Joystiq [Nintendo]

"Iwata Asks" articles are almost as old as the Wii itself, coinciding as they do with any notable first-party release, and the latest round of questioning stars four of the Animal Crossing: City Folk team: Aya Kyougoku (who forgot to wear her regulation beige Nintendo jacket for this), Ryuji Kobayashi, Isao Moro and Kou Nogami (not pictured here).

Most of the discussion focuses on fairly obscure minutiae. So Nogami discusses how WiiConnect24 allows for the exchange of village data without you knowing it, which means people can visit a friend's village while their Wii is off, as can NPCs from other villages, who may then spread rumors from their hometown. The team estimates the game's appeal becomes "two or three times" as great when played online, a statement we look forward to testing.

We're also told that City Folk will let players create "trails" on the landscape. Apparently, the ground in your village consists of a top layer of grass which slowly wears thin the more you walk on it. A little grass grows back at the end of each day, but if you walk over a certain area enough (say, from your house to Tom Nook's), a trail will begin to form. Kobayashi says that it takes about a fortnight before a faint path becomes visible, and Moro adds that a clear trail will have appeared after two months, but that grass grows back more speedily if surrounded by grass and trees. Nifty!

[Via andriasang.com]