It’s not a stretch to say that the Animal Crossing franchise has many loyal fans. While many fans are currently active in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and contributing to the community via design patterns, some have taken to a different approach.
Before and after New Horizons was released, fans have been expressing their love for the series via creating fan-games in honor of their favorite series. Some of these games fit more with the pure Animal Crossing style, while others have taken a far darker approach. This parallels how players have been creating their dream address islands as well.
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All of these games are free to play while some allow players to name their own price if they wish to support the developers. It is highly recommended to donate in these cases if players enjoy the projects after downloading them.
Kind Donations is a short horror game where players control Blathers trying to put the villagers’ insect donations in their proper places in the museum. It’s not long with the game’s download page listing the estimated playtime as between 10 to 15 minutes.
While Kind Donations is a horror game, it isn’t as graphic as most horror games. Most of the fear stems from Blathers’ own anxieties taking form visually as well as the occasional tarantula. Being developed in RPG Maker 2003, it additionally is accompanied by a charming pixel art style as players go through a more unnerving version of the Animal Crossing museum.
This game can currently be downloaded on itch.io here.
Animal Crossing GB is a fan-made Animal Crossing title that can be run on Gameboy hardware. It can also be run directly on the game’s official page.
The game is a demo with it mostly being a way to show what can be done with GB studio. It is mostly an adaptation of 2012’s Animal Crossing: New Leaf with the player coming off of the train before meeting Isabelle. From there, players can meet the various villagers available in this demo.
According to the creator, there won’t be any updates to this game, but it is interesting to see how Animal Crossing would run on a Gameboy instead of the other systems its been previously released for.
This game can currently be downloaded on itch.io here.
Creature Street is a gruesome murder mystery game with a style resembling that of the Animal Crossing series. While there aren’t any direct characters from Animal Crossing that appear in this game, the map style and the victim of the murder are made in reference to the original games. There is additionally a mayor’s assistant named Isadore who is very similar in name and design to Animal Crossing‘s Isabelle.
While everything is done using the Animal Crossing style, the murder that the players must solve is very graphic. There are additionally many remnants of inappropriate content left by the town’s mayor, referencing those who did everything they could to get past the language filters in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Because of this, Creature Street isn’t recommended for players under the age of 17.
As players explore the town, they will be able to meet the various residents, get their testimonies on the victim, and hunt for evidence around the town. Once the player feels that they’ve found the murderer, they can check in with Isadore to see if their accusation is correct.
This game can currently be downloaded on itch.io here.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now on Switch.
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