If like me you’ve been a lifelong Animal Crossing fan (and I’m talking about the GameCube version in 2004), then you know how hard it can be. frustrating that there are no more updates on New Horizons. This does not mean that I no longer play ACNH, quite the contrary, but a mixture of feelings invades me between the nostalgia of the first hours of play where I discovered with immense joy the new gameplay and the sadness of telling myself that the game could have been twice as consistent with everything that existed in previous games like Wild World or New Leaf and what could have been added for years to come, even if it meant paying for other DLCs.
But we will have to get used to it and, while waiting for the next Animal Crossing title in a few years on a new Nintendo console, I’m trying somehow to find little independent games that could satisfy my cruel lack of new things on ACNH. After having tested tons of them with very close ones like Hokko Life or a little more distant like Kitaria Fables, I think I have found the one that is closest to it currently: Dinkum.
You may have already heard of it since some French streamers did not hesitate to try it in July, and we must admit that it is worth the detour. Be careful however, do not compare the incomparable. Animal Crossing New Horizons is and will likely remain the best game in its genre for a very long time to come, but a few indie nuggets will at least have the merit of trying. Today I’d like to show you what Dinkum does better than ACNH, despite the small development team behind it.
The map, much larger
The ACNH card is what it is. Sometimes, when visiting beautiful islands, it seems that it is huge but once you want to terraform our own, it suddenly becomes tiny. With a little Minecraft side, Dinkum offers a much larger map that generates as you go. It obviously has its limits, but it’s a pleasure to think that after a few hours of play already, we haven’t gone through it yet and that we can build absolutely anything we want on it: bridges, plantations, paths, decoration etc.
Let’s agree, ACNH has nothing to envy to Dinkum in terms of design and number of available furniture (especially since 2.0 and the DLC) but we must admit that it feels good to see such a large map.
A true multiplayer mode
Concretely, Dinkum borrows gameplay mechanics from Animal Crossing, Minecraft and Story of Seasons. It is therefore a perfect mix of chill, survival, farm and multiplayer game. Thus, you must therefore survive on an island by finding food to eat, building a shelter that can be enlarged, collecting resources to sell them and buy new objects, crafting useful tools, carrying out quests to helping NPCs, taming animals etc. And all this you can do in multiplayer. It is not a question here of simply inviting your friends to your island but rather of living the adventure of survival with several people like on Minecraft.
In conclusion, Dinkum offers some very nice ideas that mean that I finally managed to find something to be satisfied with in the absence of novelties on Animal Crossing. However, it is undeniable, I will never find the sensations provided by ACNH and I could give you a ton of qualities that Dinkum did not compare to Nintendo’s flagship title. In the meantime, I’m having a good time on it and I’m continuing my quest for animal-crossing-like. Next games in my sights? Amber Isle and Disney Dreamlight Valley! And you, what did you think of Dinkum and what is the next game of the genre that you are looking forward to?
Are you dreaming of the next game that can complete your hours on Animal Crossing New Horizons? Here are 4 titles that should please you.