A Complete Game

The Harvest Season

Codey and Jonnie talk about Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:01:06: What Have We Been Up To
00:09:11: Game News
00:31:34: Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete
00:58:36: Outro

Links

Into the Emberlands Release
Tiny Garden Release
Echoes of the Plum Grove Switch Release
Amber Isle Switch Release
Ova Magica “0.8” Update
Overthrown “Livestock” Update
Grandpa’s Farm TTRPG

Contact

Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

(0:00:30) Codey: Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Cody
(0:00:36) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny.
(0:00:38) Codey: And we are here to talk about cottagecore games
(0:00:45) Codey: Today’s topic is the animal crossing pocket camp complete which johnny has played and I have not
(0:00:55) Codey: But I did play the first pocket camp so we will get to talk about all that
(0:01:00) Codey: Before that we have some small about small amount of news. We’ll probably still figure out how to make it last an hour though
(0:01:07) Codey: But before that, what have you been up to johnny?
(0:01:10) Jonnie: Not too much. I’m just keeping the pocket theme rolling with Pokemon Pocket TCG.
(0:01:16) Codey: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
(0:01:16) Jonnie: And, like, it’s real good.
(0:01:21) Jonnie: Opening a couple packs every day is fun.
(0:01:26) Jonnie: Like, collecting cards is fun.
(0:01:28) Jonnie: Playing the actual battles is more fun than I was expecting.
(0:01:33) Jonnie: It’s real good.
(0:01:34) Jonnie: And we’ve now entered, like, the phase of the life cycle of the game.
(0:01:40) Jonnie: Where everyone has turned into whiny little complaint bots that are just, like,
(0:01:47) Jonnie: “Shut up and stop talking,” is kind of my opinion on, like…
(0:01:50) Jonnie: Like, I’ve heard people complaining about, like,
(0:01:52) Jonnie: “Oh, I haven’t opened a new card in, like, four weeks.”
(0:01:56) Jonnie: And it’s, like, “Well, yeah, because you opened a hundred packs when the set came out,
(0:02:01) Jonnie: and now you’ve got all of the cards, there’s literally no new cards to open,
(0:02:03) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:02:05) Jonnie: except the super rare things.”
(0:02:07) Jonnie: which, if you got one of those every day, wouldn’t be super rare.
(0:02:10) Jonnie: like logic, not that hard.
(0:02:10) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:02:12) Jonnie: Second thing that people-
(0:02:13) Codey: It’s ‘cause they’re game guzzlers.
(0:02:16) Jonnie: Yeah, they are game guzzlers, and it’s like, if you’re a game guzzler, that’s fine.
(0:02:20) Jonnie: Shut up, stop complaining. It’s very annoying.
(0:02:22) Jonnie: And then you’ve got the people who complain about the events.
(0:02:26) Jonnie: Like, we’ve got the five-win streak event going on at the moment,
(0:02:30) Codey: - Okay.
(0:02:30) Jonnie: and people complain about that.
(0:02:32) Jonnie: And I’m like, if you complain about that event, you are bad at the game.
(0:02:36) Jonnie: Like, people complain because they say that this game is too luck-based.
(0:02:38) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:02:40) Jonnie: I mean, is there luck in this game? Yes.
(0:02:42) Jonnie: Is there more luck in this game than a lot of other phone-based TCGs?
(0:02:48) Jonnie: Not really. It’s pretty much the same.
(0:02:50) Jonnie: Like, there is a high skill ceiling on this game,
(0:02:52) Jonnie: but yeah, people would rather just lose and complain about luck.
(0:02:56) Jonnie: And, like, what’s the reward for getting the five battles?
(0:02:58) Jonnie: It’s an emblem. That does literally nothing.
(0:03:01) Jonnie: The only things more useless in the game are, like, the backgrounds and the, like,
(0:03:06) Jonnie: whatever the other stupid cosmetics are, and those things that nobody ever looks at.
(0:03:10) Jonnie: It does not matter. So stop complaining, because for some of us, it’s a very fun event.
(0:03:15) Jonnie: Trying to get to five wins in a row is an actual challenge, and some of us like that.
(0:03:19) Jonnie: So if you are complaining about pocket camp, the problem is you, not the app, shut up,
(0:03:25) Jonnie: stop complaining. There, I’ve had my rant. I’ve felt like I’ve been holding this in all week,
(0:03:30) Jonnie: and I knew that I was going to get something on. I just need to get that out. I know I feel better,
(0:03:36) Jonnie: because I’ve told people that need to shut up to shut up.
(0:03:37) Codey: Yay, I’m so happy for you.
(0:03:43) Codey: I also still play that.
(0:03:44) Codey: I guess I didn’t put that on my list, but I do still play that every day.
(0:03:50) Codey: I just do the daily like basic stuff, but so like get the, open the two packs, get a,
(0:03:56) Codey: do a wonder thingy, all that to get my daily stuff.
(0:04:04) Codey: And I haven’t been doing the…
(0:04:07) Codey: The battles as much, but I did when I was doing the battles, I agree like they were actually challenging and…
(0:04:16) Codey: I mean they have as much luck as regular TCG games do, so…
(0:04:22) Codey: Such is life.
(0:04:23) Jonnie: And I think you hit on my favorite thing about Pokemon Pocket, which is you can play…
(0:04:31) Jonnie: It’s a fun game that you can play every day and complete the dailies in literally two minutes.
(0:04:32) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:04:37) Jonnie: Like, you do not have to do a battle.
(0:04:40) Jonnie: The way the whole thing is designed is one of the least predatory forms of the sort of game development that I’ve seen, right?
(0:04:49) Jonnie: It is not buying for your time, you know.
(0:04:53) Jonnie: I used to play Marvel Snap and the big reason that I fell off is it just felt like to get all of the stuff.
(0:05:00) Jonnie: You kind of had to be doing half an hour worth of battles a day as a minimum and it was just it was fighting for time.
(0:05:09) Jonnie: Pocket is not. It’s like we’re here for two minutes, open us, open a pack, get a little dopamine here and then close us.
(0:05:17) Jonnie: Or not. We don’t really mind if you want to play us. Play us. If you don’t want to play us, don’t.
(0:05:23) Jonnie: And like I find myself there are days where it’s like, yeah, I want to jump in and do some battles and I’ll spend half an hour playing some battles.
(0:05:30) Jonnie: And then there are other days I’m like, I’m not really like it’s it’s I’m just too busy and like I don’t have that.
(0:05:36) Jonnie: That it’s in my brain that says, but you got to do the dailies because I already did the dailies because they were super fast.
(0:05:42) Jonnie: So I’m a big fan of like the underlying design of of Pokemon.
(0:05:47) Codey: I definitely agree. I think that I really appreciate when games don’t punish you for
(0:05:53) Codey: having like a life happen where you’re just not able to play as much as even you might
(0:06:01) Codey: like. But you just have to dial it back a little bit and that’s okay. Yeah, so that’s,
(0:06:11) Codey: - I agree.
(0:06:13) Codey: What else have you been playing, or is that it?
(0:06:15) Jonnie: Yeah, I’ve kind of been in a weird, like weird it’s not the wrong word, it’s summer,
(0:06:20) Jonnie: I just haven’t been playing games, I’ve been outside.
(0:06:22) Codey: That’s fair. Man, I cannot relate. It is not somewhere. I’ve been getting into a really
(0:06:27) Jonnie: Yeah, because it’s not summer, so what have you been playing?
(0:06:34) Codey: good groove of doing my specimens because that deadline of having to graduate by October sure
(0:06:45) Codey: is looming. But I’ve been playing all day.
(0:06:52) Codey: Also, Pokemon TCG. Still playing Honey Grove, which is a really fun game that we’ve talked
(0:06:59) Codey: about on the podcast before. It is the only farming game that I’ve ever played for the
(0:07:04) Codey: podcast that I continue to play. And then I have a cross-stitch game on my phone that
(0:07:11) Codey: I just call my coloring game because you’re basically just coloring. And I do that with
(0:07:16) Codey: my grandma and I really enjoy it. And so that takes some of my brain power when I
(0:07:22) Codey: need to shut my brain off from science. And then the last one is a secret thing that might
(0:07:32) Codey: come up in a future episode. So listeners, continue to listen so that you can know what
(0:07:39) Codey: the secret game is.
(0:07:44) Jonnie: We made it five minutes into the episode before Cody promised something in the future, and
(0:07:50) Jonnie: Al’s not here today, so we’re going to get a lot of promises today.
(0:07:50) Codey: Yup. Yeah. 100%. I feel really confident about this promise though. So far. Yes. I have been
(0:07:53) Jonnie: So look forward to that, listeners.
(0:07:58) Jonnie: Great.
(0:07:59) Jonnie: Are you having fun with the secret thread?
(0:08:08) Codey: tempted to possibly invest money into the secret thing. There are ways to do so and it’s not
(0:08:17) Codey: expensive. Um, and so
(0:08:20) Codey: we will see if, uh, if I’m still playing it consistently, um, when next you hear me
(0:08:28) Codey: speak of it, then perhaps I will invest money. Uh, stay tuned for that, I guess. Um, yeah.
(0:08:40) Codey: So that is what we have been up to. Wow. Look at that. We’re only over like 10 minutes.
(0:08:48) Jonnie: Look it might be a shorter episode today. It’s January, you know
(0:08:51) Codey: » No, you said it, you said it, it’s not gonna be short now.
(0:08:57) Jonnie: There’s not much news
(0:09:01) Jonnie: Ah.
(0:09:02) Codey: I’m sure, I want more rants.
(0:09:04) Codey: You ranted a little bit in the beginning and I want more of that.
(0:09:07) Codey: Okay, so the next thing that we’re gonna talk about is all of our news.
(0:09:13) Codey: The first bit of news is Into the Emberlands has their 1.0 out now.
(0:09:21) Codey: This is the game that used to be called Wonderful.
(0:09:25) Codey: I have no memory of this game, but okay.
(0:09:29) Codey: And there is now a new village level and a new biome.
(0:09:34) Codey: There’s a golden skin for your character if you beat the game and get credits.
(0:09:39) Codey: And they say that there are three, quote unquote, epic end game items.
(0:09:45) Codey: They don’t really have photos of them or anything.
(0:09:47) Codey: so I cannot confirm the epic level.
(0:09:50) Codey: I think we’re at the end of this video so let me know what you think in the comments if you want to see more of these items but it’s intriguing.
(0:09:57) Codey: yeah it’s a fairly inexpensive game it’s like under seven dollars USD and it is 25% off on steam until February 3rd so you got a little bit of time if this is a game that you were interested in and waiting for 1.0 now is your chance to get it also a little cheaper.
(0:10:16) Jonnie: Yeah, and it looks, uh, no, but that’s I think partly because it’s sort of like, so, in case
(0:10:16) Codey: on your list at all?
(0:10:24) Jonnie: people don’t remember, this is the game where you’re going out and exploring something called
(0:10:28) Jonnie: the miasma to find like your people who have been lost and bringing back to a village that
(0:10:35) Jonnie: you are building up. And so the vibe is maybe a little bit more survival game slash RTS, and
(0:10:46) Jonnie: sort of like the way you build up a village. Like it’s that more sort of not quite top down style,
(0:10:53) Jonnie: you know, building connecting roads and quite a large village rather than something
(0:10:57) Jonnie: small and more intimate and based on your character. But it’s got a very cute art style,
(0:11:04) Jonnie: like it looks like a fun game. If what I said sounds like, you know, the sorts of things that
(0:11:11) Jonnie: that tickle your brain. I think this looks like a very fun thing. I might
(0:11:16) Jonnie: get the price. It seems like a little bit of a no brainer to try out.
(0:11:16) Codey: Yeah
(0:11:19) Codey: Yeah
(0:11:21) Codey: Cool the next one. I know you were excited about Johnny is
(0:11:26) Codey: tiny garden
(0:11:28) Codey: So this is what I’ve just been calling the Polly Pocket game
(0:11:34) Jonnie: Because it is the polyfucker K.
(0:11:35) Codey: And if you don’t if you don’t know what a Polly Pocket is I
(0:11:35) Jonnie: Yep, that’s that’s what we’ve all been calling.
(0:11:40) Codey: Will I refuse to explain it to you?
(0:11:43) Codey: I’m not that old
(0:11:46) Codey: You know what a Polly Pocket is
(0:11:48) Codey: Um
(0:11:50) Jonnie: I mean I don’t think that’s accurate but just in case anyone doesn’t know, in this game you’re
(0:11:56) Jonnie: building a farm inside a kind of like a locket right so it opens up and there is on the vertical
(0:12:03) Jonnie: part there is your house and on the horizontal part that’s where you can sort of build your farm.
(0:12:10) Jonnie: One of the features I guess is that there’s a crank that you turn which looks like I’m assuming
(0:12:17) Jonnie: turning the crank signifies
(0:12:20) Jonnie: the passing of time and that’s what causes crops to grow and those sorts of things and
(0:12:27) Jonnie: based on what they’re showing my assumption is the gameplay loop as you grow crops down the bottom
(0:12:32) Jonnie: to earn currency to then decorate up the top and one of the things that I like about this idea
(0:12:38) Jonnie: one is like a fun idea for a way to sort of constrain the space that you are building in
(0:12:44) Jonnie: but also the idea of like decorating your sort of vertical space in that sort of place.
(0:12:50) Jonnie: It’s like quite a cool and different way to decorate because you’re not decorating this much of a
(0:12:55) Jonnie: 3D house style space so it’s just a little bit of a different lens on that which looks cool and cute.
(0:13:00) Codey: Yeah, I agree, um, nope, yeah
(0:13:05) Jonnie: All right do we actually say the news? The news is that they’ve got a release date.
(0:13:10) Jonnie: It is coming to Steam on April 8th which is relatively soon so that is very exciting.
(0:13:18) Codey: Yeah. And they don’t have a price listed on Steam yet. But they do have a Discord. So if you’re
(0:13:31) Codey: interested, and you want to be like, kind of in the know of this kind of stuff, you can join their
(0:13:37) Codey: Discord and find and kind of have that information. How do you feel? Do you feel like you could,
(0:13:42) Jonnie: Brody, are we gonna promise an episode on tiny garden?
(0:13:47) Jonnie: Absolutely. I feel like I could promise that.
(0:13:48) Codey: promise that? Okay, Johnny will promise. Not all promises go, but they have to be vetted by me. All
(0:14:02) Codey: promises have to be vetted by me. So yes, I will let you promise to do an episode on this. Yeah.
(0:14:10) Codey: 100%. Yeah, it’s really cute. Next is Echoes of the Plum Grove.
(0:14:19) Codey: So this game is already out in a lot of versions, but the Switch version is now
(0:14:26) Codey: announced to be releasing on the 13th of February. And it will be 10% off until the 22nd of February.
(0:14:35) Codey: So I believe it’s a $20 game. And so you’ll be able to save a little bit of money if you order it
(0:14:42) Codey: ahead of time. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
(0:14:46) Jonnie: Nice. And because of the Plumb Grove is I don’t think we’ve covered it on the show, but I’m pretty sure Kat in the Slack was playing it and they were having a very good time with it so it’s one that sort of like bumped up on my list and I feel like it will be a good candidate for Switch because it’s got that.
(0:14:48) Codey: Not yet, Anna.
(0:15:06) Jonnie: The art style is very reminiscent of like a Paper Mario.
(0:15:12) Jonnie: And so I think that that like, I think the art style will work, the gameplay looks free.
(0:15:16) Jonnie: Relatively simple, I think it will be a really good candidate for like, playing on your Switch in handheld mode, in particular, so I think this is a good move.
(0:15:28) Jonnie: And let’s just hope that the game can actually run on the Switch, because I feel like that is now a concern for every Switch game that’s coming out in 2025.
(0:15:32) Codey: Yeah, so there is that. Next is Amber Isle. So this is actually pretty much the exact same news
(0:15:38) Jonnie: Not because of the developers to be clear, but because of where the Switch is at from a performance perspective.
(0:15:59) Codey: that they have a Switch version coming.
(0:16:02) Codey: Coming out on 13th of February, however, they also have a pre-order up until the release
(0:16:10) Codey: of 20% off, which is super interesting and cool.
(0:16:15) Codey: Again, this is another one that I didn’t remember, so just reminding folks, this is a dino-centric
(0:16:24) Codey: shop management sim, so everyone is like a dinosaur.
(0:16:30) Codey: so you can befriend up to 48.
(0:16:32) Codey: You create what they call paleo folk, and you decorate and rebuild the island.
(0:16:39) Codey: So looks like dinosaurs might be this year’s hot thing or this time period’s hot thing
(0:16:47) Codey: because we’re getting a lot of dino games.
(0:16:50) Jonnie: I feel like we are, but I don’t feel like dinosaurs are that popular right now.
(0:16:56) Codey: I mean, they, the demand must be there. It, it must.
(0:16:59) Jonnie: Mustard.
(0:17:01) Jonnie: I feel like indie video games are much more based around what the creator wanted to make and then what the market is demanding.
(0:17:07) Codey: That’s, that’s still a form of demand. It’s just a different form of demand.
(0:17:14) Jonnie: Demand of one.
(0:17:15) Codey: Yeah, a single, single demand. Um, I mean, that’s a pretty good strategy though,
(0:17:21) Codey: because most people, if at least one person wants it, they’re going to be more people
(0:17:26) Codey: than you.
(0:17:26) Jonnie: No, that is not it. That is, in fact, not a good strategy.
(0:17:29) Jonnie: And you have just hit on, like, what I do for a day job.
(0:17:31) Jonnie: And this is the problem that most people make.
(0:17:33) Jonnie: They’re like, I’m going to build the thing that I want.
(0:17:34) Jonnie: And then they are shocked that nobody else wants that thing.
(0:17:36) Codey: Oh no. Oh no. That’s so unfortunate.
(0:17:40) Codey: Um, well I’m sure that some of our hosts are super excited about this because they love dinosaurs, so.
(0:17:50) Codey: Big shout out.
(0:17:54) Codey: Um, next is OVA Magica. So I want to note here that Al said that the .8 update was out now, but it is actually the .805.
(0:18:06) Codey: So there’s, it’s different. So they say that if you’re update your game, make sure that it’s version 0.805.
(0:18:14) Codey: So, um, this version adds a couple of different things. One of them is the blob temple, which is a new world in which there will be some new blobs like the tiger blob, red panda blob, peacock, the panda, that kind of stuff.
(0:18:32) Codey: kind of stuff. It’s a really pretty area.
(0:18:36) Codey: Um, looked really beautiful. They also add the greenhouse, um, where you can grow things
(0:18:42) Codey: across, all across the year. There’s the cave behind the waterfall and I, there’s like a
(0:18:48) Codey: boss blob in here that looks kind of horrifying. Did you see it, Johnny? So it looks like it has,
(0:18:56) Codey: it’s like a scorpion’s tail, but it has ram’s horns. It just looks like a, like I was like,
(0:19:02) Codey: Like it’s a double blob basically, but then the more you look at it
(0:19:06) Codey: the more like as scary as a a blob could be as a little– he is angy, you are right.
(0:19:11) Jonnie: He just looks a little angry.
(0:19:18) Codey: I guess I’m just like thinking about how it would move and that’s where some of my horror comes from.
(0:19:25) Codey: But I’m sure it’s probably adorable in actual movement. There is also the blob paradise which
(0:19:32) Codey: which is basically just an agility course and I am here for it.
(0:19:36) Codey: I want to see kind of like Westminster version, like blob championships where your blobs run the agility courses as fast as they can and may the fastest blob win.
(0:19:51) Codey: I cannot wait to. I’m sure that my dog’s ideal idea of parenthesis and agility course when I was doing training with Stella.
(0:19:52) Jonnie: Is your idea of paradise an agility course?
(0:20:06) Codey: She had they had an agility course like at the place and she they only had some of the some of the some of the stuff set up though, but she loved it.
(0:20:16) Codey: Like the second that she knows that she’s supposed to be like working for something, she is just so engaged and she has so much fun and so I could just see her having the best of times and anything that makes my dog happy makes me happy.
(0:20:33) Codey: So yeah, it probably could be considered.
(0:20:36) Codey: My paradise they have other small improvements and bug fixes in the point
(0:20:44) Codey: eight zero five update and they say that the point nine update will have more
(0:20:51) Codey: heart events and another world that is currently redacted in the show note in
(0:20:56) Codey: their not show notes but in their roadmap. So have you played this yet?
(0:21:04) Jonnie: No, and I don’t think I will
(0:21:06) Codey: Okay I every time I see it I’m like oh yeah this game I want to play it and
(0:21:06) Jonnie: Isn’t.
(0:21:10) Codey: then the world turns and time moves on but because it looks really
(0:21:18) Jonnie: Yeah, to me this game sort of like sits in the realm where it kind of feels like it’s, you know, like it’s a bit Pokemon, it’s a bit Stardew Valley, but I’m not sure what it is, you know, because it’s like, yeah, it’s like, I just, to me this game lacks the thing that makes like the thing that gets me excited is when I look at a game and I’m like,
(0:21:30) Codey: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
(0:21:40) Jonnie: Oh, like I can see what you’re going for here like I can see what is different and like I think the next game that we’ll talk about is
(0:21:48) Jonnie: a really good example of of one of those. And this one is kind of just like, I like Pokemon and I like Stardew and his game that’s Pokemon Stardew, which is like, sure, fine, but I can play Pokemon and I can play Stardew. Why do I want to play this? And I’m not sure why I want to play this.
(0:22:04) Codey: But it’s poke but it’s Pokemon and Stardew as blobs as little little guys
(0:22:10) Jonnie: Yeah, like, I don’t know, cute stuff is like Daimedos in these days.
(0:22:15) Codey: I
(0:22:17) Codey: There is no end to the amount of dopamine that I need and serotonin that I need in this world right now
(0:22:25) Codey: You don’t live in the political climate that I live I
(0:22:30) Codey: crave a grave distraction
(0:22:32) Codey: Um…
(0:22:35) Codey: Yeah, so you said you’re you really interested in this next game
(0:22:40) Jonnie: And like actually I’m not, so Alan and I, the next game is Overthrowing, and Alan and
(0:22:45) Jonnie: I covered it on the demo episode where Alan played Overthrowing, and I played Luma Island.
(0:22:56) Jonnie: And so Overthrowing is the sort of, I call it Minecraft adjacent game where you are basically
(0:23:04) Jonnie: throwing stuff.
(0:23:05) Jonnie: So you can go and cut down trees, or you can just throw the sawmill at the trees, and that
(0:23:10) Jonnie: you can cut down the trees, which is a fun concept.
(0:23:13) Jonnie: I think the game looks like it’s like a fun concept, but they kind of ran out of ideas
(0:23:18) Jonnie: after that.
(0:23:19) Jonnie: But at least they’re very clear about what they are, right?
(0:23:21) Jonnie: They are trying to be silly and fun and have weird interactions and all of those sorts
(0:23:26) Jonnie: of things.
(0:23:27) Jonnie: And to that, they have a relatively big update that is coming on the 30th of January, which
(0:23:34) Jonnie: is the livestock update.
(0:23:37) Jonnie: introduces a farmable creature.
(0:23:40) Jonnie: It’s the Woolly, which I guess is a sheep, it introduces fire and mortars, so it just
(0:23:50) Jonnie: gives you fire bombs, and it says they can be used against structures, so I guess it’s
(0:23:57) Jonnie: the chaos thing where you can just fire bomb your own buildings. Yes, you can.
(0:24:02) Codey: Well, I think it’s up to six.
(0:24:05) Codey: You can have up to six people on a server, I think is what it’s going for.
(0:24:10) Codey: So you’d firebomb your friends’ buildings.
(0:24:10) Jonnie: That makes way more sense.
(0:24:17) Codey: That’s part of the fun, in Minecraft also, is watching your friend build this awesome
(0:24:22) Codey: thing and then accidentally having a creeper blow it up.
(0:24:26) Jonnie: And then there’s some new buildings as well, and most of the new buildings just sound like they’re there to support the fire bombs in the Woolies.
(0:24:37) Codey: Yeah. Um, I love that with the Woolies, it says that they have a barn quote for when they are not
(0:24:46) Codey: in their gigantic evil mutated forms, cause causing devastating damage to everyone around.
(0:24:54) Codey: I just, I love the, the way that the developers talk in this, um, like release or news, um,
(0:25:03) Codey: like steam update because it just there they have
(0:25:07) Codey: fun with the game and I can tell. Yeah.
(0:25:09) Jonnie: Yeah, and like they’ve got such a clear vision for this game like it really comes through even in the communications right and like for me that was the difference between something like overthrow on and.
(0:25:20) Codey: Yeah, when I think that like, I loved when I was watching the it just looks ridiculous like when I was watching the thing and I was like they literally just threw a sawmill at the tree. Like, I want to use this sawmill or I want to like have you can either throw the tree at the sawmill or throw the sawmill at the tree and I’m like, what just throw the whole building at it.
(0:25:42) Jonnie: Yep. It’s… yeah.
(0:25:44) Codey: It’s goofy, but awesome.
(0:25:50) Codey: The other, they have some other small things in this update, but they say that the next update in quote unquote spring 2025 we’ll see. It’s called the parks update, and it will add some new plants and new decorations, as well as the mechanism of pollution.
(0:26:08) Codey: So excited to out pollute my friends in a video game, not in real life.
(0:26:14) Codey: Make sure to recycle kids. And then the last thing that
(0:26:20) Codey: we have here is a game called grandpa’s farm. So this is a little different than normal. It’s not a video game. It’s a tabletop role playing game. It’s only $7 USD, which is pretty awesome.
(0:26:36) Codey: And I just have some blurbs I was trying to figure out how to summarize it and I was like they just say it on their words on their on their page anyway so I’m just going to read this quote grandpa’s farm is a letter writing role playing game inspired by slow life video games like harvest moon Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley.
(0:26:50) Codey: In grandpa’s farm you’ve inherited a long neglected farmstead and are about to spend the next four years of your life getting it up and running again. Each turn, you’ll draw from a deck of playing cards and interpret card values to determine the progress made on your farm over the course of a single season.
(0:27:06) Codey: With that progress in mind you’ll then chronicle your revitalization efforts by writing a letter to a loved one.
(0:27:12) Codey: Optional mechanics are also included that allow you to alter your deck by trading or competing at festivals. Removing cars will make certain kinds of progress.
(0:27:20) Codey: It’s more likely and festivals can be role played either alone or with fellow players.
(0:27:26) Codey: I think this is a really cool concept.
(0:27:30) Codey: I’m also big on games that you can play alone.
(0:27:34) Codey: One of the games that I got when I went to Pax Unplugged was a game called Dog Park, where you literally just take dogs to a dog park.
(0:27:42) Codey: And one of the reasons I like it so much is because you can play a single player version. It just kind of adds to random NPC characters.
(0:27:50) Codey: I like the concept of writing a letter. I think there’s a lot of new stuff happening in this.
(0:28:00) Jonnie: Me too. Yeah, I’m a big fan of tabletop games, like particularly like the sort of game which is,
(0:28:09) Jonnie: you know, pen and paper based, it’s like very accessible. And like you, I think games that
(0:28:17) Jonnie: have a one player mode are really good, particularly in this day and age, where like,
(0:28:24) Jonnie: you know, sometimes it’s just hard for calendars to line up and to see people and to have something
(0:28:30) Jonnie: to do is great. And I think like you, the idea of writing a letter as sort of the point of the game
(0:28:39) Jonnie: is a really cool idea. It’s a really great way to sort of tell the story of what’s happened,
(0:28:46) Jonnie: you know, because a lot of these sort of tabletop RPG games, like that’s what you’re doing is
(0:28:50) Jonnie: telling a story. And it’s very on theme for, you know, Stardew-like inspired games.
(0:29:00) Jonnie: To, you know, kind of capture that story in something like litter.
(0:29:05) Codey: Yeah, um, I mean, I’m definitely intrigued and I might get it since it’s so inexpensive.
(0:29:12) Codey: Um, I don’t know how we would have podcast upset about it, but I guess I could, like, if we have an
(0:29:19) Codey: episode where we just kind of cover a smattering of things, I could mention it in that episode.
(0:29:23) Codey: But, um, I am interested, especially it’s only $7.
(0:29:29) Codey: They basically just, the $7 gives you access to the PDF, um, of the game.
(0:29:35) Codey: Like how to play the game and stuff.
(0:29:37) Codey: Um, but that’s just really accessible and I appreciate, um, access to their creativity.
(0:29:46) Codey: So pretty cool.
(0:29:48) Jonnie: Very cool
(0:29:48) Codey: Have you ever played any, do you play TTRPGs much?
(0:29:51) Jonnie: I used to I haven’t played so much like the last few years, but yeah, I used I used to play them quite
(0:29:55) Codey: Okay.
(0:29:58) Codey: Okay.
(0:29:59) Codey: I’m getting more into that kind of stuff.
(0:30:02) Codey: Um, and Jeff is actually from.
(0:30:05) Codey: When we went to packs, he saw this like table, um, like a coffee table
(0:30:12) Codey: and a card table, like thing.
(0:30:15) Codey: And now he really wants to get one where it’s, it looks like a normal
(0:30:19) Codey: like coffee table, for example, but then you can take off like the top level
(0:30:23) Codey: of it and there’s a felt table under that for like puzzles or games or something.
(0:30:28) Codey: These tables are like two grand, but he’s like, it’ll be worth it.
(0:30:31) Codey: Like, okay, whatever.
(0:30:32) Jonnie: It will 100% be worth it. Let’s take
(0:30:35) Codey: And I think it’s just like, it inspires more of that type of gameplay and stuff.
(0:30:41) Codey: And I mean, we want to get more into it.
(0:30:43) Codey: It’s just really fun to do together.
(0:30:45) Codey: So, uh, yeah, maybe when I, when we get into that, uh, this, this game
(0:30:51) Codey: will make its debut in my home.
(0:30:55) Codey: So cool.
(0:30:56) Codey: Well, that is the news we really did.
(0:30:59) Codey: We are, we really are flying through things.
(0:31:05) Codey: - We could go slower.
(0:31:08) Jonnie: Look, let’s not, you know, berate our listeners by talking about things that we have nothing to say, and just, you know…
(0:31:15) Codey: It’s true.
(0:31:17) Jonnie: I know we could do that, but let’s not do that to them.
(0:31:22) Codey: I’m just in like shocks.
(0:31:24) Codey: ‘Cause normally we’re like,
(0:31:25) Codey: oh, this will be a fast episode.
(0:31:26) Codey: And then we’re like, it’s 1 a.m.
(0:31:29) Codey: It’s an over-exaggeration,
(0:31:30) Codey: but that’s how it feels sometimes.
(0:31:33) Codey: Yeah, so that’s all the news.
(0:31:36) Codey: So we’ve come to our main topic,
(0:31:38) Codey: which is Animal Crossing Pocket Camp complete.
(0:31:40) Codey: So again, just a reminder,
(0:31:42) Codey: this is something I have not played,
(0:31:44) Codey: but Johnny has been playing.
(0:31:46) Jonnie: But you have played, because you’ve played Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.
(0:31:50) Codey: I’ve played the, yeah, that version.
(0:31:53) Codey: I guess that was one of my questions.
(0:31:54) Jonnie: It’s the same game.
(0:31:55) Codey: Okay, that was one of my questions for you,
(0:31:58) Codey: is what’s the difference?
(0:32:00) Codey: Like why, if you’ve played the first one,
(0:32:04) Codey: Like the, not the.
(0:32:05) Codey: The first one, but if you’ve played the non-complete version, what is there in this that could bring you back or like that’s novel?
(0:32:15) Jonnie: Ernie, have you not been listening to the news
(0:32:17) Jonnie: on our own show?
(0:32:18) Codey: I have, but other people might not have listened to every episode.
(0:32:24) Jonnie: Good save, good save.
(0:32:27) Codey: We need to, uh, yeah. For people who might not have been listening, cough, cough, totally not me.
(0:32:35) Codey: What’s different about this and is it worth it if you’ve played the other but didn’t, haven’t played this?
(0:32:41) Jonnie: So they shut down the Animal Crossing pocket camp in December, or maybe it was the end of November last year.
(0:32:53) Jonnie: Basically to remove the online functionality, and they have released Pocket Camp Complete as a one-time purchase.
(0:33:04) Jonnie: It has all of the stuff in it from the mobile game, so it’s basically just the original version.
(0:33:11) Jonnie: The original version, with all of the stuff in offline mode, that’s what the game is.
(0:33:19) Jonnie: The answer to the question of “Is it worth it?” First of all, you can transfer your save.
(0:33:25) Codey: Okay. That was another question.
(0:33:27) Jonnie: You can bring over your old save. Whether or not it’s worth it is “Why did you stop playing? Did you stop playing?”
(0:33:33) Jonnie: Because you’ve got sick of the way microtransaction-based games work. In which case, yeah, this is a really good way to come back.
(0:33:41) Jonnie: Because there’s no microtransactions. If you stopped playing it because you were bored of the game, then probably not, because it’s just the same game.
(0:33:52) Codey: okay is it um is it only on the phones okay um yeah I just wasn’t sure if they’ve like added
(0:33:58) Jonnie: I assume so.
(0:34:06) Codey: um other ways to play or not
(0:34:10) Jonnie: I don’t believe so. And so maybe a good place to start is to talk about what I think and I haven’t I hadn’t played pocket camp in like, many years I played it the year it came out and had not played it since. So some of this might be slightly wrong.
(0:34:28) Jonnie: But as I said, there’s only really two main differences in this version to the to the original and the first is in
(0:34:40) Jonnie: there’s the the query. And usually to access the query, you had to have friends, and you would talk to those friends and they would help you out at the query and it was very driven by online communication.
(0:34:54) Jonnie: The difference now is that you can still have friends, but you have to exchange
(0:35:00) Jonnie: QR codes in order to get them in. And once they’re in, they’re in for forever, which is quite nice. And if you
(0:35:10) Jonnie: have any other people that are playing the game, the really nice thing is on the website for the game, they have a bunch of QR codes that you can just load in and get plenty of friends that way.
(0:35:22) Jonnie: So there is no need to know anyone else that is playing the game. You can literally just get all of the get all of the stuff from Nintendo. But that’s just removing kind of the main online feature from the game.
(0:35:37) Jonnie: The second is in sort of like the events.
(0:35:40) Jonnie: And I think what they’ve done in Pocket Camp, which makes a ton of sense, is the events are just way easier because they’re not trying to, you know, encourage you to, you know, to spend money on microtransactions to complete stuff.
(0:35:57) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:35:59) Jonnie: I find you here, like, for most of the events, you get way too many of the resource like that you need.
(0:36:07) Jonnie: So at the moment there’s an event going on where you have to like pick.
(0:36:10) Jonnie: They pick up snow globes and they are just a currency for crafting certain furniture items.
(0:36:16) Jonnie: And I think like within two days I had enough to craft everything in the event once for like a week.
(0:36:22) Jonnie: So I could craft lots of the stuff if I wanted to, which is really nice.
(0:36:28) Jonnie: So the events I think are a lot easier than they were in the original game.
(0:36:34) Codey: Well that’s also nice that they give you like enough time to be able to get things done because
(0:36:41) Codey: kind of going back to our earlier conversation like if you are only able to like check in for
(0:36:48) Codey: a day or two of the week because your week is really busy or you have a life or it’s summer,
(0:36:59) Codey: being able to just kind of play at a minimal level but still
(0:37:03) Codey: not feel like you’re missing any.
(0:37:04) Codey: Anything is really beneficial.
(0:37:06) Codey: Oh, okay.
(0:37:06) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t know. This game is that good in that regard because the core gameplay loop is still the same
(0:37:14) Jonnie: And maybe we should just cover that very briefly because people may have forgotten
(0:37:19) Jonnie: But but essentially the game works on what I would say a three-hour timer where every three hours
(0:37:25) Jonnie: New villages show up at the various regions around the game. There are four regions
(0:37:32) Jonnie: and an Animal Crossing style. Each of the retunes has a different resource. There’s one that
(0:37:36) Jonnie: has fruit, one that has river fish, one that has ocean fish, and one that has bugs. Those
(0:37:42) Jonnie: villagers ask for some combination of those things in order to fulfill requests, and it makes them
(0:37:49) Jonnie: like you more. And then liking you more gives you crafting materials for furniture. It also enables
(0:37:58) Jonnie: you to invite them to your campsite, which is a fifth location where you can kind of design and
(0:38:03) Jonnie: place your furniture.
(0:38:06) Jonnie: And there are special missions like each villager has its own unique piece of furniture and if you get the friendship level high enough, they’ll teach you to make it and then ask you to craft one for them.
(0:38:21) Jonnie: And so there’s a lot of stuff in this game that is driven by timers and so it does have more of a
(0:38:30) Jonnie: “Oh I need to check in because I don’t want to miss out on that” where I want to get the literature level up.
(0:38:37) Jonnie: Or my furniture has finished crafting because that’s also on timers or there’s there’s daily missions.
(0:38:44) Jonnie: So there is a lot more stuff to do on this game on a regular cadence and I still find it a little bit to play.
(0:38:54) Codey: Okay, womp womp, I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt.
(0:38:58) Jonnie: No, I mean it’s like at its core it’s still the same mobile game that it was and it was very
(0:39:04) Jonnie: clearly a bit of behaviour that I’m trying to drive and it’s still very much there. It’s just
(0:39:10) Jonnie: for things that I think were more microtransaction heavy. They are now, they’ve just made those
(0:39:17) Jonnie: things more generous I guess, which makes sense because you can’t buy your way out of that anymore
(0:39:22) Codey: Yeah, well, but that’s also nice that because I feel like, especially if you do have that,
(0:39:35) Codey: if they still have that like FOMO, like you got to get things, make sure you don’t miss
(0:39:40) Codey: a certain thing or whatever, like that is gonna make people want to just spend money.
(0:39:47) Codey: And that’s not, I mean, it’s a great business strategy, but it doesn’t.
(0:39:52) Codey: make a good game, like it makes it, you can make it really stressful to play a game.
(0:39:57) Codey: So in my opinion.
(0:40:01) Codey: Um, okay.
(0:40:03) Codey: So the questions that I had, uh, how is it different?
(0:40:07) Codey: Answered.
(0:40:08) Codey: Can you bring over your old safe answered?
(0:40:10) Codey: Um, do you have to pay?
(0:40:12) Codey: You said, yes.
(0:40:13) Codey: What is it?
(0:40:14) Codey: How much does it cost?
(0:40:15) Jonnie: So I know it was first coming out, and I can’t remember when it ends, but it was
(0:40:22) Jonnie: $10 when it initially came out, and then if you waited too long it was $20. And I can’t remember
(0:40:29) Jonnie: if it changed to $20 at the start of 2025, or if you had until the end of January. It was one of
(0:40:36) Jonnie: those two, but now I cannot have to try and look that up and find out. Yeah.
(0:40:42) Codey: So it’s on the phone, right?
(0:40:45) Codey: Let me look it up.
(0:40:46) Codey: And if it is still money, or I guess it’ll tell me how much money it is.
(0:40:52) Codey: Animal Crossing.
(0:40:54) Codey: It is $9.99 still.
(0:40:56) Jonnie: I feel like that runs out. Oh, when does this episode come out? If you’re listening to this
(0:41:02) Jonnie: episode, when it comes out and you are interested in playing Animal Crossing Boca Camp, like,
(0:41:08) Jonnie: go and buy it immediately, otherwise you will have to pay the idiot tax of an additional $10
(0:41:15) Codey: literally just going to do it now, even if I don’t necessarily want to play right now.
(0:41:21) Codey: I feel like I’m going to want to play eventually, so purchased.
(0:41:24) Jonnie: And that’s exactly the like if you think that this is a thing that you will play at some point like by it now
(0:41:31) Codey: Yeah
(0:41:33) Codey: done
(0:41:35) Codey: So we must friend each other so that we can can you give stuff to people other people or is it just a solo game now
(0:41:41) Jonnie: It’s just a solo game, but we can still exchange the Friend QR code,
(0:41:46) Jonnie: so you can see me at Windy Pass and ask if I want to help you in the query.
(0:41:51) Jonnie: But there is no online communication aspect to this game anymore.
(0:41:56) Codey: » Okay. Cool.
(0:42:00) Jonnie: So now that the game’s out, the main thing to do, I guess,
(0:42:04) Jonnie: is to try and collect everything, right?
(0:42:07) Jonnie: You kind of get a sense for how much stuff is.
(0:42:11) Jonnie: This is in this game, because it was out for a very long time.
(0:42:16) Jonnie: And sorry, I’ve got it open. I’m just trying to navigate to the right screen.
(0:42:19) Jonnie: There’s like a screen where you’ve got all of the, they call it the complete item catalog.
(0:42:24) Jonnie: So one of the new currencies they added was a complete ticket.
(0:42:27) Jonnie: And you can just exchange that one of those tickets for a piece of like sort of specialty furniture.
(0:42:37) Jonnie: And there is a long list of all of the different categories.
(0:42:41) Jonnie: And there’s one that I was looking for because the whole time I’ve been talking, I’ve been scrolling down this list of stuff.
(0:42:50) Codey: Oh, no.
(0:42:51) Jonnie: And when I say scrolling down the list, this is not the list of furniture.
(0:42:56) Jonnie: This is the list of categories of furniture to go into.
(0:42:58) Codey: Oh my gosh!
(0:43:01) Jonnie: So I don’t know exactly how many items of furniture there are.
(0:43:06) Jonnie: like most of these things that I’m scrolling past have probably about 10, like…
(0:43:11) Jonnie: There was one that was 620 items. There was one that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen somewhere.
(0:43:23) Jonnie: It’s over a thousand. So there is a lot of furniture too. Oh yeah, there’s the
(0:43:28) Jonnie: preview and collection which is almost 2,000 items of furniture. Now you can acquire most of this
(0:43:36) Jonnie: through other methods. So a lot of it’s timed.
(0:43:41) Jonnie: A lot of it’s the event furniture, right? So you will get it as you sort of do events and progress
(0:43:50) Jonnie: through the game. But just as sort of an idea of how much there is to collect,
(0:43:57) Jonnie: that’s from the seasonal events. And then you’ve got fortune cookies, which is
(0:44:02) Jonnie: an entirely separate set of huge amounts of furniture to collect. So it’s just a huge,
(0:44:09) Jonnie: Huge, huge, huge, huge.
(0:44:11) Jonnie: Huge, huge collectathon. That’s what this game is.
(0:44:13) Codey: Uh, I mean, are they going to be adding new stuff to it or is it like, this is it now?
(0:44:18) Jonnie: No, no, no, no, no. This is the we’re done with the game. We’re shutting down the servers.
(0:44:20) Codey: Okay.
(0:44:24) Jonnie: Here’s the full game. Play it, don’t play it, whatever. Like, for me, this is like, I think
(0:44:29) Jonnie: Alan, I talked about this before, but this is a really good way to wrap up a mobile game, right?
(0:44:34) Jonnie: Where it’s like, if you still love this game, here is the way, here is a nice way to access all of
(0:44:39) Jonnie: the content when I’m…
(0:44:41) Jonnie: adding anything more. It’s super clear. This is the game. It is what it is. Go for it.
(0:44:45) Codey: Yeah, I like that actually, and it can just kind of join all the other Animal Crossing
(0:44:53) Codey: games in the bin, not the bin, but in the recesses of some storage somewhere for me,
(0:45:00) Codey: but we’ll see if I play it.
(0:45:00) Jonnie: I believe they said when they brought this out that the game is on a four-year cycle.
(0:45:08) Jonnie: If you start playing this game and you want to try and get everything, I imagine you would
(0:45:18) Jonnie: be able to get everything before four years because of the way the currencies are designed.
(0:45:24) Jonnie: But if you were going to get everything, let’s say naturally, through playing the events
(0:45:27) Codey: Yeah, well worth 10 bucks.
(0:45:29) Jonnie: and doing everything like that I believe
(0:45:30) Jonnie: it would take you four years
(0:45:34) Jonnie: yes um maybe I’ll just talk a little bit about sort of the
(0:45:38) Jonnie: events because like so so we talked about the core gameplay loop which is
(0:45:42) Jonnie: about giving
(0:45:45) Jonnie: fulfilling villager requests um so I’ve played for two months now and it seems
(0:45:49) Jonnie: like the events follow the same cycle month to month which I
(0:45:54) Jonnie: will admit is a bit disappointing and I’ll get the
(0:45:57) Jonnie: order slightly wrong but but for all the speaking there is a
(0:46:01) Jonnie: flower growing event where you grow flowers the flowers attract a
(0:46:04) Jonnie: specialty bug you catch the bugs and you get rewards for
(0:46:08) Jonnie: catching the bugs um so that was about flower growing
(0:46:12) Jonnie: there is an event that’s about uh fishing in the sea
(0:46:16) Jonnie: so uh special fish show up in the sea they sparkle they refresh every three
(0:46:22) Jonnie: hours you catch them um and then you give them
(0:46:25) Jonnie: to uh chip is that is that what that guy’s
(0:46:29) Jonnie: names. Anyway.
(0:46:30) Jonnie: You give it to the beaver that likes fish. And you get rewards for doing that. There
(0:46:36) Jonnie: is a bug event where a special bug shows up on the bug island, you catch them. And again,
(0:46:43) Jonnie: you get rewards for that. There’s like some sort of, you know, an item is dropping on
(0:46:49) Jonnie: the ground where you run around and pick them up. And you can use those to craft a piece
(0:46:56) Jonnie: of furniture and I feel like there was a fourth event - oh!
(0:47:00) Jonnie: But the last event is there’s the, so one of the spaces is like a home designer
(0:47:07) Jonnie: minigame where you, you know, someone will have a partially completed room and you have to finish
(0:47:13) Jonnie: the room so each month there will be a certain number of specialty rooms that you can do and
(0:47:20) Jonnie: I think that rewards you mostly with, you know, some of the rare crafting resources that you need
(0:47:24) Jonnie: for something else and I kind of wish there was more variation to the events because like…
(0:47:31) Jonnie: doing it month one I was like oh these are cool like these were you know interesting events you
(0:47:34) Jonnie: know mixed up the the core gameplay enough and then once I worked out that month two was basically
(0:47:39) Jonnie: the same events on the same loop I was like oh like this is this is this is all of a sudden become
(0:47:44) Jonnie: a lot less interesting and I feel like I’m probably going to bounce off this pretty
(0:47:45) Codey: Yeah
(0:47:49) Codey: Yeah
(0:47:51) Codey: But is it’s compelling enough to try and stick it out at least to
(0:47:56) Codey: begin the process of
(0:47:58) Codey: like
(0:48:00) Codey: Completing your your desk your decks not decks, but I guess it is your decks your your furniture decks or whatever like
(0:48:07) Jonnie: Yeah, like, I don’t think so. And I think the reason for that is there’s too much,
(0:48:08) Codey: Are you gonna keep playing it still? Oh
(0:48:10) Codey: Oh.
(0:48:16) Jonnie: right? Like, it’s so much to complete that completing it actually does not feel like
(0:48:23) Jonnie: something that I want to do. It’s like, and they’re very generous with the currencies
(0:48:24) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:48:29) Jonnie: in this game. Like, I feel like completing it would be possible. It just takes a lot of time
(0:48:38) Jonnie: and I don’t know that I really want to spend that much time playing this game. I feel like it might
(0:48:44) Jonnie: be the sort of thing where like, I’ll get a bitch every couple of months and maybe jump in and play
(0:48:48) Jonnie: for a month and sort of complete what there is that month. And so maybe over the course of 20
(0:48:53) Jonnie: years, I will finish this game. But do I want to have it as something that I play daily? I honestly
(0:49:00) Jonnie: do not think that I do. Like, it was really fun for the first month. And I think in particular,
(0:49:06) Jonnie: the first month. It’s fun.
(0:49:07) Jonnie: because you’re meeting tons of new villages, you’re leveling up really quickly. You’re just
(0:49:14) Jonnie: kind of unlocking tons of stuff and that feels really good. And then once you kind of come out
(0:49:21) Jonnie: of that and into, okay, this is what the loop is going to be for the next year or so, I think
(0:49:27) Jonnie: that’s when I’ve sort of bounced off. So when you start up, Isabel has sort of like a series of
(0:49:33) Jonnie: missions to kind of guide you on the sort of things you should be doing. I think they’ve really
(0:49:37) Jonnie: well-structured as an onboarding mechanic because it forces you to interact with all of
(0:49:42) Jonnie: the different bits and like at the start when you’re sort of learning stuff and quite overwhelmed,
(0:49:48) Jonnie: you know, like there were certain things that I didn’t really focus on and it’s because like
(0:49:52) Jonnie: actually you don’t need to focus on them until a little bit later. And now that I’ve seen all
(0:49:58) Jonnie: of that stuff and I’ve completed all of her missions, I’m just like I think I now that I
(0:50:04) Jonnie: understand what this game is and how it works and there are
(0:50:08) Jonnie: I’m not sure that I want to put in the time. The one thing I
(0:50:15) Jonnie: will say is, I feel like decorating your camp is way
(0:50:22) Jonnie: cooler than I expected it to be. So, you know, you decorate your
(0:50:27) Jonnie: camp and put down items, but a lot of the items because like,
(0:50:31) Jonnie: I find that like, what I’ve done is like, you know, last month
(0:50:34) Jonnie: was a lot of Christmasy items, so I’ll put down those items.
(0:50:37) Jonnie: This month is very focused on the Lunar New Year. So a lot of
(0:50:41) Jonnie: items that are reflective of that. And when you put down a
(0:50:45) Jonnie: lot of like the cool big items, the villagers that are visiting
(0:50:48) Jonnie: your camp like can interact with them. So one of the things
(0:50:52) Jonnie: that I have in my camp at the moment is a dragon, kind of like
(0:50:58) Jonnie: the traditional Chinese dragon costume, like sort of style that
(0:51:02) Jonnie: you would see, and the villagers will sit on it. Is that culturally
(0:51:02) Codey: Mm-hmm.
(0:51:04) Codey: Thank you.
(0:51:07) Jonnie: I don’t know, but they’re at least interacting with the
(0:51:09) Jonnie: furniture that that you’re putting down, not just sort of
(0:51:12) Jonnie: awkwardly standing next to it, which is a really, really cool
(0:51:17) Jonnie: thing to see and it makes it more fun to sort of visit the
(0:51:19) Jonnie: camp and see who’s visiting.
(0:51:20) Codey: Yeah. I agree. Like interaction is important with like different pieces of the landscape
(0:51:28) Codey: that you put down and stuff. I think that was one of the, my favorite things of the initial ones
(0:51:35) Codey: was having people come over to your house and then see them like sit in chairs and stuff.
(0:51:42) Codey: I remember like trying to lure Blue Bear to a chair because I just want, I thought she’d be
(0:51:48) Codey: That would be so cute, sitting in this one chair.
(0:51:51) Codey: I wanted to see it, and she just kept looking at me like,
(0:51:55) Codey: can you leave me alone, please?
(0:51:57) Codey: Please just sit in the chair.
(0:52:01) Codey: Are all of the villagers from all of the games in this game?
(0:52:04) Jonnie: I’m going to say there are so many villages in this game, it’s crazy.
(0:52:11) Jonnie: I think there’s 360 different villages.
(0:52:18) Jonnie: Even collecting all of them is an ordeal.
(0:52:24) Jonnie: To get all the furniture, you need to first of all get all the villages and then you need
(0:52:27) Jonnie: to get them all to whatever level they need to be at in order to share with you their
(0:52:35) Jonnie: secret bit of furniture.
(0:52:38) Jonnie: There is a lot to unlock, you’ll never be wanting for stuff to do in this game.
(0:52:46) Codey: Good worth the money then even if even if you’re not gonna even if you might fall off
(0:52:46) Jonnie: There is so much.
(0:52:54) Codey: every now and then like it’s and I feel like that’s how Animal Crossing is like to me it’s
(0:52:59) Codey: a spring game I always played it in the spring it was just always something that springtime
(0:53:06) Codey: would come and I’d be like it’s Animal Crossing season baby.
(0:53:10) Jonnie: Yeah. Yeah, and I think this is in a very similar vibe where it’s like the sort of thing that you could just come back to and make some progress towards, you know, what you what whatever your next goal is, and, you know, feel satisfied with that.
(0:53:28) Jonnie: You know, it’s, I will say the one difference like if you haven’t played it, and you like animal crossing experience. The one thing I feel like it doesn’t really replicate particularly well is the collecting of fish and fish.
(0:53:40) Jonnie: And bugs, you know, where you’re like, Oh, I really want to go and hunt for this one because I’m missing it. You kind of just end up with all of them. There’s no there’s no museum.
(0:53:52) Jonnie: You know, because it’s a mobile game like there’s not different locations or and I’m not even entirely sure if fish are tied to a certain time of the certain time of the day, but that experience isn’t really replicated in a meaningful way in this game.
(0:54:10) Jonnie: And I think like because so one of the things I was thinking about in preparation for this episode is like so so who is this for like who would I recommend to this game to.
(0:54:19) Jonnie: And I think if you are out there and you’re looking for a mobile game that you kind of just want to get sucked into, you know, you’ve got to commute to and from work every single day and you’re on a bus or on a train or something like that.
(0:54:37) Jonnie: You just want something to, you know, kill a bit of time.
(0:54:40) Jonnie: Animal Crossing pocket camp would be very high on the list of things that I would recommend.
(0:54:45) Jonnie: And the biggest reason for that is it is a complete game.
(0:54:49) Jonnie: The $10 that you would pay now gives you the full experience.
(0:54:54) Jonnie: There’s never going to be a microtransaction.
(0:54:57) Jonnie: There’s never going to be an ask for anything more.
(0:55:02) Jonnie: It is all there.
(0:55:04) Jonnie: There is so much to do.
(0:55:06) Jonnie: do. This is a very healthy way of having
(0:55:10) Jonnie: one of these very unhastily designed games be a part of your life. My number one recommendation
(0:55:20) Jonnie: would be Pokemon Pocket TCG, but number two, if you want something slightly more to do,
(0:55:26) Jonnie: would be Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. I think it’s a very good game. I’m just at a point where I
(0:55:31) Jonnie: don’t necessarily want a mobile game taking up a ton of time because I just don’t have a lot of
(0:55:38) Jonnie: downtime at the moment.
(0:55:40) Jonnie: That’s a me thing, right? Not any real indictment on this game because this game is upfront about
(0:55:52) Codey: - Yeah, oh no.
(0:56:02) Jonnie: what it is and you very quickly– it’s very quickly apparent that it’s on this three-hour
(0:56:07) Jonnie: time cycle and so you will feel that each every couple of hours.
(0:56:10) Jonnie: It’s not really hiding from that and just the fact that there will not be microtransactions makes this a great way to have that sort of mobile experience.
(0:56:24) Codey: Yeah, I think that’s honestly like a really good
(0:56:29) Codey: Like ad for this game is just no microtransactions
(0:56:34) Codey: Because there’s just they’re they’re everywhere in games these days. You can’t really it’s really hard to get away from them and
(0:56:42) Codey: Or just ads as well like having because there’s no ads in this game - correct. Yeah, I
(0:56:51) Codey: I think, like, that’s another thing I really love about Honey Grove.
(0:56:54) Codey: It doesn’t have any ads, but then I downloaded the secret third game or whatever that I’m
(0:56:59) Codey: playing that will be, I’m promising will be in a future episode.
(0:57:04) Codey: And the first thing is that there was a banner that has ads in it and I was like, I forgot
(0:57:10) Codey: about this.
(0:57:14) Codey: So I mean, right there, like having something that you can play on your phone that doesn’t
(0:57:19) Codey: have those things and is a reasonable price.
(0:57:25) Codey: I think it’s worth it.
(0:57:27) Codey: So I have, I have re-downloaded it.
(0:57:34) Jonnie: Maybe listen and see what we’ll hear in a few trips so if Cody thinks I got anything long in my coverage of Pocketcam.
(0:57:40) Codey: uh yeah we’ll see oh does it it doesn’t remember me wait does it continue I don’t know we’ll see
(0:57:49) Codey: oh it wants me to go to indi I don’t know my oh it’s right there i’m like it’s like what’s your
(0:57:56) Codey: nintendo account and I was like oh man I don’t know and then it was like are you cody i’m like oh
(0:58:01) Codey: hello yes it is me wait for it i’m almost there oh it wants me to download a bunch of stuff
(0:58:09) Codey: Okay, I don’t know if I’m…
(0:58:10) Codey: going to have the answer to this quickly, I thought it would be faster than this, but
(0:58:12) Jonnie: Okay, I feel like this is a, tune in next time listeners to see if Cody successfully
(0:58:19) Jonnie: got into her pocket camp account.
(0:58:22) Codey: now it’s downloading.
(0:58:23) Codey: It’s only at 4%.
(0:58:24) Codey: So yeah, tune in next time.
(0:58:27) Codey: Maybe this game will have taken over my life, but yeah, you will have to listen to next
(0:58:34) Codey: episode for that.
(0:58:37) Codey: So that was our episode and you have successfully
(0:58:40) Codey: converted at least one person to playing this game.
(0:58:44) Codey: So it’s a successful episode.
(0:58:46) Jonnie: I wonder what my commission is on that.
(0:58:48) Codey: Oh, that’s a great question.
(0:58:49) Codey: Uh, I don’t know what the current rate is.
(0:58:54) Codey: No, this is one of those like, wait, you’re getting paid.
(0:58:56) Jonnie: Yeah
(0:59:00) Codey: Um, Johnny, where can people find you on the internet?
(0:59:03) Jonnie: Um as always like we just love to chat from the slack about the you know
(0:59:08) Jonnie: sorts of
(0:59:09) Jonnie: Games that we’re playing and and because I’m not playing a ton of games at the moment
(0:59:13) Jonnie: I like to hear about like what games people are enjoying. So if you can support the show
(0:59:18) Jonnie: Go to patreon.com/ghspod support the show get access to the slack all the good stuff
(0:59:24) Codey: Yeah, I was a pseudo-scorpion. And it was funny because I put a thread of it
(0:59:25) Jonnie: See the photos of
(0:59:26) Jonnie: the, was it a pseudo scorpion? Thank you, post it.
(0:59:36) Codey: before we released the episode last time, and Kevin was like, “What is this?” And I was like,
(0:59:41) Codey: “Kevin, it specifically said don’t look at this thread until you’ve listened to the episode.”
(0:59:48) Jonnie: Look if anyone was gonna break it like it makes sense for it to begin. I don’t think he has the willpower to not look
(0:59:52) Codey: That’s true. Let me see, I definitely have…
(0:59:54) Codey: new photos of bugs on my phone.
(0:59:57) Jonnie: And what else we talked about oh, that’s right we were talking about gay butterflies in the slack
(1:00:00) Codey: Ugh, I was very happy about gay butterflies.
(1:00:04) Codey: We are here for gay butterflies.
(1:00:07) Jonnie: We are. So if that sounds, you know, exciting to you, then…
(1:00:14) Codey: I’m also about to upload a photo of a lace bug.
(1:00:19) Jonnie: Amazing. So yeah, so join the Slack. Another thing I’m just going to shout out very quickly
(1:00:25) Jonnie: is last week’s episode, like, just in case anyone missed it, but Cody and Al interviewed
(1:00:31) Jonnie: the creator of Rusty’s retirement and that was a really fun interview. So definitely.
(1:00:37) Jonnie: Go back and give that a listen. And I’m just going to submit, like, my…
(1:00:42) Jonnie: We were discussing what we thought the acronym… Oh, maybe on the show you guys were discussing
(1:00:46) Jonnie: what should, like, the name be for Rusty’s retirement likes. And I’m submitting boss games
(1:00:50) Codey: - Yeah.
(1:00:54) Jonnie: as in bottom-up screen. So yeah, that’s why I’m going to start calling these.
(1:01:01) Codey: like that
(1:01:03) Jonnie: Where can people find you, Cody?
(1:01:05) Codey: I am also on the slack. I am also on blue sky
(1:01:14) Codey: It’s just my name Cody Mathis
(1:01:16) Codey: That’s mostly for bug content and possibly political content
(1:01:21) Codey: And dei stuff which I will continue to say even if my government believes it is not a thing
(1:01:27) Codey: and
(1:01:29) Codey: on Instagram
(1:01:31) Codey: @hikingbeagle where I post more of like neurodivergence stuff and just
(1:01:42) Codey: other things that make me laugh. You can find Al at the Scottbot on
(1:01:48) Codey: mastodon.scot and other platforms. You can find the podcast on Tumblr and other
(1:01:54) Codey: platforms at THSPod. You can go to our website for the show notes.
(1:02:01) Codey: Transcripts feed and give us feedbacks and links so that website is
(1:02:05) Codey: harvestseason.club there you’ll also get a link to the patreon that Johnny has
(1:02:11) Codey: already mentioned and that’s pretty much it for this episode. Thank you Johnny
(1:02:17) Codey: for I guess I am thankful that I got to join you actually this is not my episode
(1:02:26) Codey: I just, I was on call.
(1:02:31) Jonnie: No, it was a lot of fun and I’m pleased that you were going to be trying again. I like to hear
(1:02:37) Jonnie: I’d love to hear about your experience with it and we kept it short. I didn’t jinx it
(1:02:42) Codey: And we what?
(1:02:43) Jonnie: We kept it short
(1:02:44) Codey: We did!
(1:02:46) Codey: We did.
(1:02:47) Codey: Look at us.
(1:02:48) Codey: Who would have thought?
(1:02:49) Codey: Not me.
(1:02:50) Jonnie: Yeah, definitely not you. I’m actually surprised.
(1:02:51) Codey: No.
(1:02:52) Codey: I, yeah.
(1:02:54) Codey: It’s ready for me to play pocket camp,
(1:02:56) Codey: but I’m not gonna tell people
(1:02:59) Codey: you have to listen to the next episode.
(1:03:03) Codey: But I will tell you, Johnny, after we’re done recording.
(1:03:06) Jonnie: Amazing.
(1:03:06) Codey: So yeah, thanks for listening, y’all.
(1:03:09) Codey: And until next time,
(1:03:11) Codey: Have a good.
(1:03:11) Jonnie: Have a good heart.
(1:03:12) Theme Tune: The harvest season is created by Al McKinlay, with support from our patrons, including our
(1:03:23) Theme Tune: pro farmers, Kevin, Stuart and Alisa.
(1:03:27) Theme Tune: Our art is done by Micah the Brave, and our music is done by Nick Burgess.
(1:03:31) Theme Tune: Feel free to visit our website, harvestseason.club, for show notes and links to things we discussed
(1:03:37) Theme Tune: in this episode.
(1:03:46) Jonnie: Have a good harvest, good.
(1:03:51) Jonnie: Let’s just see how many different speeds we can say that,
(1:03:54) Jonnie: and maybe try the hour slightly mad,
(1:03:56) Codey: Good.
(1:03:58) Jonnie: trying to find two that match up.
(1:04:00) Jonnie: Have a good–
(1:04:07) Codey: Have an all right harvest.