Animal Crossing is Nintendo's community-based simulation game that's incredibly popular. It's well-known for open-ended gameplay and follows the passage of time in the real world. On top of that, Animal Crossing is full of adorable animals that inhabit your village.

The series started out on the Nintendo GameCube in 2002, and now has a total of four main games and two spin-offs. It's appeared on every Nintendo console since (sans Switch). And in November 2017 came the global release of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp on iOS and Android.

While Pocket Camp is definitely a watered-down version of Animal Crossing, that doesn't mean that it's any less fun and charming. However, there are some tips that'll make your Animal Crossing camping experience even better.

NB: Are you looking for Animal Crossing: New Horizons tips and tricks?

General Info

These general tips will help you get a better all-around experience from Pocket Camp.

1. Leveling Up

As you level up, you'll add new animals to your Contacts, get more inventory or Market Box space, and have access to new furniture that you can craft.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

But how do you level up? The only way in Pocket Camp is to raise your friendship levels with the animals that are at your campsite and around the map.

Each animal has a preferred theme, and their maximum friendship level is determined by the amenities at your campsite. If you have a level one Cool Tent set up, your Cool campers will be able to reach level 10. Level three tents bring their max friendship levels to 15, and the themed amenity item (like Tree Swing for Cute) maxes out animals to level 20.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

At the unveiling of a new tent or amenity, your villagers earn Friendship Points, so they can level up faster from these. For efficient leveling, you'll want to build all of the themed tents to even out your friendship levels. Learn more about the best Animal Crossing villagers!

2. My Nintendo Rewards

Under the More section, you'll find a My Nintendo (part of the newish My Nintendo Rewards Program) tab. In the Missions screen, you will find various tasks that you can complete to earn some points. You can then redeem these points for special clothing rewards and crafting materials.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

The missions refresh each week, so there are always new opportunities to get points for rewards. The best use of these is to get crafting materials you're running low on.

Another nice aspect of My Nintendo rewards is the 50 free Leaf Tickets that you can get once you start playing. That's right: 50 free Leaf Tickets, no strings attached. You can only redeem this once, though.

3. Shovelstrike Quarry

On the map in Pocket Camp, you'll notice an area called Shovelstrike Quarry. To access this, you'll need to get help from at least five friends, or use 20 Leaf Tickets. It resets every 24 hours.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

If you have friends who also play Pocket Camp, then getting help shouldn't be an issue. Plus, if you help someone out, they'll give you 100 Bells as a gift. It's a win-win for both parties.

But if you don't have enough friends who are actively playing, you can find various forums where you can exchange friend codes. Random players will also be around the various areas of your campground, so you can add them as friends too.

Once you're in Shovelstrike Quarry, you'll break rocks to find different minerals. You only get five chances though, and you earn Bells and crafting materials depending on what you find.

It's usually never worth it to spend Leaf Tickets over getting friends' help on the Quarry, though.

4. Unique Fruit Trees

In everyone's game, the two fruit trees located at Lost Lure Creek are unique. This means that you may not have the same fruit trees in that area as one of your friends, and you'll have double the production of those two fruits.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

It's recommended to put these fruits in your Market Box regularly. This lets others know that you'll always have those a surplus of those fruits in case anyone needs them for requests.

5. Free Bells

Speaking of trees, you should try shaking the non-fruit bearing ones. Yes, this includes the palm trees too. You can find up to 1,000 free Bells hidden in them each day.

Also, it's recommended to talk to your villagers in your campsite every hour. When the text is red, just talking to them can get you free Bells (from 100 to 500), crafting materials, and increase friendship levels. They'll also sometimes have requests for you, which mean even more opportunities for levels and rewards.

Don't forget about Shovelstrike Quarry either, as you get 100 Bells just for helping someone out.

Leaf Tickets

Leaf Tickets are the premium currency in Pocket Camp (a trend that shows no signs of stopping). You can use these to speed up your furniture and amenity crafting with Cyrus, expand your storage slots, craft special furniture, get fishing nets and honey for lots of fish and bugs, and fertilizer to refresh fruit trees.

Even though it's the premium currency, it's not hard to amass plenty of Leaf Tickets without spending real money.

6. Always Check Your Goals

In Pocket Camp, there are Timed and Stretch Goals. Timed refresh every 24 hours (plenty of time to complete) and have tasks like "Collect 10 Fruit Beetles" or "Give kudos to friends 10 times." These are usually pretty easy to accomplish and don't involve much effort with regular play.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

Stretch Goals are not timed. It's a large list of objectives to strive for as you play. These do not refresh and are more like achievements.

Either way, completing timed and stretch goals both award you with Leaf Tickets, so you have plenty of opportunities to nab some freebies. In the time I've been playing, I haven't found a need to purchase any additional Leaf Tickets, as I accrue enough from regular play.

And again, you can get 50 free Leaf Tickets for doing the simple task of linking your Nintendo account and going to the My Nintendo Rewards section.

7. Level Up Frequently

I got most of my free Leaf Tickets just by leveling up through normal play. Each time you increase your level, the game gives you 10 Leaf Tickets. I've already hit level 30 in my first week of playing, so that's 300 free tickets.

Pocket Camp also has Daily Login Bonuses (a popular feature among freemium games), where you can earn more free Leaf Tickets. Log in each day to get closer to some more of those precious tickets.

8. Spend Leaf Tickets Wisely

Even though getting that precious green isn't too difficult, you should prioritize certain items when spendin themg.

One of the best uses of Leaf Tickets is to get more crafting spaces. You only start with one in the beginning, but to be efficient, you'll want to craft multiple items at once. So make sure to spend your tickets to get the extra two crafting slots as soon as you can.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

Another good use of tickets is to expand your item storage. This is only for the items that you collect while gathering fruit, fishing, catching bugs, and other miscellaneous objects like shells.

You gain inventory slots as you level up, to a maximum of 150. However, you can spend 20 Leaf Tickets at a time to gain an additional five slots, to a maximum of 250. Increasing your item storage is incredibly handy when you want to collect enough resources for requests without having to worry.

Pocket Camp also has special items that you can craft, which are K.K. Slider's stool and Tom Nook's chair. These both cost 250 Leaf Tickets to make, and are only available for 45 days once you start playing the game.

These two chairs are purely cosmetic and allow you to have either K.K. Slider or Tom Nook sit in your campsite. Unfortunately, you can't be friends with them, and they only have one or two things to say.

If you must have only one of these, K.K. Slider is worth it because he plays guitar and changes up the music. Tom Nook just sleeps in the chair, which isn't too exciting.

Rotations

In Pocket Camp, it's all about rotations. The animals you may encounter will move around, the Market Place has different vendors, and all resources refresh at certain intervals. But keeping track of these rotations can be tough when you have a lot happening in real life.

9. Camping Around the Clock

The villagers at your campsite let you earn free conversation points and may have requests for you to complete. These refresh every hour.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

The fruit trees show a timer above them once you pick the fruit. These grow more fruit in three hours.

For Shovelstrike Quarry, the resources get refreshed every three hours. The rewards that you can earn also change during this time, and are shown next to the title.

The Market Place switches up the vendors every six hours. The vendors include Able Sisters, Kicks, and Tommy Nook's mobile Nook 'n' Go. They only display three items at a time for both, which is rather disappointing considering the rotation interval.

The animals that you'll find in all the locations on the campgrounds rotate every three hours, as well as the requests they'll have. The timer for this is also shown to you as you check the map.

Every 24 hours, the day in Pocket Camp is reset, so you can get your Daily Login Bonus.

Crafting and Amenities

You probably endure all those fetch quests for your villagers because of the rewards. And while those rewards always have Bells, it's really the crafting materials that you want. These materials are the key to everything in the game.

10. Craft Your Amenities ASAP

For all villagers, their levels will max out at seven unless you build the proper amenity on your campsite. It's recommended to build each tent to at least level two so that friendship levels don't max out too early.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

Keep in mind that once you build a tent and have it in your inventory, you don't need to keep it out on the campsite unless you like it. As long as you crafted it, then the friendship levels for villagers go beyond seven.

The tents must reach level three (the second level is instant) to unlock the other themed amenity, such as the Tree Swing for Cute, or the Rock Stage for Cool. The tents take about 12 hours to make, so make them ASAP. Themed amenities will take even longer, at 48 hours, and can be increased to a max level of five (these are instant as well).

While you can have up to three crafting slots for furniture items, you only have one amenity crafting slot. With that in mind, try to prioritize all tents first, then the themed amenities.

11. Craft Only the Necessities

To have villagers stay at your campsite, there are some requirements. The first and most important one is you must meet the friendship level threshold. This means your friendship level with an animal must be at least the minimum. This varies from animal to animal, and the characters you unlock at higher levels need a higher friendship level for you to even invite them.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

Second, each animal has a list of furniture items that must be at your campsite before they'll come. You can view these requirements by clicking the Contacts tab and selecting your animal. All of their furniture requirements are listed, and there's a convenient Craft button for the ones you don't already have. If you already have something, this screen tells you.

Once you meet all their requirements, you can call them and invite them over. If you've spent time rearranging your campsite to your own style, you can do the Auto-Arrange feature. This means all of the animal's furniture requirements are laid out automatically at your campsite, and then after the little montage cutscene, you just revert back to your original design.

Afterwards, even if you send a villager home and replace them with someone else, they can come back at any time without putting their furniture items out.

Miscellaneous Tricks

We conclude with a few tricks that don't fit into any other category.

12. "Store" Fruit on the Ground

Fruit is one of the items you'll always need, but it can clutter up your item space at the same time. After all, you can catch many different types of fish and bugs, which can include rare species (there are no rare fruits).

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

If you shake a tree to get the fruit off, you can actually just leave it on the ground to "store." This allows the timer for the fruit refresh to begin, and you have 27 free "storage" spaces (seven three-fruit trees and three two-fruit trees).

This fruit storage trick ensures that you constantly have fruit available when you need them for requests. Make sure to pick up all the fruit off the ground before shaking the tree though, otherwise it won't work.

13. Selling Items and the Market Box

When you're gathering resources, it's easy to get carried away and fill up your item space. When this happens, it's time to sell for some extra Bells.

You can sell directly from the item screen and get the standard value from the item. The other option you have is to utilize the Market Box.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

The Market Box is where you can list items for sale to other Pocket Camp players. Your friends can view your Market Box items when they tap on your name in their Friends list and vice versa. Your avatar may show up in random players' campgrounds too, and they can interact with you, including sending you Friend Requests. To actually buy items from other players, you need to visit their campsite.

When selling in the Market Box, the minimum price for common items is double the normal sale price. The maximum is set to five times. A good tip is to sell three to five of a single item for the cheapest value, just to make more than selling directly and move items faster.

Be wary of putting those rare finds in your Market Box though. It's hard to sell these since they're not requested as much (unless you're a higher level), and there's no way to remove a listing and get the item back.

A good item to always stock in your Market Box are your surplus fruits in Lost Lure Creek. You'll always end up with extras of these two fruits, and it's a good way to make some Bells, as people may be short on those specific ones.

14. Be Picky About Your Permanent Villagers

As you play Animal Crossing games, you start developing favorite villagers over time. It's hard to not fall in love with these critters, with their various personalities, traits, and even appearances.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

The fastest way to level up an animal's Friendship Level is to have them at your campsite. This way, you can chat with them and even do an occasional request to get Friendship Points without having to chase them around the map or use a calling card.

Your campsite has enough space to host up to eight of your favorite animals. However, when you unveil a new amenity on the campsite, the game randomly picks four animals to appear at the reveal. These amenities are valuable, as they give out about five friendship points to animals who show up.

If you have a preference of which animals should level up faster, it's recommended to send four animals home (your lesser favorites) before you unveil a new amenity. Then once that's done, just have those animals come back.

Of course, you don't have to send anyone home if you don't really have a priority of who you want to level up faster. It just means that it may take longer for your favorites to reach the maximum level of 20.

15. Call Your Favorites and Fulfill More Requests

As you reach higher levels, it means more animals become available that you may find around the map. While this means more opportunities to raise friendship levels, it's also harder to have certain animals show up.

animal crossing pocket camp tips and advice

If you want to focus on one animal, just use a Calling Card to summon them to the campgrounds. They'll show up in the sector that you're in (only the four spots with activities) and you can do favors for them and chat to raise friendship level.

When you're done with all the requests of every animal and still want more to do, you can use a Request Ticket on a villager. This gives you three more requests to fulfill, which means more opportunities for Bells and crafting materials.

However, both Calling Cards and Request Tickets aren't as easy to obtain as Leaf Tickets, so use them sparingly. Otherwise, you'll have none left.

Bust Out Your Camper and Get Rollin'

Even though Pocket Camp is a "lite" version of Animal Crossing, it's still fun to play for the time being. Most of your favorite animals are in the game, and there are a lot of items to collect. Plus, the game has plenty of room for improvements and even more content, such as the Christmas event.

And if you haven't checked out the Animal Crossing franchise, then Pocket Camp is the perfect entry point. It's free and gives you a sample of what a full Animal Crossing game is like. Nintendo's being quite generous with the amount of Leaf Tickets you can get for free.

If you need extra help in Pocket Camp, feel free to add me (my ID is 1082-7315-727). You can also link Facebook or Twitter (our guide on how to use Twitter) to find friends. Or, use a social site for gamers, like Reddit's Pocket Camp subreddit.

Are you playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? What do you think of it? Is it your first time playing an Animal Crossing game? Want to exchange Friend Codes? Let us know in the comments!