I'm super excited to play this and I've already got it preloaded from the eShop but I'd love to play it a bit before next week
I swear I saw a picture of someone downloading a demo! But yet, there are no gameplay vids on youtube yet!
I hope so! Sounds like that could have been someone pre-loading it though :/
No, I checked my LL earlier today, all there is in the e-shop is a pre-order for doubutsu no mori: happii homu dezainaa. Sorry, but you can't demo the game, it's all or nothing. It's fairly high too for a game that many consider not a full game- the more that gets released about it, like using play coins to learn alterations, the more it's looking more and more like a fairly in depth game.
I think it's a shame; this game could benefit from a demo pretty well. The combination of confusion on what the game actually is plus a high price tag is sure to make some people hesitant who would be more receptive after playing a demo. It's pretty suited to one too, just include two villagers or something.
I don't think the demo could hurt the game sales or anything but I wouldn't think it would be all that necessary for the reasons you listed. I think the aim of the game is pretty clear - to design homes. There may be some confusion as to what else you can do apart from that main focus, but games aren't revealed fully before their release.
I would think a demo would be much more suited to the amiibo festival game - there was a lot of confusion for that. People seemed to think you only press a button to roll a dice and possibly buy/sell turnips and there isn't much else apart from watching the screen. I'm still pretty confused on it. Not to mention the negative feedback for the game - a demo would give a free chance to try it out (assuming no amiibo are required for that and the full game is not free).
There actually was a lot of confusion for Happy Home Designer. A lot of people here were all like "that's it? What a waste of money for that price!" including me. Only when we saw more about what it was from E3, then everyone were actually hyped. With a demo, people could have seen what more things the game offered than just designing a room for an animal's house.