Nintendo's Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp spreads holiday joy with its first ever timed event

The Holiday Event appears to have rolled out already in most regions. After booting the game you should see a special notice that runs through all of the new additions. If your game is anything like mine, you should also be greeted by friends sporting some fetching seasonal outfits and a whole host of new Stretch Goals to complete.

The red and white Santa hat should be sat in your mailbox immediately, but to unlock the rest of the outfit, and some unique holiday furniture, you’ll have to put in a bit of hard work around your camp.

The decorative items include a festive bow tree, a cheeky looking snowman, a “jingle” fence adorned with fairy lights, and much more. All of these items can be crafted using Candy Canes which are obtained by completing requests for your animal friends.

This should be fairly easy as the bulk of the game already has you gathering fruit, bugs and fish as gifts for your anthropomorphic pals. Alternatively, if you can try your luck in Shovelstrike Quarry for bonus Candy Canes in addition to the usual haul of items and Bells, the game’s non-premium currency.

To collect the Santa clothes, you’ll need to go a step further and complete specific event challenges set by Isabelle (your camp cheerleader/administrator). Thankfully these are easily achievable, so you should unlock everything there is to see before the event ends on December 26th.

It’s worth noting that you’ll only be able to craft the special furniture while the event is running. As this can take hours, the game won’t punish you and take away any last second crafting choices as long as you set the timer going during the event.

Pocket Camp’s first event caps off what has been a promising start for Nintendo’s third proper foray into the mobile gaming market. The title pulled in an estimated 15 million downloads worldwide during its first six days on both the Play Store and Apple’s iOS App Store.

That figure comfortably puts Pocket Camp between Super Mario Run (32 million) and Fire Emblem Heroes (7 million). Whether or not the game will prove to be a financial success for the Japanese gaming giant via in-app purchases remains to be seen.

What do you think of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’s seasonal celebration? Let us know how you’ve been getting on with the game so far in the comments.