Happy Pet Story is Animal Crossing meets Pet Society, and you should totally play it (review)

Singapore’s Happy Labs released its latest game, Happy Pet Story, today for iOS and Android, and boy, if you’ve been a fan of social life sims, this is one you cannot miss.

Happy Pet Story borrows heavily from games like Animal Crossing and Pet Society, but it’s done well and it’s for mobile. There’s everything to love and nothing to hate.

You play a pet of your choosing with fully customizable features. Pick different ears, eyes, hairdos, and eyebrows before diving into a quaint little 2D world. Done in the cutesy anthropomorphic animal style Happy Labs revealed in two mini games launched earlier, its outdoor world is reminiscent of Animal Crossing: New Leaf while the interior – your home and base – looks like Pet Society.

For those of you who have never tried either game but love social life simulators, you just need to know this: you’ve got an interactive world on the outside, where you can shake trees for fruit, plant crops, interact with real-world players and AI villagers, and buy clothes and furniture. On the inside, you can decorate your 2D house however you please with the things you purchase and expand to different rooms as you level up in the game. Characters created by real players will wander your town at random and you’ll be able to visit them whenever you want.

Progress is a big part of Happy Pet Story. If you don’t level up in-game, you can’t unlock rooms in your house, plots to plant crops on, and so on. It’s easy to earn levels, though: simply play mini-games with your fellow villagers! Successfully completing a mini-game earns you experience points, among other bonuses. Mini-games include precision-tapping on passing balloons, rock-paper-scissors, and tapping out a simple rhythm, and there are also those that are simply there for collection’s sake, like fishing and farming.

Fishing and farming are two activities integral to any social game, and Happy Labs does these nicely. It borrows the Animal Crossing: New Leaf fishing mechanic, where tapping on a loaded hook reels in the fish. Farming is as simple as that in any farming game – when the crop is ready, you tap on it to harvest, then tap once more to replant.

One thing Happy Pet Story does really well is customization. There are just so many options, you never have to worry about someone looking just like you do. Like Animal Crossing: New Leaf, new stock appears in shops daily too. While you cannot visit other players’ towns to buy stuff, there’s a lot of variety in the furniture and clothes you can purchase, and you can also wager your items in little bets with the AI characters. Earning a full item set, be it clothing or furniture, also nets you higher Home Points, which keeps you ahead of your friends on the leaderboard.