Nintendo announces Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp for smart devices

Nintendo unveiled a brand new Animal Crossing game for smart devices overnight and promised we'd all be able to play it by the end of November.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be another free-to-play game from Nintendo - words we couldn't have imagined writing a few years ago - and is due out for iPhone, iPad and Android.

Nintendo showed off a bunch of gameplay in a Nintendo Direct presentation, which you can watch on YouTube below.

In Pocket Camp, you take control of a camper van and, in traditional Animal Crossing style, you can upgrade and decorate it, as well as filling the campsite with items.

You'll be able to buy items from the usual assortment of Animal Crossing shops, as well as gathering resources yourself - not only in the forest around the campsite, but by fast-traveling to places like the beach or a tropical island in your camper van.

As for the inevitable microtransactions, you'll be encouraged - hopefully not too forcefully - to buy Leaf Tickets, which allow you to speed up processes that otherwise take a long time, like finishing a building development project.

It remains to be seen how balanced it all feels, but if you're an Android user based in Australia then you can join a limited test running right now to help Nintendo iron out the creases.