moment! I will just bide my time till the end of September.

The internet is of course buzzing with first impressions, so I’ll just recap the most important ones here:

• In the beginning I thought it would be necessary to have an Animal Crossing game to kind off pair with HHD, but that isn’t the case. You can play the game on stand alone.
• You don’t need any Amiibo cards to play, but when you do upload the cards, you can do design jobs for specific animals. But you do need the cards to throw a housewarming party, otherwise you won’t be able to invite people over to the house you designed.
• After doing the first couple of design jobs you get your own office on your way to becoming a business tycoon, and a book to keep track of all the animals you’ve helped. Pretty soon your fame is on the rise, and Isabel commissions you with designing a school.
• You don’t get to decorate your own house, just the animals houses and the plaza. But when you’re seriously on your way to becoming a workaholic, you won’t even need a house of your own, right?
• You can use the Villager Amiibo from Super Smash Bros, it will unlock the Villager trophy for you.
• Using play coins, you can get more decorations and abilities
• Eventually you get to chose a plot of land for your clients too, plus what sort of house it should be. You can even design the outside space for them.
• The amiibo cards will be distributed in packs. One pack in the US contains 5 random cards plus one Special villager, obviously the doubles will be used to trade cards. The EU and Japan get packs of 3 cards, two villagers and one special.
• in time you unlock the use of the Sewing Machine
! You can make pro designs (shirts, dresses, hats and faceboards)
, and also scan and make QR codes. They appear like amiibo cards in the game, and you can also scan the QR codes for use in New Leaf.

This all sounds like very good gaming fun. I think this game might be much deeper then we have been led to believe in the media.  My friend Sami has documented her doings in the game from day 1, so I’m happy to point you to her blog Macaron Designer. Lots of pictures and fun stories! ( My wallet hopes I can stand by my decision not to download now…)