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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Animal Crossing: Wild World

  
  

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semioticrobotic
14:07 / 07.01.06
Just started playing Animal Crossing: Wild World over the past few days, and I'm hopelessly hooked. Is anyone else?

In this "non-game" for the Nintendo DS, players dwell in towns named and created in accordance with their preferences. Players engage all types of seemingly menial yet engrossing tasks to earn bells (currency) that can be used to outfit themselves and their homes.

And the game keeps playing, so to speak, even when the DS is turned off. Because AC:WW links directly to the DS's clock and calendar, all sorts of surprises occur during each play session. The DS's top screen reflects the current atmospheric conditions (sunny? sloudy? daytime? nightime?). Stores are only open certain real-time hours. Recycling is picked up certain days of the week.

Using the Nintendo WiFi connection or direct DS link play, players can visit one another's towns, mail letters to one another (and hide little presents in the envelopes), and acheive random correspondences by dropping bottled messages in the ocean.

It's dangerous. Very dangerous.

I've only scratched the surface of this wild world. Who wants to show me what else I can do?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:55 / 07.01.06
Not having a DS, I'm unlikely to ever play this. But it sounds fascinating. Even if nobody else on the board is playing, can you do us a favour and keep putting stuff in this thread about what happens, etc? It appeals to me in the way Second Life has me interested...

"non-games" and "software toys"... I think there should be more of them. (Hmm. Maybe a thread on that would be in order, Stoatie. Yes, maybe it would...)
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:28 / 07.01.06
It's a slight reimagining of an N64 and GameCube game, Stoatie - Animal Forest (N64) never made it out of Japan, but Animal Crossing (Cube) eventually had a worldwide release.

Apart from the online mode, it's more or less the same game. Your town's layout is randomly generated when you first play it. Important buildings will always be in the same position, but houses and inhabitants will vary. You can plant trees, chop them down, plant flowers, change the layout of your own house by buying or being given items (from a list of thousands), write letters, design your own patterns for clothes.

In the Cube version you could send presents to other players by taking the item to the shop and swapping it for a code - give the code to the other player and they could then redeem it for that exact item. You could also visit other players' towns, although only if you had their memory card stuffed into the second slot on your console. Whenever you took a trip to another player's town, one of the inhabitants of your own would up roots and transfer, with you bringing one of theirs back to live in yours on the return trip. Occasionally, animals would simply move out or in for reasons of their own. Again, it guaranteed that your town was always unique.

Oh, and there *are* some traditional game-type elements. There's a museum that'll take any bugs and fish that you catch, or fossils and paintings that you find, and add them to their collection. That's still present in the DS version, afaik.

I played the Cube game nearly once a day for about six months. You'd turn it on each day just to make sure that you didn't miss any seasonal events - Meteor Night, a once-yearly event where your entire town came out to stand around the pool and watch shooting stars, was my favourite by far. You could play the turnip stock market every Sunday morning or go and listen to the busking dog who was sat on teh railway station's steps every Saturday night after 7PM (and pick up a recording of whichever song he'd played to you, which you could then add to the collection on your in-house hifi/gramophone/tape deck).

I'm going to get WW at the end of the month. Bought it for my sister as a Christmas present and I like parts of what I see and dislike others. There's now a greater amount of freedom to personalise your in-game avatar, which is cool, but they've apparently sliced back the number of seasonal events, which isn't.
 
 
semioticrobotic
15:44 / 07.01.06
There's a museum that'll take any bugs and fish that you catch, or fossils and paintings that you find, and add them to their collection. That's still present in the DS version, afaik.

My town -- Trantor, seat of the Galactic Empire -- has a museum. When beginning the game and providing input for Trantor's generation, I said that I was "most looking forward to seeing Trantor's museum." And then, of course, the museum was there when I moved in. But what do the other options -- beach, etc. -- generate?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:47 / 07.01.06
Does the museum still accept donations of the things I mentioned above? If so, I can't imagine that you'd not get one by choosing a different option at that point in the intro - it's a very important part of the game as far as ensuring longevity goes.
 
 
semioticrobotic
15:50 / 07.01.06
Yes, it does -- although I don't know where to find these things (where do I find paintings, for instance? And one of my neighbors REALLY wants me to find her a fossil.)

Perhaps my "choice" at the beginning of the game didn't generate anything; it probably just said something else about my particular preferences.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
17:07 / 07.01.06
In the previous game, your answers to those initial questions determined your avatar's face. Probably the same here.

Last time around, paintings could be found in the dump (which I think has been removed for the DS game - keep an eye on the lost & found area in the police HQ) and you'd sometimes find them buried or have them given to you by your villagers. They were the one bit of the museum I never managed to complete.

Fossils were buried. There were visible 'cracks' in the ground - when you dug in those areas there'd always be something hidden there. Once you'd found a fossil you had to mail it, with a covering letter, to an archaeological society via an address that you'd been given at the beginning of the game. They'd identify it and mail it back a day or so later, and you could then offer it to the museum as a gift.
 
 
semioticrobotic
20:17 / 10.01.06
Last time around, paintings could be found in the dump (which I think has been removed for the DS game - keep an eye on the lost & found area in the police HQ) and you'd sometimes find them buried or have them given to you by your villagers. They were the one bit of the museum I never managed to complete.

I think the closest thing to a "dump" (I haven't played the Cube version) is the recycling dumpster found in Town Hall. When you give the NPCs in your town gifts, they recycle some of their old stuff and you reap the benefits. Recycling is picked up Mondays and Thursdays at 6 a.m. I haven't regularly been to the lost and found area, but I hear it's with the guards at the town gate.

I finally bought a shovel and donated my first fossil to the museum, so I now understand how this system works. I'm also discovering just how many things I can do during a typical day. Redd also paid me a visit (he stops by on Tuesdays), but I didn't have enough dough to buy anything from him. In this game, I believe most paintings come from Redd, so I'd better save my bells for Tuesdays.

Boy, is this world huge. People are moving in daily and I'm always talking to someone new. The next thing I really want to explore is the WiFi.
 
 
iamus
15:48 / 31.01.06
I'm all villaged up tae fuck now.

Just got it, so no online yet. Plus I have an import copy, so I'm not entirely sure if there'll be location issues with the online.

Still, company should be on the way...
 
 
semioticrobotic
01:17 / 03.02.06
That's great, Mel, because I have still not done anything online and am dying to have visitors.
 
 
iamus
12:19 / 08.02.06
Gah! The internet hates me!

Nintendo Wifi, the easiest and most straightforward internet service in the universe hates me.

Seems my router is not supported. I make the connecction and test it in the Wifi configuration and it's all fine. If I try to connect ingame, it crashes and I have to reset (at which point Resetti goes off on one at me). Sorry Bryan, but for now it's just not happening.

Other than that, I'm enjoying it every bit as much as I'd expect. At first I wasn't sure of some of the changes made over the GC version, but mostly the shifts seem to be for the better. I like the scrolling view a lot now, though I'm a bit dissapointed that the villages don't come in more than one level. Getting rid of the akward fossil identification system is a good move though, as is consolidating the wishing well, post office and dump into the town hall.

Not being able to ask to run errands is a bit shite. That was always good for something to do when there wasn't much else. Though I do like how the animals now react to you and will run up to you if they have something to say. I also saw an onlooker applaud me when I reeled in a Sea Bass, which I don't think ever happened in the original.

Loving the accesories too. On my first day of arrival, they had a Mario hat and a pirate eyepatch for sale at Able Sisters. That'll be the DS's much-vaunted "telepathic" feature then. Since then I've taken a shine for the Space Helmet, and then a combination of Zissou-like hat and surgical, post-op eyepatch.

Also glad to see Gyroids. I thought for some reason they'd been removed. That would've been stupid because they're easily one of the most fantasticly strange parts of Animal Crossing.

I'm finding that I'm actually playing it day by day now, whereas in the GC version, I would often skip the clock ahead to speed up the growth of my trees or see what my new house is like after paying off the mortgage. With the home console version, I'd get annoyed if I'd done everything to be done and I was still wanting to play. With the DS it's not so much like that, when I'm finished I save and I wait until tomorrow.

The only thing I really miss is the island, but it's probably a good thing. Using the island, it was possible to generate obscene amounts of bells in a very short time which kind of fed into the whole impatience thing. I think for the first time, I'm really appreciating the sedate, bit-by-bit gameplay that's intended.
 
 
iamus
12:28 / 10.02.06
Hmmm.

Nook's now stock "spotlight products" on random days.
Today? The Throne. A loveley regal gold and red number.

The price?

800,000 Bells!

Is that even possible? I really want it, but I don't think it'll be possible for me to scrounge that much together in a month.


Incidentally, Bryan. You say you've not been online yet. Have you managed to acquire foreign fruit from any other means? I've started palm trees on the beach after a coconut washed ashore, but I'm really looking to build up a few orchards and milk them for all the Bells they're worth. It's hardly worth collecting my native oranges when Nook's only gonna pay 100 Bells apiece.
 
 
semioticrobotic
01:46 / 11.02.06
Incidentally, Bryan. You say you've not been online yet. Have you managed to acquire foreign fruit from any other means? I've started palm trees on the beach after a coconut washed ashore, but I'm really looking to build up a few orchards and milk them for all the Bells they're worth. It's hardly worth collecting my native oranges when Nook's only gonna pay 100 Bells apiece.

Wow, Mel, I had no idea this was even possible, but will be ever-vigilant on the shores from now on!

I have regrettably not played AC for many weeks, having moved back to graduate school from summer haitus. This a Bad Thing and needs to stop. I am actually headed into a weekend that is less hectic than those hence, so I am expecting to get some quality time in Tranor tomorrow and, with any luck, the next day, too.

Is 800,000 bells possible? It must be, with the right foliage:furniture ratio. I don't think I'll ever see that kind of money in my lifetime, but one can always dream...
 
 
Spatula Clarke
08:58 / 11.02.06
Is the turnip stock market still there in the DS game? That was an easy way of racking up money on the Cube. It also let you get foreign fruit every now and then by chatting with your villagers - sometimes they'd give you a piece that they said had been sent to them by a relative elsewhere.
 
 
iamus
09:12 / 11.02.06
As far as I know, coconuts are the only thing that'll wash up on shore.

On the GC version, going to the island (only possible with GBA linkup) was the most reliable way of getting one, as the island only had coconut trees to begin with. If you didn't have a GBA though, you did stand a chance of getting one washing up on shore.

Foreign fruit, you're meant to get from somebody else's village. Each village has its own native fruit, which is randomly picked when you begin. I've got oranges all over mine. Nook only pays 100 Bells for native fruit. if you get a different fruit from another village (pear, peach, cherry etc) then you can plant them and cultivate them in your own. Nook'll pay out 500 Bells for a piece of foreign fruit. Even if it's been growing in your own village for months.

I actually bought another memory card for the GC, just to start up another town I could go to to get different fruit. Filling your pockets (and hiding even more in your used letters) with your own fruit, going to another village, selling it all to their Nook and then filling your pockets with their fruit to sell to your Nook could be quite the money-spinner.

Sometimes other animals would give you a piece of fruit, so that if you had no other village to go to then you could still do the same. I've not had any of them do this yet, but then I never had a coconut wash up on the GC either. I always just nicked them from my island.
 
 
iamus
09:15 / 11.02.06
Stalk Market's still run by Sow Joan (one thing that hasn't changed is the terrible, terrible puns) every Sunday. I was always a little wary of that, because it's easy to flush a good number of Bells down the toilet too.

One thing I'm waiting on is filling up the fossil section of the museum enough that I start finding doublers. Selling fossils to Nook was a pretty handy way of making money.
 
 
iamus
10:49 / 11.02.06
I'm seriously considering buying another router.

A Nintendo-compatible one.
 
 
semioticrobotic
14:36 / 11.02.06
Didn't know about the native fruit thingamajig. I'm growing pears like nobody's business, Mel. Another reason for you to come and visit.
 
 
semioticrobotic
02:07 / 19.02.06
Wow. It had been five weeks since I was in town -- and I know this because every NPC let me know ze recognized my absence. But my, I'd forgotten how much fun I could have.

I need to make money. I don't know how to do this expediently. I pick fruit and fish, while trying to find the rare shells that wash up. But with a mortgage of ~119,000, it'll take me a very long time to get my head above water at the current rate.
 
 
iamus
11:24 / 19.02.06
I'm struggling a bit myself. It really is about the foreign fruit. With a couple of well planned orchards I reckon it's more than possible to have a turnover of about 70,000 - 80,000 bells every three days. I've got a good few coconut trees cultivated alongside the beach now, but coconuts aren't ideal. For one thing, they only grow within ten spaces of the edge of your beach, and they only yield two coconuts every three days (as opposed to the three fruit of other trees).

Best source of revenue for me is fishing at the moment. Landing a (rare) tuna'll net you 7,000, but they're hard to find and hard to catch and I think they're only going to be in season until the end of the month. The main problem that I'm having is that I'm making just about enough to buy want I want each day, but with little left over to put into mortgage. There has to be a way of getting my hands on other fruit without going online. I'm now composing a systematic attack on the game, plying as many angles as I can to work out how to get my hands on them. IT SHALL SUBMIT!

I'm also worried about getting my hands on a Dung Beetle. As far as I know, they'll only appear next to snowballs, and I think winter ends with the start of March. If you catch a spare, hold on to it for me. Once I get a router, I'll pay or trade you for it. Want a Pill Bug too, and (if it's still the same as the GC version) they can be found by smacking rocks with your spade. Not found one yet, but I don't think they're as seasonally dependant as Dung Beetles.

Today, everything in Nook's was worth five times the shopping points. I spent about half an hour or so fishing (landed a tuna) and then bought up everything in the shop (sold most of it back to him too, because I couldn't be arsed holding on to it). Crazy Redd's pissing me off. I've bought two paintings off of him now that've turned out to be forgeries, but now I've bought damages insurance off of Lyle, so I should at least get a little compensation if Redd tries it again.


I'm actually getting a compulsion to switch the GC version back on again, but that would just be nuts.
 
 
iamus
11:27 / 19.02.06
Oh and everyone who's currently reading this thread should spend monies on this game (and if needed, a DS). It's the business. I want to give you all presents and hit you with axes.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:02 / 19.02.06
I have to say, I'm fucking tempted.
 
 
iamus
18:45 / 19.02.06
I am going to buy another router. I can't bear another AC life spent in isolation.

Stoat, do it! The only possible downside for you, that I can see, is that "Moominville" is too long a word for your town name.

If it sweetens the deal though, when I get online I will make you a picture of a Moomin that you can place all about your village. Or even wear on your chest! That goes for you too Bryan, or anyone else (I'm still waiting for Suedey and Randy to make good on their half-promises).

I reckon I'll be doing some comissions for trades.
 
 
COG
20:00 / 19.02.06
I've got my DS. Just waiting for a cheap copy of AC to turn up on ebay, and I'll be there.
 
 
semioticrobotic
02:26 / 20.02.06
Sounds great, Mel. Today I received a very humorous gift from a neighbor, and I'm saving it for you. And of course, some pears, too.

Tonight it occured to me that an easy way to accumulate bells quickly would be to loot both the lost and found and the recycling bin, then sell all those goodies to Nook. It worked fairly well! I made more money than I would have catching more fish. I save at least one item from my looting, then include it as a gift in a letter I write to a neighbor (I'm partial to the one cute little hedgehog). When townsfolk receive new items, they recycle old ones.

Cha-ching.
 
 
semioticrobotic
02:29 / 20.02.06
Ah! I keep forgetting to post this. Mel, are you a Mac user? If so, does your system have Airport installed?

If it does, then see here the instructions for hacking your Airport to allow access to Nintendo WiFi. I do this with my iMac G5, and it works flawlessly.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
11:49 / 20.02.06
I keep forgetting about this. In fact, I keep forgetting about my DS altogether because I lent it to a friend and his girlfriend snaffled it away because she got addicted to Wario Ware.

But I need this. When is it out here? Are there any reasons either way why it would be preferable to get the UK/US version?

In fact there's all aorts of DS games that I've forgotten about... I feel a bit guilty. Someone should write me a big list on which I can tick things off as I get them. I've just not been pating attention.
 
 
iamus
12:16 / 20.02.06
I've got my DS. Just waiting for a cheap copy of AC to turn up on ebay, and I'll be there.

We'll be glad to have you cog. Get on it sharpish.


I keep forgetting about this. In fact, I keep forgetting about my DS altogether because I lent it to a friend and his girlfriend snaffled it away because she got addicted to Wario Ware.

Yeah, I was forgetting about my DS. Then I got Animal Crossing. I'm getting the thing grafted to my palms next Tuesday.

RETRIEVE IT!

DO IT NOW!

I want to be the first kid on my street to be wearing a Suedey original.


Ah! I keep forgetting to post this. Mel, are you a Mac user? If so, does your system have Airport installed?


In the words of Lyle the insurance otter.....

"You're busting my chops! You're absolutely busting these puppies! BANG!"



My friend code is 0687-8520-3269
My name is Mr. Nova, I live in Pondlton and I'm ecstatically happy.

We'll need to arrange suitable times. You're welcome to as many oranges as you can stuff in your pockets, but I'm out of coconuts at the mo, 'cause I sold every one of them this morning so I could buy some expensive Nook and Redd stuff.

Fuck. Better spruce the place up a bit if I'm getting visitors.
 
 
iamus
12:16 / 20.02.06
Far as I can tell, there is no reason not to get an import.

Works just as dandy either way.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
13:05 / 20.02.06
So you're saying I could get it now... like... RIGHT NOW.

Could one suggest a suitable place of online purchase, perchance?
 
 
iamus
13:42 / 20.02.06
DING!

Not sure how long it takes once it's shipped from there though. I got Electroplankton and it took weeks, but that was from Japan. Do you not have a local shop that does imports? That's how I got AC.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
14:17 / 20.02.06
I'd avoid Lik-Sang, personally. They tend to be the go-to for a lot of peeps only because they're the best-known. Go for NCSX instead.
 
 
iamus
14:43 / 20.02.06
Fair doos. I was stretching my brain for an online importers (Only done it once).

What about you, though Randy. Still going to be picking it up?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:38 / 20.02.06
I don't honestly know now. I lost the buzz for it pretty soon after I saw it running IRL - it's nice, but I get the feeling that there's nothing there that I've not already worn out in the Cube game. Also, the FFXI beta's covering the bases that AC would - online communication, massively multiplayer worlds, avatar customisation, etc.

May still get hold of it, but there are other things nearer the top of my list now.
 
 
iamus
21:47 / 20.02.06
You make the baby Resetti cry
 
  

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