Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

For almost fifteen years the Animal Crossing series has held an important position in the Nintendo ecosystem. After quietly appearing on Nintendo 64 (Animal Forest) in 2003, over the years the popular simulation series has evolved, gaining a wider, but at the same time more demanding and creative audience. In 2012 came the turning point: with Animal Crossing: New Leaf the original concept was tweaked with some important changes to the core gameplay mechanics. First of all, the player - after being an ordinary citizen of this little happy town in previous episodes - had the opportunity to become mayor for the first time, with all the burdens and honours that brings with it.

Decorating the city, contributing to its cultural development by donating pieces to the city museum, New Leaf was a defining moment for the series, helping to fuel a new growing craze where the players were more and more involved in interior home design. Alongside the opportunity to furnish your house as you did in previous chapters, the big innovation in New Leaf was represented by the increasing presence of the Happy Home Academy (HHA), an institution with a mission to preserve the aesthetics of the houses in the city, assigning a score to your home based on certain factors. It was different, fun, an innovative challenge, a way to spice up your monotonous mayoral duties in this charming and quiet town.

With this idea the starting point, and following up on the success of the series, Nintendo has unveiled Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, a spin-off title where your one and only aim is to decorate the houses of other citizens, or decorate and build new public buildings. As a young designer from the ImmoNook agency, your task is to realise the dreams of your fellow citizens and to try to offer them their perfect homes. There's three key ideas to consider: creativity, inspiration, and passion for design. But is Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer that game that fans of the series - especially the fans of home design - were waiting and hoping for?

We started playing the game with very high expectations, maybe because we loved Animal Crossing: New Leaf. And the game is good, at least it was during the first week we spent playing it. The structure is very simple: a city dweller contacts your agency, you have to meet the customer, you listen to their requests, and then you can start with with the renovations.

From the very first moments of the game, you become familiar with the intuitive editor - a quick tutorial will show you the different tools and furniture you can choose from, and you will gradually get more and more choice as your career progresses. Using the stylus and touch screen on your handheld console, you can move furniture, choose the floor and paint/wallpaper to match the desires of your customers at the same time as letting your creativity blossom. As the game progresses, the player will have the opportunity to decorate not only the interior but also the exterior of the building, adding your own personal touches along the way, but always in accordance with the demands of your customers.

Similarly, as soon as your name and reputation begins spread around city, you'll be contacted by Isabelle who will assign you the construction of some public facilities for the city; a school, a hospital, a restaurant, a shopping mall ... if in New Leaf, as mayor, your task was merely to raise the funds to make these happen, in Happy Home Designer you can participate directly in designing the aesthetics of these buildings. Furthermore, as you make progress in your design career, you will also have the opportunity to take special training courses held by the HHA to learn various tricks and new skills that'll help you better decorate the houses and public buildings.

It's too bad that the enthusiasm that powered us during the first commissions slowly faded away after the first week with the game. In fact, there's one big issue in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, and that's the lack of challenge. There's no score, no reward, no bells (Animal Crossing's currency) to collect, no criticism from your customers: every customer will be happy with your work as long as you satisfy the minimum options required to complete it. If you use different types of furniture or upholstery, styles that clash with the demands of your customer, there won't be any criticism, and you won't be marked in HHA's black book. No, there's simply nothing like that.

In addition to this you have an unlimited budget. There's no currency in the game, you can use the furnishings that you love most (even those that would appear more expensive) without any issue, and thus there's no challenge. In other words, you're given a blank cheque.

Apart from the lack of challenge, another element that Happy Home Designer suffers from is its repetitive nature. Although there constant variation in the houses and public buildings you design, the game doesn't feature any additional modes. It must be said that the presence of new network features adds a little spice to the mix, as you can now visit the homes of other players, rate each other's work, download different creations. But, at least for the moment, this feature isn't likely to be enough to break the monotony that will eventually set in (though we'd be happy to be proven wrong when the game is made available to other creatives around the world).

Although the negatives are clear, overall this spin-off still manages to be enjoyable. The sweet character design and style that has always characterised the franchise is still there, and visually it looks great thanks to the care taken over realising every single detail. The soundtrack is, as always, a hallmark of the series, with an interesting alternation between fun and more relaxed tracks, ideal for a title that is enjoyed largely in short bursts while you're traveling on the bus or waiting at the station after a day at work.

During our time spent reviewing the game we didn't have the opportunity to test the Amiibo cards, which is one of the innovations that the game offers. With a special telephone that you can find at the ImmoNook office, you can use the NFC reader (the one built in New 3DS console or New 3DS XL, or available separately or bundled with the game) to use these special cards and add your favourite Animal Crossing characters as customers. Obviously, this feature isn't vital in any way to your game experience, but surely fans of the series who want to enrich their customer portfolio will appreciate it.

When it's all said and done Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is a bit of a disappointment. Maybe we are still in love with the excellent Animal Crossing: New Leaf, but this new spin-off didn't immerse us as much as we would've liked, although there are a few fun features in there that will offer some amusement. The lack of challenge and the repetitious gameplay loop makes for an experience that maybe, with a few small tweaks, could have been better. We hope that any future sequel addresses these issues to offer fans of the series a more rewarding home design game.