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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 35 – Extreme islanding

4 / 22 / 204 / 23 / 20

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It’s officially Earth Day and with the recent update trailer, we know a lot is upcoming, not just in the sense of with Earth Day and it bringing Redd, a Museum upgrade, and Leif with bushes, but also with upcoming events like May Day (I see you, Rover) and the Stamp Rally and even a Wedding ceremony (which those benches are beautiful…).

To my surprise, Isabelle didn’t mention anything about Earth Day. It was even raining. I had a bit of mail– besides the 5 things I ordered from the catalog yesterday, I also got a Sombrero for helping Gulliver and a Mixer from Merengue. Some things I was able to switch out quickly, but others needed to wait until I redid my house.

The best thing though is I finally had my ballet slippers!

I’m not sure if I like them more than the Mary-janes or not. While Ballet Slippers were my default shoes during New Leaf, the Black Mary-Janes were my default throughout City Folk.

I will say I am so incredibly tired of picking up tree branches. Despite my tree branch frustration though, this was the fastest I’ve found all my fossils to date so that was nice.

I surprisingly got a Lucky Gold Cat Recipe from Bitty. Unfortunately, I had just learned it yesterday so I sent it over to my husband.

Audie also officially moved out so it was Nook Miles Island time.

Kicks was here which was a huge surprise. I bought out his stock as usual.

I really wish the colors were listed.

I headed into Town Hall in hopes of the Earth Day Nook Miles things, but found nothing… I did, however, notice I apparently forgot to celebrate the Nook’s Cranny remodel yesterday which I feel awful about… I’m glad I was able to do so today.

I’m really surprised though that it seems “Nook’s Cranny” is being kept around this time over the name changing with the upgrade.

Regardless, with nothing else to do for now and feeling incredibly confused, I decided it was off to the Nook Miles Islands. I emptied out most of my inventory. I knew I wouldn’t be fishing and I only kept the bug net for tree shaking as it’s easier to do so on islands for items than it is in my own town.

I also made sure to mail off those two recipes to my husband before I headed off. Now to just hope I run into Marina, Diana, Maple, or Peanut.

My priorities essentially were:
-Villagers
-Recipes
-Hybrid flowers
-Shaking trees
-Weeds (as I was actually getting kind of low) and loose stone (as I can always use more)

While I could do more of things, having only one day to find a new villager, I preferred to keep my trips short and sweet. I may gather a few extra peaches though for crafting recipes. I only have two left. I also decided to just catalog any items from trees, unless it was something I planned to use, and release the wasps and leave the hives behind as I had plenty of the materials and I just didn’t feel like making constant drop box trips (or shop trips once Nook’s Cranny opens).

Island tally:

  • Island 1 – A bust. Rasher. Got some weeds and stone though. Sadly, nothing new from the tree item (A baby panda), but at least it counts to the Nook Miles thing regardless.
  • Island 2 – Spiral Island with Rory I think? I realized I forgot to check the first island for a recipe, but hopefully there wasn’t one… Sadly, there wasn’t on this one either and I figured I’d save weeds and rocks for another day unless I am gathering flowers or find a villager. I got a Tissue Box from this island’s trees so hopefully it’s at least a new color.
  • Island 3 – Naomi. Tape Deck from trees. Sadly hit the tree while shaking so I got stung, but I just made some medicine. …Maybe I don’t need my net. Still no recipes :(
  • Island 4 – Spiral island again, but this time with Goose. Still no recipe. Got a Nail-Art kit from a tree and got a fossil.
  • Island 5 – Hans. Whiteboard from a tree.
  • Island 6 – Rory again… But Peaches! So I made sure to grab a bunch. And since I was gathering all the peaches, I gathered the weeds, rocks, and some white lilies too as I love the Lily Record player. As a side note, I’m sad we can’t put fruits into baskets anymore– I know there’s the one crafting recipe with one of each, but it’s not the same.
  • Island 7 – Tex. Had to make myself medicine again. Mobile from tree.
  • Island 8 – Flo. Painting set from a tree.
  • Island 9 – Hugh. Air circulator from a tree. Recipes shouldn’t be this rare on islands, game T__T Returning back from this trip, I noticed the rain had slowed down a lot.
  • Island 10 – Waterfall Island! Tia was on it and while I like her a lot, she isn’t a top favorite.

    I ended up getting a document stack from a tree which was a little frustrating as I had JUST ordered some through the Nook Shop/Catalog after getting a Scattered Papers Recipe. I ended up just making and customizing it on the island. I also had gotten a recipe (Tree Standee– sadly already had it) and a fossil so I got that assessed at the museum too. It also stopped raining so at least getting up early let me get all my flowers watered.

  • Island 11 – Naomi again. At this point, I was feeling a bit discouraged. Not because of the amount of islands, but I never really saw duplicates before and this time, I have twice now. On the bright side, I got a new DIY recipe from “Captain Erik T. Crafter”– an Angled signpost! I also found an intercom monitor in a tree.
  • Island 12 – Chops. Toolbox from a tree.
  • Island 13 – Molly. I adore Molly a lot and she was in my New Leaf town. If we had 12 slots, she and Ruby likely would’ve been the last two. Anyway, I got a Surveillance camera from a tree. Which is kind of unsettling if you think too much about it.
  • Island 14 – Frank. Got a toilet from a tree.
  • Island 15 – Sally. Camp stove from a tree.

In the middle of all this, I found out the Earth Day stuff doesn’t start until tomorrow… The day after Earth Day. I’m guessing this is because Thursday is their update day, but I actually found it really disappointing and not just because I woke up so early for this. I also swear during the trailer before the most recent, it said it would be on Earth Day :/

Regardless, I still managed to do some things! Taking a small pause after Island 15, Mika let me stop by her town to get the Zen-style Stone (aka a Japanese tombstone/grave) recipe from Bones. She even let me take some stone to make it (as I’m always low) and let me have an Ironwood Clock recipe too. And let me stop by again to check out Able Sisters because I forgot they were opened for her already because timezones. I even managed to get the pink Waitress Uniform that was on my wishlist!

I also explored my town a bit and Cookie taught me how to smile with the Happiness Reaction:

And I learned how to make a Pansy Table from Margie and got some more Nook Miles tickets from my house in preparation. I also ran into Merengue who was wearing the Mega Audino dress I made!

I also stopped by Nook’s Cranny as it was opened now. Most of the items weren’t new, but I did get an Imperial bed.

It was then back to Islanding:

  • Island 16 – Peaches [the horse] who I almost didn’t recognize at first. She’s a lot brighter-colored in this game. Metal can from a tree.
  • Island 17 – Lionel. Anatomical model from a tree. Also found a fossil.
  • Island 18 – Knox. Baby chair from a tree. Found another fossil. Also got a recipe in a bottle from Astrid and learned how to make a Cosmos shower!
  • Island 19 – Hybrid island!! Hybrid lilies again. I gathered as many pink as I could and petals for recipes from the rest. Alli was also here. And a Double Sofa was in a tree.
  • Island 20 – Bamboo island. Cranston. Found another fossil.
  • Island 21 – Another Peach tree island with another fossil. I gathered plenty before so I didn’t get any again this time. Found a recipe from Julian– Golden candlestick which I already know. Gruff was the villager there.
  • Island 22 – Eugene. Another fossil and a Revolving Spice rack in a tree.
  • Island 23 – Bamboo island again. Puddles, who is one of my favorite frogs.
  • Island 24 – Peach Tree island again. Astrid.
  • Island 25 – Waterfall Island again. Gloria. Got a Cone from a tree.
  • Island 26 – Snooty. Recipe from Tipper: Bamboo Candleholder so nothing new. Found a Table lamp in a tree.
  • Island 27 – Lyman. High-end stereo from a tree.
  • Island 28 – Axel. Spiral island. Recipe from Rosie: Shell Table. Hose Reel.

In the middle of this batch of islanding, I also stopped by to check on my other villagers, gave Teddy the Hamster cage he had been eyeing in the store, and went around to see if anyone new was crafting as I noticed Margie stopped. Merengue ended up making a Knitted-grass backpack. I already had one though.

Able Sisters had also opened by now. Sadly, nothing interesting today though. Anything I would’ve wanted, I already had. I regret not working harder on cataloging from the shop, but not only is it just too exhausting and stressful right now, having to run all the way back to my house to grab things from storage to sell back is annoying. I think there is a lot of pros to the auto-storage thing, especially for anything you want to keep, but it’s just a pain for anything you just want to catalog and I kind of wish you could choose when you want to send it to storage and when you want to bring it with you.

With Island 28, I finally hit the 100 Shady Shakedown achievement so happy to have that done. I may still shake some trees for items though as it’s pretty helpful with my cataloging goal…

But our journey still continued to find Marina, Diana, Maple, or Peanut:

  • Island 29 – Peach island. Pinky. Another recipe from Julian surprisingly: Scattered papers this time.
  • Island 30 – Zucker, my second favorite Octopus– alas, we are looking for Marina (or Diana, Maple, or Peanut). Mounted blue marlin from a tree.
  • Island 31 – Bamboo island. Knox.
  • Island 32 – Peach Island. Norma. One of my favorite cows and a contender if we had more spots, but she’s not in the top 8. Also a recipe from “Capt. Pudge T. Crafter”: Orange dress.
  • Island 33 – Zucker again. Lecture-hall bench from tree.
  • Island 34 – Octavian. There’s only 3 Octopi in the game so this kind of hurts now. Beach towel from a tree.
  • Island 35 – Bamboo Island again. Leonardo. A recipe from Roscoe: Tiki Torch. Which everyone has.
  • Island 36 – Waterfall island. Tank. Recipe from Dora: Log extra-long sofa which is a recipe I’ve needed. Wall clock from a tree.
  • Island 37 – Money rock island. Scoot. While I could use more bells, it’s just not my focus right now and I’d rather save my shovel for flowers.
  • Island 38 – Coach. Velvet Stool from a tree. Recipe from Apollo: Bamboo hat.
  • Island 39 – Money rock island and Naomi again.
  • Island 40 – Spiral island. Tex. Mug in tree.
  • Island 41 – Opal. Found a Bathroom sink in a tree and also found a fossil.
  • Island 42 – Becky. Found a Floor sign in a tree.
  • Island 43 – Spiral Island. Moe. Oil barrel in a tree.
  • Island 44 – Peach island. T-Bone.
  • Island 45 – Waterfall island. Reneigh. Recipe from Astrid: Golden Dishes. Yay for a new DIY Recipe.
  • Island 46 – Flo. Alto Saxophone.
  • Island 47 – Filbert. Cypress plant from a tree, also found a fossil and got a recipe from Louie: Fossil doorplate.
  • Island 48 – Bamboo island. Cyrano.
  • Island 49 – Money tree island. Marcie, another old friend from New Leaf who I love a lot, but alas, we only have room for 8 total and I have exactly 8 top tier favorites.
  • Island 50 – Bamboo Island. Canberra.
  • Island 51 – Clyde. Standing toilet from a tree.
  • Island 52 – Peach tree. Norma again. Found another fossil too.
  • Island 53 – Astrid. Old-fashioned alarm clock. Recipe from Rizzo: Fancy Mum wreath.
  • Island 54 – Waterfall Island. Dotty. Rattan Wardrobe.
  • Island 55 – Bamboo island. Soleil.
  • Island 56 – Prince. Kitty Litter box.
  • Island 57 – Peach island. Celia.
  • Island 58 – Curt. Knife blog. Recipe from Twiggy: Wooden Stool.
  • Island 59 – Bamboo Island. Lucy, my favorite pig, but again, not who we are looking for. Recipe from Derwin:
  • Island 60 – Spiral Island. Rocket. Sturdy sewing box.
  • Island 61 – Drago. Paper Lantern.
  • Island 62 – Apple. Effects rack.
  • Island 63 – Annalisa. Simple panel.
  • Island 64 – Bamboo Island. Willow.
  • Island 65 – Plucky. Toy box.
  • Island 66 – Waterfall Island. Boyd. Fortune-telling set. Recipe from Sheldon:
  • Island 67 – Kevin. Cute floor lamp.
  • Island 68 – Waterfall island. Mathilda. Ironing board.
  • Island 69 – Peach Island. Pietro.
  • Island 70 – Pango. Squat toilet.
  • Island 71 – Chester. Vacuum Cleaner. Recipe from Flo: Iron Garden Bench.
  • Island 72 – Annalisa again. At this point, I’m only going to check for recipes as it’s faster and it’s been 7 hours now of me playing, most of it doing these islands.
  • Island 73 – Yuka.
  • Island 74 – Sprocket
  • Island 75 – Peach Island. Soleil. Recipe from Kody: Pear Wardrobe
  • Island 76 – Waterfall Island. Big Top. Also found a fossil.
  • Island 77 – Clay. Recipe from Tia: Peach dress.
  • Island 78 – Eunice. Recipe from Mint: Timber doorplate.
  • Island 79 – June. Another favorite, but not a top 8 favorite.
  • Island 80 – Tybalt. Recipe from Baabara: Garden Bench. I’ve been wanting this recipe too.
  • Island 81 – Bamboo Island. Nate.
  • Island 82 – Peach Island. Plucky. Recipe from Kabuki: Kettle Bathtub. I didn’t even know this existed. It looks more like a cauldron.
  • Island 83 – Tiffany.
  • Island 84 – Waterfall Island. Bruce.
  • Island 85 – Coach. Recipe from Violet: Golden dishes.
  • Island 86 – Peach island. Pierce. Also found a fossil.
  • Island 87 – Alli.
  • Island 88 – Baabara. Recipe from Buck: Iron frame. At least I’m getting some new recipes through all this.
  • Island 89 – Bamboo Island. T-bone again.
  • Island 90 – Baabara. Recipe from Prince: Cardboard bed.
  • Island 91 – Waterfall Island. Lobo.
  • Island 92 – Tangy.

At this point, I was just too exhausted to keep going and also a bit too discouraged. I didn’t really keep track of how fast I found Merengue, Cookie, and Flurry, but it definitely wasn’t even close to this and it makes me nervous for finding any of the other four. I do have the Amiibo, but hearing such mixed things on then, I’m nervous about messing things up for someone or glitching my game. And it’s part of what has made me nervous about reaching out to others too.

In the end though, I did try and someone was nice enough to trade me their Marina for some DIYs and Bells:




I’m so happy to have another villager from my Dream Villager list and while I would’ve been happy with Diana, Maple, or Peanut as well, I think this house plot is perfect for Marina. I can’t wait to decorate some stuff into her yard tomorrow.

As some bonuses, Mika sent me the spring version of the Train Station! I’d love to get the Autumn and Summer versions too at some point, but they were low priority compared to Spring and Winter so I’m happy I have both of those now.

I also really love how villagers will use clothing and things you give them occasionally. Cookie will sometimes wear the outfit and use the umbrella I gave her and she looks adorable.

It’s definitely been a crazy day. But now I’m going to get some sleep before the big update tomorrow!

—–

Edit: Late night additions! So, the update is officially out and of course, it’s best to patch early so I quickly took care of that. I was a little nervous when the “Updating Saved data” thing popped up, but thankfully everything seems okay.

As soon as I checked my mail, I was greeted with a letter from Nintendo! But I also noticed a mail from “Bank of Nook” which was interesting to me.

The letter from Nintendo came with a World Map while the letter from “Bank of Nook” came with a Bell-bag rug. What throws me off with the Bank of Nook letter is it feels like… a really weird letter?

I think it’s essentially saying there’s no bank interest in this game (or bank gifts) which while I don’t mind the latter as much (Earning bells has never been my strong suit and I’m already struggling), it’s disappointing if there’s no bank interest as my bells are quickly running out with the new prices. (Edit: Turns out there was a 1% monthly interest and now it’s .5% because I wasn’t struggling enough I guess)

As I was putting stuff away though, it turns out my storage is full… I’m going to have to start emptying it out and quickly :/ I just hope I won’t have to get rid of anything I didn’t want to. For now, I took out a bunch of my tree branches and quickly did a lot of tool crafting due to the Nook Miles achievement.

Sadly, 180 tree branches (6 stacks of them for 36 tools) barely made a dent in the 1,000 Nook Miles goal.

On the way, I also ran into Wisp!

I always feel so bad for startling him… He ended up giving me a Wall fan.

After, I stopped by the Nook Stop to pick up the new shirts available for Nook Miles. I also ended up visiting some people!

I got a lovely new recipe (and some of these villager’s houses are so nice, I swear…):

I also made a new friend and got to tour her town, catalog a lot of stuff, and even got some blue roses!! Plus even more pink flowers!

I only need one more Blue Rose now and then it’s just the Green Mums and Black Cosmos left to go! Also the lovely little Stargazing area just reminded me how much I hope to eventually get those recipes.

She also sent over the Pink Box Sofa items so now my bathroom is even pinker. I need to order the Simple Panels in a different color eventually.

Meanwhile, Blathers is all set up for Art… and I sure hope I find Redd quickly because I want to upgrade the museum ASAP!



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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Days 11 and 12

3 / 30 / 203 / 2 / 21

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Day 11

As I headed into Resident Services, Tom Nook explained how the camp site caused the tourism of the island to increase and that they were getting even closer to the goal of K.K. performing. We just had to reach 3 Stars. Isabelle was especially optimistic.

Knowing I had to continue to make the island better, I decided to create my first incline.

I really wish there were more ramp styles.

I stopped by some friends after that and decided to get back to Nook Miles Islands. To my surprise, the first island I ended up arriving on was a Hybrid Flower island fully of hybrid lilies! Zell was also here BUT PINK LILIES.

Unsurprisingly, I filled my pockets and covered my front yard in a sense.

I also started decorating a bit near Resident Services.

I also equipped one of the Pink Lilies I picked.

Regardless, after visiting making another return to Southern Hemisphere friends and continuing to contribute to the museum (now fully upgraded), it was time to get back to my island search journey…

  • Island 2 – Pancetti
  • Island 3 – Static
  • Island 4 – Norma
  • Island 5 – Cookie!!


And upon arriving back in Pink Sea, I made her the plot was properly updated.

With that done, we celebrated the brand new bridge being finished.

I also continued to work on the upstairs room a bit.

Finally, to finish off the day, I managed to catch a Peacock Butterfly and also organized my flowers a bit in hopes to breed more pink ones!

Day 12

Merengue was officially moved in. Well, she was still unpacking, but…

The Able Sisters shop was done building.

I got to see Celeste at a friend’s town!

Mira also taught me a new reaction.

I also paid off another incline, visited friends, gave some tickets to Saharah, got a cute dress, and Mira said some really kind words too.

It was then back to islanding in hopes of finding my next dream villager!

  • Island 1 – Chester
  • Island 2 – Lyman
  • Island 3 – Mac
  • Island 4 – Rooney
  • Island 5 – Elvis
  • Island 6 – Del
  • Island 7 – Barold
  • Island 8 – Snooty
  • Island 9 – Camofrog
  • Island 10 – Flurry!!

I quickly went to confirm Flurry was indeed going to be moving in.

This put me in a bit of a predicament now though. I only have one Villager spot left and my focus was on Judy. It’s not that I necessarily liked her best– she was tied with my other 7 favorites. They are the Great 8 of Favorites. But… she doesn’t have an Amiibo Card. Any other villager I could try and move in when ready, but with Judy, I either needed to find her or hope I’d get her from someone else.

But I’d feel awful passing on a villager I love just because they have an Amiibo Card so my best bet now was to just hope I could maybe catch someone selling her or giving her away.

Moving on, it was time to celebrate the Able Sisters opening!


Plus another new incline.

And I finally got a tiara!

Besides that, most of the rest of the day I worked on redecorating a bit.


I also got some flowers from friends and I caught a Coelacanth!

I also finally learned how to make a Shell Fountain and got a Shell Arch as well!

Finally, I ended up helping out Wisp…

…And making wishes over at a friend’s place, along with talking to Celeste again!

And that finishes up days 11 and 12 :)

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I both really like and am really frustrated with New Horizons

3 / 29 / 203 / 30 / 20

I’ve been working on my daily entries and going back and forth on if I want to make one big entry with Days 2-10 or individual ones. While I really hoped to keep up better with it all, I haven’t been able to and it’s partially as New Horizons probably takes up more of my time than any previous Animal Crossing game. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

To try and focus more on those, I needed to get out my feelings a bit in general about the game because it’s been rough and my feelings towards it are very different than to most Animal Crossing games.

They absolutely aren’t all bad. I truly enjoy playing the game. But some things are just… not good and I’ve already hit points of the game that I know I should probably be doing every day that I just don’t want to do anymore.

In no surprise to anyone even though I tried to give it a chance: I hate the crafting system with all my heart. Adding resource management to Animal Crossing has added an extensive amount of repeatable activities that I just don’t care for. I don’t want to smack every single tree of mine for wood (or bamboo for, well, bamboo). I don’t want to hit every single rock every single day for ore and stone and clay. I don’t want to have an extra supply of flowers for me to pick the bulbs from. It’s boring, it’s too repetitive, and at this point, I’m frustrated because SO MUCH is tied to crafting and there’s no real workaround for it. Materials aren’t sold anywhere for anyone who would rather not comb through their island every single day for resources, many items are literally craftable only, you can’t even customize everything’s color, and it doesn’t add anything to the game for me. I think it’s a good option to give people things to do– I just don’t think it should be the sole option for so many things (and then be pick and choose with parts of it *coughcustomizationcough*).

Collecting recipes is fun, sure, but it’s less fun when I see the materials. And to be honest, collecting recipes in the first place isn’t as fun when it’s constantly random.

And that’s kind of what kills me the most, the immense amount of randomness in the game this time around. Surprises can be fun, sure, but that works a little more with the Nook Miles (and not always– we’ll get to that) and a lot less with what recipe you get and when. There’s a lot of recipes I’ve seen people have that I’d love to get, but have not been lucky enough to. Starting with Nothing has made such a big difference between those who time traveled and those who did not, not having Nook’s Cranny and Able Sister’s from the start was weird and honestly, not that enjoyable to get to the point where we could have them, having such a small amount of our island originally accessible and then being just tossed in to needing to place these giant plots and maybe not having an island with a decent amount of room to place things just yet due to all the trees around and not really sure what to expect

When it comes to Player Quality of Life, it just doesn’t feel like it’s there. Crafting one item at a time, only being able to buy what you could wear out of Able Sister’s and thus needing to go in multiple times, locking QR codes still that were transferred in even if you were the one to make them, limiting how much you can order and mail to people from the catalog, being unable to access the ABD for an entire day during construction (While they at least made up for the Nook Miles Streak, my issue was more being unable to pay off my loan and I use the catalog to keep track of things)…

I also think having colors is a great addition, but I think making it so we can’t customize them and while making each count separately versus letting all colors be unlocked when an item is gotten was honestly a mistake as it

This is especially frustrating when things like The Nook Miles items end up having their colors vary per island. I like playing with my friends. I like surprising them with gifts and hanging out. I don’t like feeling like I have to work with a bunch of people to do things because none of the items are customizable to change their colors and the colors don’t change.

Part of the fun of Animal Crossing is being able to play how you want. Which doesn’t feel like the case in New Horizons with tools constantly breaking (even gold tools!! What is even the point?! What kind of reward is something I have to constantly remake even then), really limited progress (And as someone who likes taking it slow, I wouldn’t even mind this normally, but it feels weird having mainstay features just… on hold for a while like the hourly music and certain shops), and having to patch in events. If people can change their time back to an event after it happens for the first time, I’ll take back at least some of my complaints on this, but otherwise, it’s a lot more limited. Not everyone has the same schedule and even as someone who doesn’t time traveler, I feel stressed thinking I could mess up and miss out.

It doesn’t help that it’ll be at the same time as the Cherry Blossom season which has a whole load of special seasonal recipes and a rare material with the cherry blossom petals and balancing those won’t be fun. And then with also gathering stuff for Easter? How might that effect what drops and what shows up?
Why can’t I just buy the cherry blossom recipes during the season? Why does it have to be such a random mess?

The fact that the Easter Event is 12 days long has me more concerned as it feels like it’ll require a lot of effort and like… I already feel overwhelmed with what I want to do.

In general, Animal Crossing has always had walls, but I think the ones I’ve struggled the most with are when it comes to moving buildings. You can’t switch bridges or move them as far as I can tell– you can only demolish and remake. While you can move shops and resident’s houses (plus your own), not only does it cost quite a lot of bells, but you need to wait until the next day for the move to happen and can only move one thing at a time.

In a realistic sense, I can get that, in a game-sense, this is incredibly frustrating and is the one wait I just can’t really understand. Spatial awareness is not one of my fortes and for me to really work with things, I need to have all my cards on the table. Moving things once and then having to wait 24 hours and move again is a really quick way for me to lose my footing and not be able to keep track of what I want to do or really get a good feel of it.

I do A LOT of shifting things around– a little to the left, a little to the right, depending on how things get placed as we go. I could end up moving multiple buildings several times and it could be months before I have everything where I want just due to how I tend to work when it comes to landscaping.

With how easy they added a method to move trees, I wish that feature was considered other ways. I wish everything could be that easy to move and even the ability to move rocks over just destroying them.

I wish the Tool Ring actually brought the tools in versus still taking up inventory space. I wish the Wands worked more as copies of clothing items versus removing them so I wouldn’t need 8 pairs of tights to use it the way I want.

I wish everything didn’t feel so complicated and random. I wish it was clearer that I could’ve gotten more villagers I wanted sooner. I wish they didn’t restrict which personality types you got when. I wish I had the option to say no. I wish I knew why starting with nothing feels like it has more rigidness than starting with a lot of things.

Even though Villagers feel more emotive and they interact randomly in general, it doesn’t feel like they interact much with items versus like… Pocket Camp. I feel like they rarely want me to do anything and it’s weird not having any way to ask for things to do.

It’s great that we don’t have to worry about them moving out necessarily, but why is it such a pain to move them in? Do Amiibo Cards really need to be tried so many times? I can understand the randomness of the Islands, but I wish I had more choice when Nook first moved people in– even a chance to go to islands to ask (Which, yes, I know I could’ve before I finished setting up the plots, but I didn’t expect them to immediately be sold) before they were randomly picked.

I feel like so many controls just aren’t explained or are so easy to miss. Some controls just feel really awkward. Why is there no multi-select option for selling, dropping, and storing things?

I miss the house styles and it feels like we have less options this time. Why are the rooms smaller? Why are there no colors for fence options? What’s even the point of customizing tools when they break?

Where are even so many items? My Classic set, my Rococo set, my lovely set… The game has so many new things, but is missing tons of old stuff and feels incomplete. If they plan to patch things in, I wish they waited until everything was in already. I don’t want another Splatoon 2 thing. Not to mention the crazy prices of items in comparison to what they used to be (Over 60K for a Clawfoot tub?? 100K for a Desktop Computer???).

I feel like some people could say maybe I’m just burned out, but I’m not at all. I WANT to play. I ENJOY playing. But it also makes me feel anxious and discouraged and sad.

With New Leaf, I loved watching people’s videos and writing things down that I want and keeping up with things. Seeing how people handled things, when they unlocked each shop.

With New Horizons, it makes me anxious and feel like I’m doing something wrong when I see people with all these amazing recipes and items that I don’t have. Even though I know it’s random.

I hate having to place all these things where I don’t want to because of such a closed-space with the river and not really having enough room to do what I want.

I have a vision with my town. I have so much I want to do. I want to see it come true.

But I feel like I’m trapped in such a tiny room and nothing will work.

I love Animal Crossing so much. And most of the time, I do find ways to have fun. But then I try to make progress in changing things how I want to and have no plan or structure as all I can do is wait and it breaks my heart that this is how I end up feeling.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 10

3 / 28 / 202 / 28 / 21

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist | ACNH Overview

Today was quite the packed day, but it made it a lot of fun too. My house slowly continued to shape up.

We got our first camper: Phil. Having my mind already set on villagers, I was a bit bummed that I knew I had to invite him.

But on a brighter note, Mable asked to set up a store right on the island!

I ended up placing it to the left of Resident Services for now.

I also ended up finding a lost item. It belonged to Teddy.

And while visiting a friend’s island in the Southern Hemisphere, I caught a Betta!

Even if I knew Phil wouldn’t be staying permanently, I still tried to place his house somewhere nice.

With this done though, this would be my last “forced” villager which meant I was free to Villager Hunt for some of my Dream Villagers. While it’s true I could’ve done so earlier when doing the initial three house plots for Tom Nook, I’m actually glad I didn’t as then the houses would be stuck with the preset ones over their actual unique houses. I still feel bad for Mira and Teddy…

After placing down a house, it was off to the Nook Miles Islands.

  • Island 1 – Gonzo, Wooden-full length Mirror DIY from Candi
  • Island 2 – Merengue!!


I quickly rushed back to Pink Sea to make sure everything was set and then put down another plot to continue the Villager search again soon.

But with the hunt successful for the day, I decided to work a little more around Town first.

Our bridge was completed!

I also immediately paid off the next bridge I made.

I did end up going back to islands, but with two villagers already in “pending moving” (Phil and Merengue), I couldn’t find another just yet. I did still do a couple more islands just for fun though to gather some resources.

And with that, it was another day complete!

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 9

3 / 27 / 204 / 30 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist | ACNH Overview

The day kicked off and continuing with my ridiculous goals, I paid off my final house loan.

I’m super disappointed we can’t seem to expand the side rooms. Part of City Folk’s problem was having a smaller house than Wild World so it kills me that we’re running into that again. These are home console games. There is no reason some rooms should be smaller than New Leaf’s. The bonus of free customization also just isn’t really worth it– I held off on it simply because you could only upgrade OR customize which was silly to me and I wanted to have everything unlocked, but the few thousand you save isn’t worth the millions for the final loan unless there’s some like… pricey house structural options like how I could have a Castle in New Leaf.

After a bit of debate, I ended up going with this house design and the Pink Heart Doorplate:

It feels weird not having the fence options too like New Leaf, but over all, it’s at least really cute.

I also set up a bridge near my house to make it easier to get to the other side.

And then it was celebrating time. We had both the campsite and stone bridge being finished.


I normally like the cloud flooring a lot, but I just have mixed feelings on the animations. I’m not really into most of them to be honest.

On the bright side, I finally caught a Barreleye!

Happy to have another donation to the museum.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 8

3 / 26 / 204 / 22 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist

With a new day comes the opening of the new Resident Services building!


One thing that was really nice is I wasn’t penalized for not being able to access the Nook Stop yesterday.

I had saved up a lot of Nook Miles so I immediately made a very important purchase.

I kind of hope they may consider letting us get even more inventory space someday… I like to have all my tools on me at all times which can be inconvenient as they take up an entire row X-x

I also made sure to pay off my loan. I was sad to be behind a day, but glad to still make progress.

I then got my next big goal.

I will admit while I do like K.K. in general as a character, I only like a couple of his songs so I kind of wish there was an option between “Big fan” and “Never heard of him” as neither really worked for me. Regardless, my first goal was to set up the camp site so I went ahead and placed it in the back left.

I also spoke to Alfonso about moving his house as I really wanted all the Villager houses to be to the right of Resident Services.

I then immediately spoke to Isabelle to set up a Town Tune and flag for now. The Town Tune I used in my New Leaf town won the vote so I used it again while a new flag won the flag vote.

We also celebrated the Resident Services upgrade.


And I even started on building a bridge.

Despite all the Nook Miles I saved, I wasn’t able to get the all the new DIY Recipes and Nook Miles items, but I did at least manage to get all of my top favorites.

And I redid my flag from an old design I had saved.

I also visited a friend’s town and it was really inspiring.

I then stopped by my husband’s town to drop some stuff off.

And then also visited Theo! He was nice enough to give me some flowers too and a cute dress T~T

Speaking of cute dresses, I bought some new really nice ones and even played around with patterns.

I also continued to do work on my house, but I’m still not really satisfied with it.

And finally, I learned a new reaction– Bashfulness:

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 7

3 / 25 / 204 / 22 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist

Day 7 had the Resident Services under construction which would’ve been less an issue if I could still use the Nook Shop and withdraw and deposit bells and pay off my loan… I almost wished they moved the Nook Stop outside temporarily. Despite the closure though and no overarching goals, I did finish some personal goals of mine today.

Margie also finished moving in and surprised me with a gift as well.

I also got Teddy a new shirt.

And I hung out with Kymera a bit.

I got another new recipe from a bottle.

And I got my Pink Lolita dress!!

Now I just need to get my Ballet Slippers… In the meantime, I at least got some of the Shell furniture too that people were nice enough to craft for me! A Shell fountain and a Shell partition :D

And I visited a lot of friends’ towns!

I also got a recipe from Dom in Melissa’s town and met Norma in Renae’s.

I actually like Dom a lot and he’s probably my second favorite of the new villagers, even if not at the same caliber as Judy. Meanwhile, Norma has always been one of my favorite cows. I’d probably put both in my second or third tier of villagers.

Despite the busy day, there were still some surprises that night too. For one, I got a Shell Lamp. The Pearl version is so pretty lit up.

Mira then challenged me to a game of Treasure Hunter.

Unfortunately, I failed. There was no quick and easy way to get around my island just yet and there were too many spots for her to bury it. I hope I’ll get another chance some day.

Despite my complete failure, Mira asked me to bring an apology gift to Margie so I did my best to help out.

And thanks to Melissa, I got a Sea Globe of my own!

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 6

3 / 24 / 204 / 22 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist

Audie finished moving in today and Margie started her own unboxing procedures.

Tom Nook also announced that Resident Services would be closed tomorrow as it was being upgraded and Isabelle would be coming to help! While I was sad that we would not be able to access Resident Services while everything was being upgraded, I was excited for the upgrade.

Meanwhile, had visited a friend’s town who already had the Able Sisters shop. I wish there was some kind of catalog feature as not only did it take like an hour, my inventory was so full, I had to come back looking awful. And then, of course, that was when Mira decided would be the perfect time to teach me a new reaction.


I’m sorry you have to see me like this

Once again, not much ended up happening overall, but I did finally catch an ant!

And I hung out over in Sami’s town too.

I felt bad for not having an instrument though… The apologetic reaction is absolutely going to get a lot of use.

Unrelated really, but I love how she waves after returning back home:

And once again, it’s just really beautiful to look out sometimes.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 5

3 / 23 / 204 / 22 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist

So, while my husband and some of my other friends had gotten Gulliver already, I still hadn’t seen him. Alas, today was today as the first thing I saw as the screen booted up was him passed out on my beach. Honestly pretty useful considering nobody tells you anything otherwise unless a villager randomly speaks up.

And thus, I quickly went off to meet him to help him with his task.


To be honest, I’m not super fond of his new quest of finding 5 of his machine parts. I liked the trivia questions. And between the shovel being able to break, the fact that this is the only way to get a fairly rare material, and you need to help him 30 times when him showing up is completely random to get the golden shovel just puts a lot on something that should be a fun optional event. They’ve also given Gulliver so many other items like masks and things he didn’t used to have and while I would’ve been okay with more worldly landmarks, I wish things we could wear kept to the Able Sisters instead.

Anyway, since I finished the plots for Nook immediately, 3 random villagers were actually set to them– Alfonso, Audie, and Margie. I have nothing against any of them, but none were any of my top 8 favorites. Originally, I was kind of upset for finishing so quickly as if I spent time roaming Nook Miles Islands, I could’ve found villagers I wanted to invite that would’ve claimed these plots instead. However, I later found out that the first 5 villagers you get (your starting two and the three from building these plots) have “default” homes that are separate from their original houses. I’d like to hope maybe this could be patched in the future once you fully pay off your loan, but regardless, it made me feel a bit better about having not found them just yet after all as I’m sure their houses would be really cute.

Regardless, I still made sure to greet Alfonso now that he was all set (and had greeted him in boxes yesterday).


It was nice of him to give me a gift and I hope we can still be friends even when he eventually moves.

With plots done, things were relatively lowkey. I had no tasks from Nook and wasn’t really in the mood to do Nook Miles grinding, but I did spend some time with friends!

Zed came to visit for one and he even caught an Oarfish!

I also stopped by Sami’s who was kind enough to craft some stuff for me.

And went to Carina’s later on as Celeste was there and a Meteor shower was going on! While I had gotten to see a Meteor Shower at Rune’s, Celeste wasn’t in town so I wasn’t able to get the Star Wand recipe so it was nice to finally meet her in this game.


I wished until I hit the 200 for the Nook Miles goal.

Later, surprisingly, I saw Celeste in my own town, though, no meteor shower. She mentioned she could tell me a story if I had any zodiac-related things so I brought her an Aries fragment. I hope I can eventually show her all of them.

I hope one day I’ll have my own meteor shower, but for now, I’m just happy whenever Celeste shows up.

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Day 4

3 / 22 / 204 / 18 / 20

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist

A new day had dawned and I was immediately greeted with a phone call. And as mentioned, these phone calls got old almost immediately.

When I start playing, I generally have an idea of what I want to do and am ready to go so just getting stopped here for this dialogue when it is LITERALLY explained when I interact with the box is incredibly jarring and kills my momentum.

On the bright side, I got my first Star Fragments.

I actually find these really pretty. I want to get so many more of them. Not just for all the recipes, but maybe to put some around town…

But best of all, the museum opened!!

I genuinely don’t have enough words for how much I love the museum. It’s breathtaking and while I’ve always adored the museum, I’ve never wanted to complete it more than this time.






I loved how it built up as you donated more things. It actually gave me a lot of inspiration for how I hoped to use waterfalls and other water elements in my own town.

And because it wasn’t a busy day enough, we also met Daisy Mae today and got our first run-in with the turnip business.

I had pretty high prices, but I bought some anyway… And well, it worked out as a friend in a different timezone had managed to get decent prices for me to sell which helped a lot with the bell earning.

Our first bridge was built too and while I get that it was a free bridge, I do wish we still got to pick the style– I don’t have plans to keep it and I feel kind of bad about it.

And I even finally got to learn about customization!

I really wish we could recolor everything :/ Here’s hoping Reese & Cyrus make a return and they can customize what we can’t. Unfortunately, Nook didn’t have any other tasks for me and thus, with my loan paid off as well, I turned my focus to the museum.

While I was finally able to demolish the donation pile for Blathers by finally bringing everything to him, I still had things I needed to catch and managed to make some progress in that department too.

I also visited friends! I hung out with Carina and Puku at their towns.

And went to my husband’s town to say Hi and also meet with Saharah.

I also continued to look longingly at waterfalls for the day I may too have beautiful waterfalls.

I have to say in general, the game is really pretty. I don’t necessarily mean a graphic perspective (though, I do think they’re nice– it’s just not my area of expertise), but just it’s really nice to just look out into the horizon, no pun intended. Like it makes me think of a postcard or desktop wallpaper or something.

The constant best friend notification kind of ruins it though. I’m not sure why it has to buzz every time someone gets online– it already tells us. If they send a message to us or to everyone, I can understand the chat notification lighting up, but the best friend notification does not need to be alerting as much as it tends to.

With a lot of progress on the Northern Hemisphere though, it was time to take a trip down under to the Southern Hemisphere for some more donations for the museum.




Just seeing how the museum grew already and how it changed at night just added to how amazing it is.

Outside of Museum progress, I did try to do some work on my house too. I’m not super proud of it, but it’s at least something for now.

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