Tom Nook is a character that has appeared in man video game series. His Japanese name is Tanukichi. The fictional character of Tom Nook operates the village store in Animal Crossing franchise video games. He is seen to be the manager of the Resident Service building in Animal Crossing: New Horizon. His character was based on a Japanese raccoon dog named Tanuki.
He debuted in the video gaming world by making an appearance in the Nintendo 64 game Dobutsu no Mori. This game was released in an English version in Europe and North America as Animal Crossing. Nook is that character in the game with which the player interacts for the first time when the game starts. Nook sells the player a house to begin the game
An exception was made in Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Animal Crossing: New Horizons in which Nook sells a tent instead of the house to the player to begin the gameplay. The house or the tent is given on a mortgage and the house or tent becomes mortgage-free when it is paid off by the player.
Nook has appeared alongside other characters from Super Mario Bros. in the famous game of Super Smash Bros. Nintendo’s Treehouse member Rich Amtower considers Tom Nook as a good-hearted man. He appears to be greedy as an owner of a storehouse but partakes in the risk of hiring an unknown and new man to the town.
He may be compared to the first boss that every working professional had when they started doing the job for the first time. He is all business-like but helps the new man to stand on his feet by employing him in his shop and letting him earn his living.
Nook tags the price of a house in Animal crossing to be 19,800 bells, bells being an in-house video game currency. The player has only 1000 bells as a welcome bonus in the game and in some of the games in the series the player is not given any bells by default. Nook allows the player to help around in his shop and the player uses the money to pay off the debt to Nook.
The chores that Nook assigns are designed in a way to let the player learn basic control of the game that would help the player to progress in the video game. He can ask to plant flowers, write his letters, talk to the villagers, etc. After some of the debt is paid off, the players are released from the obligation, but they have to pay off the mortgage debt of the house.
Nook upgrades the house of the player once the Mortgage is completed. Each time this happens, players become more indebted to Nook as these add-ons in the game are costly. As the game progresses, Nook’s store also gets an upgrade from Nook’s Cranny to Nookington’s Departmental Store.