Animal Crossing Plaza

Animal Crossing Plaza is a discontinued social application for the Wii U that was available for free from the Nintendo eShop as a companion application to. It was released on August 7, 2013 in North America and Europe, and on August 8, 2013 in Japan.

The app takes place in an area based on the WaraWara Plaza from the Wii U Home Menu and themed after the event plaza from. From the plaza, players could post to the Animal Crossing Series Community on Miiverse.

An update for Animal Crossing Plaza was released on November 14, 2013, which added polls, the ability to mark villagers as residents, Miiverse stamps, improvements to the album, and additional dialog.

Animal Crossing Plaza was removed from the Nintendo eShop on December 22, 2014, although it can still be accessed for those who previously downloaded it, and Miiverse posts could still be made from the app until Miiverse was discontinued on November 7, 2017.

Announcement and release
Animal Crossing Plaza was announced in a Nintendo Direct on August 7, 2013 and released immediately after the presentation. The app was introduced in a segment mimicking the startup sequence of, with Isabelle telling the viewer about the app and respective Miiverse communities before then-president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata explained it further.

Two days after Animal Crossing Plaza ' s release, on August 9, 2013, the furniture item in  was distributed via SpotPass in North America to promote the app. Unlike other distributed items, which were accessed from the post office and given to the player by Pelly or Phyllis, the shaved-ice lamp was sent in the following letter from Isabelle:

The update for Animal Crossing Plaza was announced in a Nintendo Direct on November 13, 2013 and released the next day.

Features
Animal Crossing Plaza takes place in a large plaza with a Town Tree in the center. When the game is loaded, the player's Mii and Isabelle appear near the Town Tree before the camera zooms out and a random selection of several dozen villagers and special characters rush into the plaza. After the characters rush in, they walk around the plaza and occasionally talk. The player can pan the camera around the plaza by moving the left Control Stick or dragging on the GamePad touch screen, and set it to one of four zoom levels with the right Control Stick or buttons in the bottom-left corner of the GamePad screen.

Miiverse
There were two Miiverse communities for Animal Crossing Plaza: The Animal Crossing Series Community, where players could post and view others' posts, and the Animal Crossing News Community, where Nintendo would post updates and announcements. The Animal Crossing Series Community could be accessed by tapping on Lloid to the left of the Town Tree, and the Animal Crossing News Community could be accessed by tapping on the bulletin board to the right of the Town Tree.

Players could post text, drawings, or screenshots from their album to the Animal Crossing Series Community from their profile. Additionally, posts could be made from a character's profile, and the resulting post would be tagged with that character's name. Beginning in the November 2013 update, stamps could be added to drawings. The ability to post to the Animal Crossing Series Community directly from Miiverse was disabled on January 1, 2015; however, posts could still be made from Animal Crossing Plaza until the discontinuation of Miiverse on November 7, 2017.

There were three Animal Crossing News Communities: one for Japan, the Americas, and Europe/Oceania. A total of 10 posts with news about Animal Crossing Plaza and the were made in all regions by Animal Crossing Plaza and  director Aya Kyogoku (@NintendoKyogoku) from August 7, 2013 to January 21, 2015. Japan received an exclusive post from Kyogoku about Photos with Animal Crossing, and the Americas received an exclusive post from a Nintendo of America staff member named Tom (@NintendoTom) about the distribution of the furniture item in  at North American Nintendo Zones.

Characters
All 333 of 's villagers, as well as 52 of its special characters—not including Lloid, who only appears to direct the player to the Animal Crossing Series Community on Miiverse and has no dialog—are included in the app.

Isabelle and K.K. Slider are unique in that they do not rush in with the rest of the characters. Instead, Isabelle always appears alongside the player's Mii and walks around the Town Tree, and K.K. Slider can appear at random sitting on the ledge of the Town Tree's base playing his guitar. Additionally, beginning in the November 2013 update, Zipper can appear at random to the left of the Town Tree and hops in place, and Pavé can appear at random to the right of the Town Tree and dances in place. Prior to the update, Zipper and Pavé appeared like the rest of the characters.

One to two characters at a time briefly display a dialog above their head when viewing the plaza. Each villager personality and each individual special character has several strings of dialog that are chosen from at random, with some being based on the time of day or year. Additional dialog was added in the November 2013 update.

A character can be tapped on from the GamePad. This switches the GamePad view to a profile of that character, who cycles between different dialogs and shows various emotions. When in this view, the character's birthday and ranking in the latest poll are shown. The player can mark them as their favorite character and could make a Miiverse post about them to the Animal Crossing Series Community or view recent posts about them. Moving the Control Stick rotates the character; this cannot be done for Zipper T. Bunny beginning in the November 2013 update, as he will fight against the movement so that his backside cannot be seen.

The character marked as the player's favorite always appears in the plaza. Additionally, beginning in the November 2013 update, the player can also mark up to ten villagers as residents who will also always appear in the plaza.

Player profile
The player can tap on their Mii to view their profile, including the following information about them, which was also shared with others on Miiverse:
 * Profile name, as set in the Wii U system settings.
 * Birthday, as set in the Wii U system settings (can be hidden from public view).
 * Location, as set in the Wii U system settings (can be hidden from public view).
 * town name (must be entered manually; default is "Anytown").
 * player name (must be entered manually; default is "Someone").
 * Dream Address (must be entered manually).
 * Favorite character, set within that character's profile.

The player could also post to Miiverse and view their Miiverse profile from here.

Album
From their profile, the player can access photo albums to which screenshots from can be uploaded from an SD card. There are 12 albums, each of which can be named, and each album can hold up to 240 screenshots. Any uploaded screenshots could be posted to Miiverse.

Uploaded screenshots can be deleted or moved to another album. Beginning in the November 2013 update, multiple screenshots can be deleted or moved at once, and screenshots from other users can be saved.

Polls
Beginning in the November 2013 update, there were monthly questions that asked players to vote on a character. Polls were held until the end of 2014. Players could vote for a character from their profile, as well as view that character's result in the most recent poll.

The rankings for all 385 characters for each poll can be viewed from the bulletin board while connected to the internet, and they can still be accessed as of December 2022. Isabelle received the most votes in every poll by a wide margin.

Below is a list of the polls and the top five most-voted characters:

Real-time clock
Like the main series games, Animal Crossing Plaza utilizes the system's clock. The current date, weekday, and time are displayed in the top-left corner of the screen. The clock mainly affects the dialog of the characters, with certain characters mentioning current or upcoming events, the current time of day, or the current day of the week. Additionally, a bell plays at each hour, similar to the town tune in the main series games. Unlike in the main series games, there is no day/night cycle or seasons and the environment remains constant throughout the day and year.

Music
There is a single music track in Animal Crossing Plaza that plays at all times. It interpolates parts of the title theme of. If the camera is zoomed in toward K.K. Slider, an extra guitar is mixed into the track. Beginning in the November 2013 update, if the camera is zoomed in toward Zipper T. Bunny or Pavé, extra instruments from the Bunny Day and Festivale themes, respectively, are mixed into the track.