Talking Animal Crossing, cozy games, and more with the brains behind Nookazon

It’s been five years since Animal Crossing: New Horizons released, and its online marketplace is still going strong. Chances are, you’ve heard of Nookazon and used it to find that villager who kept evading you, or a specific furniture item or recipe. What you may not know is who created it, and why, and that he has his own game with plenty of Animal Crossing influences.

I got the chance to speak to Daniel Luu, Founder and CEO of Akrew. That’s the team behind Nookazon and now cozy multiplayer game Galactic Getaway. I got the chance to talk all things Nook and galactic with Daniel, and the first thing I wanted to know was what inspired the creation of Nookazon.

It turns out that, like a lot of us, Daniel played a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons during COVID, and was having issues hunting specific items down. “I turned to Discord, where a huge ACNH server was set up, but found a crazy mess when it came to the trading channels”. For anyone who’s delved into a server, this isn’t hard to imagine. Unlike most of us, though, he was immediately spurred to create his own cataloging site, where we could all trade with each other. “And so Nookazon was born!”, thankfully, as I used it over 270 times myself and have glowing five-star reviews, by the way. I’m an excellent trade partner if you ever need peaches.

It took less than a month to get Nookazon up and running – New Horizons release date landed on March 20, and Nookazon went live on April 9. I enquired if this was hard to do, as with such a big catalogue, it seems like a big task. “This wasn’t my first time making a site, but it was the first time any of my sites got this big!” Daniel says. “Creating the actual site wasn’t the issue; it was handling the number of users that flooded in. I posted the site on TikTok, and that got us 100,000 users overnight”. Clearly, the people yearn for an organized marketplace to trade their Raymonds for NMTs.

“The first three weeks, I spent 14-16 hour days making sure the site wasn’t crashing. I probably learned more about engineering during that month than in my entire career”. This also left him surprised at how fast it took off, even if most New Horizons players were desperate to flog their rare furniture, and were mostly at home all day. “I think it had to do with the meme-y name and the novelty of [being] an eBay for Animal Crossing”.

So, with all this new knowledge, Daniel set about making his own game. “I’ve always messed around with making games in the past, but never took anything all the way to release” – until now, with Galactic Getaway making its way into early access on Steam. The game takes a lot of influence from the Animal Crossing series, but adds its own twist with a new setting and plenty more multiplayer options.

This led me to ask which aspects of cozy games are a favorite, and which did Daniel know he wanted to bring to his own title? A welcoming vibe, so anyone can pick up and play is key, along with being generally accessible to everyone, even if they don’t “consider themselves as gamers. [A lot of people] went out and got a Switch just to play ACNH – I wanted the game I made to feel just like that”.

On a more specific level, the inspiration for Galactic Getaway came from a desire for more multiplayer, cute games. “One of the reasons I got New Horizons in the first place was to play with my girlfriend at the time – now wife – while we were apart in COVID”. First of all, congratulations! Second of all, I resonate with this as I played the game with family and friends strewn across Europe during 2020’s long months.

However, as a lot of us can agree with – “it was pretty disappointing when we booted up the multiplayer to find that there wasn’t much you could do together”. It’s true – outside of a self-made fishing competition or hitting each other with nets, it’s a lot of wandering around following each other. Daniel tells me he has fond memories of MapleStory and Club Penguin (RIP, gone but not forgotten), where it “wasn’t just about what was available in the game, but much more about the community. I wanted to 100% make sure that multiplayer was a big part of Galactic Getaway”.

We all love cozy games, and there are plenty of options to choose from. With this in mind, I asked what makes his game stand out and what its unique features are. “Definitely the community building.” Galactic Getaway has already helped players open up to multiplayer activities – according to Daniel, “all of the players in our Discord have pointed out that somehow our multiplayer just feels different than others”. There will be more features coming in the future, too, like the addition of marrying other players. Time for me to get my partner involved!

If you didn’t know, Galactic Getaway has pets you can play with and adopt. But they’re not just dogs and cats – oh, no – there are many fantastical critters to meet. “I loved the collection aspect of Animal Crossing, but I’m not a huge fan of bugs”. This is a fair sentiment that I’m sure a lot of people can understand. For me, it’s spiders. I can’t get along with them. “I really just wanted to have my own pet in the game. I also wanted to reward players for their hard work… I thought it would be neat for your planet to dictate what pets show up.” Of course, I wondered which is his favorite. Turns out it’s the hippo – “he looks just like Moo Deng!”. I’m immediately sold.

Of course, what we all want to know is when we might see the game on Nintendo Switch, and whether it will make its way to Switch 2. The Kickstarter page confirms it as coming to the Nintendo console, and Daniel reiterates that “hopefully by the end of the year,” we’ll see it on the console. “To my knowledge, any games that are available for Switch will also be available for Switch 2,” he continues – so there you have it, Switch-based, multiplayer action. There’s also hope that the game gets verified on Steam Deck soon, but the process can be a little long. The team is working on it, he reassures me.

I’m excited to get my hands on the game when it comes to Switch, though the early access is calling to me on Steam already. While a lot of players already have the game and are enjoying playing together, Daniel is really excited about GG finally being in early access and looks forward to everyone joining our community. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you there, dear reader?

You can keep up with Daniel Luu on X and follow the Galactic Getaway account, too. If you like easy games such as this, or you want some new Switch games, we have some recommendations for you. Plus, you can find all the Switch 2 pre-order information in our guide if you fancy grabbing the new console.