Plot?

[quadrantqueen]

HHD looks like a great game, as far as I can tell (especially with immediate player customization) but I'm a little stuck on what the plot is. I know that your player works for the HHA designing homes to the NPC's tastes, but what else? Is there a village? How does the Amiibo stuff work? Do you design exteriors? Can you design your entire town?

 

[Voluptua Sneezelips]

Here are a few answers from my Q&A thread. Hope this is helpful. ETA: as with pretty much all AC games, there's no plot to speak of, though another thread on here includes a video of the "end game".

So what's the deal with this game? How do you play? Is this a new Animal Crossing?
Happy Home Designer is an Animal Crossing spinoff, meaning that it isn't a full-on AC game. HHD is focussed on designing villagers' homes. Your job is to meet with villagers and design a home and a yard for them according to the theme they give you. As you complete each home, you'll unlock more furniture to use in decorating and you'll have a chance to design common public buildings, like a school and shops.

What will the amiibo cards do? Do I need the amiibo cards to play Happy Home Designer?
You don't need the cards to play. The amiibo cards will allow you to:
- bring NPCs into your game so you can decorate their homes
- have some control over which villagers ask for your decorating services
- "invite" villagers into another villager's home for a party.

BUT, you can still play without the cards. Random villagers will show up in your town's main street and you can choose to decorate their homes.

Can I walk around the village? Can I go fishing and bug-huntin' and stuff?
Nope! You have access to a map to allow you to choose where to locate a villager's home and the environment (forest, meadow, river, beach, desert, mountains) of that home, plus the season it's in, but you will not be able to walk around the map. Each villager's home is its own separate instance.

So what's new in this game?
There's a bunch of new stuff in HHD, beyond what's mentioned in the answers above! The list below is not exhaustive, but here are a few examples:
- You'll be able to choose your character's skin tone and we understand that there are more options for facial features than before.
- There are more furniture options than before, too, including stuff you can hang from the ceiling!
- You can decorate the outside of villagers' houses and choose music or outdoor-type sounds for the inside.
- You can unlock two-room layouts for your villagers using play coins (the 3DS currency you can unlock just by walking around in real life...or shaking your 3DS if you don't feel like walking...or you can get 'em by jumping up and down and holding your 3DS too [this last option may or may not have been tested for scientific purposes. multiple times])
- You'll be able to design and open shops on the main street!
- You'll be able to assign jobs to villagers to work in the shops you create.

 

[quadrantqueen]

Thank you so much! This is really helpful.