Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp trades two fan faves for in-game cash

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is already out in Australia, a fact that I’m trying not to cry about out of jealousy. Players who have downloaded the upcoming mobile game from the Australian app stores, like Kotaku’s Aussie editor Luke Plunkett, are sharing new details — including an in-game banner ad that suggests fans may want to pay to hang with two classic characters.

“Have you bumped into K.K. or Tom Nook yet?” a pop-up notice asks, according to one of Plunkett’s screens. We know from screens and the game’s Nintendo Direct presentation that K.K. Slider does greet players upon starting the game, and Tom Nook is, of course, running the microtransaction shop.

But want to spend more time with them on the campsite, where all the action happens? There’s an easy way to make that happen.

“If you craft K.K. Slider’s chair or Tom Nook’s chair and place either one in your campsite, the item’s owner will show up and hang out for as long as you want!” the banner reads.

Each of these “special offers” require a specific crafting material: Leaf Tickets, which function as special in-game currency that can be earned through completing tasks ... or bought from the store. But it’s not just a handful of Leaf Tickets that players will have to collect. K.K. Slider and Tom Nook will set fans back 250 Leaf Tickets each.

DeNA/Nintendo via Luke Plunkett/Kotaku

It’s likely that it will take quit some time to gather up 500 Leaf Tickets for free, even with the bonus missions that hand them out. If you’re a huge fan of K.K.’s music or just miss having Tom Nook walking around to trick you into owing him your soul, you may be enticed to just bite the bullet and buy the Leaf Tickets outright. (Note that there’s a new group of real estate hustlers in town to be indebted too, by the way, in case you’re afraid of losing that part of the game.)

These items are clever ways to upsell players of this free-to-play game, as are other parts, like the cool-down timers between actions. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like the Leaf Tickets have much of a gameplay requirement beyond speeding things up — but K.K. Slider and Tom Nook are such beloved characters in the Animal Crossing universe, it may be hard not to just put down the cash to guarantee they’ll come hang out.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp comes stateside in late November. I will be tearing up with excitement until then.

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• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo
• Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Nintendo