Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp coming to your phone in November

The cutesy, critter-filled world of Nintendo's Animal Crossing is coming to mobile next month, with the company Tuesday announcing the launch of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

The game brings back the familiar graphics and gameplay of the series, which first launched outside Japan on the GameCube in 2002 before crossing over to the DS. But unlike previous versions of the game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp gets its very own microtransactions to spice things up.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was announced for late November, but users in Australia have already found and downloaded the game off the Google Play Store (but not Apple's App Store).

The mobile game sees you playing as the manager of a campsite, trying to kit it out with nice features and furniture for when your friends come around. Like the original games, you'll follow the real passage of time in the game, exploring the open world to perform tasks like collecting fruit or finding bugs for your animal friends.

The in-game items can be traded and used to build new furniture and amenities to personalise your camp or your campervan. But if things are moving too slowly or you don't have the necessary items, in-game currency (known as leaf tickets) can get you what you need.

There's a social element too, with players able to spend time in the game by sharing their game ID.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is fourth mobile game from Nintendo. Miitomo was an awkward, but endearing start. Super Mario Run brought the novelty of gaming's most recognisable mascot to phones. Fire Emblem Heroes suffered from shallow gameplay, but showed the world that Nintendo could make microtransactions work.

With Nintendo's latest mobile game, the company might have just found the perfect franchise for smart devices. 

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp lends itself well to the mobile platform -- the cute factor is sure to be a hit with younger players, and we certainly expect older players to lose hours perfecting their digital home while they increasingly get priced out of the overheated real-world housing market (we'll take a charming campsite over a dingy apartment any day).

After being delayed from its slated release of the first quarter of this year, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is due to launch in "late November 2017." You'll be able download it in the Apple and Google Play stores, and you can preregister for updates here.

Nintendo has been contacted for comment on the game's appearance in Australia's Google Play Store.

Sean Buckley contributed to this report.

Update, 6:04 p.m. AEST: Adds that game is available in Australian Google Play Store.

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