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Day 133

With Dream Suite on the horizon and likely to be available to download sometime tonight, I buckled down to finally start work on my house. I think the biggest hang-up for me is I wish I could use two different wallpapers/carpets for some of the longer rooms to use simple panels to kind of break-off sections, but unfortunately that isn’t possible which makes certain rooms in particular problematic with me trying to figure out the best theme for it.

Booting up though, I was told there was a Visitor in the Campsite so I decided to stop there before I started on the house craziness. Limberg was visiting.

Meanwhile, Leif was in the Plaza today.

As for the update, I’m expecting the Dream Suite to have at least two Nook Miles achievements– possibly three: One for visiting Dreams, One for uploading dreams (whether just once or multiple times*), and the third possible one is if they count how many visits your Dream Island gets.

* I will probably only upload twice guaranteed until April… Once when Dream Suite goes up and once between 6PM and 7PM tomorrow as it’s the time my island looks best. Otherwise I’ll just do so for any particularly big changes unless it does count it more than just once– if so, then I’ll be doing it daily until I hit that count and then follow with this plan with the big final update being in April as my town is set up for Cherry Blossom season.

I’m a bit nervous about visiting Dream Suites this time. With New Leaf, things were a bit less freeform so it was nice seeing how people used things differently, but I feel like so much more can be done this time with New Horizons that I think it may just make me feel even more underwhelmed with my own town.

I’m still looking forward to it, of course, and I even set up a form for people to submit dream addresses for me to visit it, but I can’t help and be nervous about it too.

But I feel like it may be a bit bittersweet. Especially when all my patterns are full already too :(

Regardless, it was time to get to work. I hoped to do before and after photos for each area, but didn’t get to it. I believe I have photos of each area already on here though so… Anyway, after like 12 hours, I finally finished my rooms… Despite all the preparations, I actually still had to juggle my storage a lot and even had to order a few items.

I wish it was better. Nothing really feels right even though I also feel kind of happy with it at the same time. I at least like it better than what I had.

Despite not feeling too great, I made sure to pop on as soon as the update finished installing shortly after 9PM EST. There was a letter from Nintendo with a gift as a thank you for updating (some really nice Fireworks wallpaper) as expected, but also a letter from Luna that included the bed you used in the Dream Suite in New Leaf.

I quickly headed to my room to sleep. I really love how the Dream Suite looks this time around and how it kind of fits the whole Tapir-Dream-Eater thing. I also love that it pulls your bed in as well.

Unfortunately, I may have been a bit too quick as the dream servers weren’t up yet/online maintenance was still ongoing… And thus, I had to wait until tomorrow to really experience the Dream Suite.

I did see a notice for the upcoming Fireworks though so that was exciting.

That said, it seems like there’s no Nook Miles achievements after all. Thinking about it, I guess since Dream Suite requires an online connection which now costs money, they couldn’t really have anything for it… But it could’ve still just been something like “Meet Luna” and I am surprised there’s nothing for the fireworks.

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Day 134

Rather than wait until later, I just wanted to get my dream up immediately. I felt bad not getting it up last night. First things first though– I had to clean up the random tree branches that are always around. Along the way though, I ended up finding a lost item and after investigating it, was pretty sure it was Mira’s.

Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be up for over three hours. Outside of being able to investigate the item to get a hint of who it belongs to (which only goes so far if you have more than one of the same personality at the same friendship level and unless you decide to only have 8 villagers, there is no way to only have one of each personality), nearly everything else about it is frustrating. You can’t get friendship points for it if someone tells you who it belongs to and if you find a lost item, you literally can not talk to anyone until you either give it to who it belongs to or are told… and I want those friendship points and already was pretty sure who it belonged to. It’s just really dumb and finding something shouldn’t remove the general chatting dialogue.

Regardless, since Mira was still asleep and thus, I could not return the bag yet, I continued on with my previous task. Once I made it to the plaza, I noticed Kicks was there.

Unfortunately, despite still having about 40 items left from him, he didn’t have a single thing I needed today.

With the “chores” done, it was time to go back to sleep.

And thus, I received my Dream Address: DA-2045-8323-2479.

I then decided to visit a dream… Unfortunately, it seems there was no way to go to a Random Dream this time and as far as I could tell, Nintendo didn’t put our a Dream Address of their own so I went on Twitter to see the first one that popped up on my feed which ended up being Nook_lings’ town, Nowhere: DA-1790-5385-6731

Which honestly without any place in mind, that was kind of the perfect name for the first town I popped into.

The first things I noticed was that there was no way to get tools– while I knew my inventory would be empty, you could at least talk to Lloid and get some tools which was actually useful for some Dreams in New Leaf. This was a huge issue as I have two areas in my town that aren’t accessible without a Pole (this is intentional– I just wanted them to be like little off the path areas…).

The other is that the Kiosk shows all your designs uploaded to it versus designs you may actually be having about your town (and obviously, designs being in a kiosk in general over through Wendell).

Despite my concerns about the no-tool-thing, I continued my dream into Nowhere.

One thing I found really interesting was you could actually walk into some buildings. While Blathers had nothing unique to say, Wilbur sure did…

I wonder how Wilbur felt when he woke up on his desk, but the whole thing made it a bit spooky.

Another thing I found interesting was upon heading to go back, you go straight to your room versus still being in the Dream Suite.

I have mixed feelings on this because sometimes I may just want to go through multiple dreams at once and this is akin to waking up and having to walk out of Dream Suite and then immediately go back in… It seems odd to not ask if they want to take up now or have another dream. In general, Dream Suite is missing some features (or they are somehow less QoL this time) such as the lack of “Random dream” option, no counter when updating (you have to check the phone app for that– it’s not something I ever cared about but I know a lot of people did), no search functions in general besides needing a specific dream address, or even receiving the 5K outright for an update… You get a ticket in the mail now. I get that technically we’re in a dream world, but at the same time, if K.K. can magically give us a CD in our pockets after a concert, I don’t see how receiving bells in a Dream World is somehow off the table.

Despite that, I have to say, the “I just woke up from a nice dream” pose is adorable. I wonder if there are different ones.

They also apparently made the “remove the overlay” thing for the Camera a permanent feature so now I can screencap cute photos like this directly from the Elgato.

With my newfound dream knowledge, I went to work trying making sure all areas are accessible (at least that I want to be). I hope it still looks nice. I have mixed feelings on the “stepping stone” platforms.

Unfortunately, I can’t update it again today so these updates will be put in tomorrow evening.

Mira was also finally up after everything so I was able to return the bag and was right that it belonged to her.

I also ended up delivering a package from Judy to Maple, but didn’t get to screenshot it.

I stopped by someone’s town as they had the Fireworks going and I couldn’t help but be curious and maybe I also just really really really want a pink balloon… It crashed shortly after I got there, but it was still really pretty to see.

I know there’s people who time traveled and already got all the new items (or hacked them in) so I’m trying my best to be patient at least, but I just can’t get rid of that “feeling behind” feeling with this game. Especially when I know you have to do all four Firework Shows to get all the Boppers from Isabelle… I don’t play as much at night (which has also made it hard to catch Wisp) so it’s a bit discouraging.

Finally, having heard there was a new DIY, I had one last mission today– to hit a gold nugget out of a rock and pick it up. The few rocks I could do that with failed to give me a gold nugget so I took my mission to Nook Miles Islands and surprisingly, managed to do so on my second one.

This allowed me to learn how to make the King Tut mask which I sold to the Nooklings immediately after making. I know it’s cursed, I’m good. And I had no interest putting it on to trip all over the place.

Speaking of tripping though, I’m so disappointed they still let you trip with balloons and lose them. It felt so punishing and I don’t know why that was considered a good thing, especially when balloons aren’t all-time to get (In New Leaf– just from Street Pass… here, just four days in a single month of the year through a raffle). Though, they did give us a game where tools break so who knows…

I was talking to a friend about how despite some of the freedom with mechanics, something about New Horizons still feels so barebones. It feels overwhelming and empty and a lot of the charm from the previous games just doesn’t feel like it’s still here. It’s almost like they went a soft reboot route versus considering something like… New Leaf+ with aspects of the best things from all previous games (and the spin-off series– not having some of the amazing things Happy Home Designer brought still baffles me beyond words not to mention smaller side rooms and missing exterior customization options…) and I just… I don’t understand why.

The game is supposed to be relaxing, yet they force a specific pace to play at and clearly have certain ways they want/expect people to play and if you don’t play that way, it feels like an uphill battle instead of a game to let yourself unwind. Terraforming especially feels so overwhelming and as much as I enjoyed the idea in theory, in practice I don’t think I really liked it that much. I don’t regret the terraforming I did (likely because I purposely tried not to do very much– I feel if I knocked it all down like others had, I’d feel a lot differently), but I definitely didn’t have a strong vision for it and most of the ideas I did have were knocked down quickly due to various requirements and restrictions.

I also want to just bring up Azurillkirby’s twitter thread on his own feelings as I agree with a lot of it.

I especially want to highlight this part a bit:

This is what ultimately made me drop the game. In retrospect, I think the fact that the entire game is building up to you getting terraforming tools that it doesn't feel like a casual life sim anymore. It feels like an artistic canvas masquerading as a life sim.

— Azurillkirby (@Azurillkirby) July 29, 2020

Kind of like how I feel games like Smash Brothers and Pokemon have been slowly alienating more casual players for those who player more competitively, I feel AC has done similar in the creative department. I’d like to say I’m a creative person, but I’m creative in a specific realm and not free for all.

If you give all the art supplies in the world and some paper, I’m just gong to sit there. And if you give me a specific prompt, I may just make it too literal or not get beyond that specific idea.

I think for some people, that may be surprising to hear from me– I’ve often heard people say how creative I am looking at Pink Sea or the rooms I did for Happy Home Designer… But using Happy Home Designer as an example, that creativity slowly just became doing the same thing over and over and while part of that was absolutely the repetitive prompts, it was also because I wasn’t getting anything to work with.

I got a photo and a theme and maybe if I was lucky some new item, but that was it. I unlocked everything so they didn’t show me what I’d get and without seeing what I would get normally, I had no vision for what I’d want it to look like. For me, that one word prompt gave me nothing. I had nothing to go off of. It was just like “Bathroom” or “Kitchen” but what kind? What colors? What type of things would you want? What kind of baths do you like? What kind of food do you prefer to eat? For a lot of people, this isn’t an issue, but for me, I was paralyzed with indecision and no clear path on where to go.

Terraforming especially feels like that. I struggle a lot with making decisions and often ask someone else to choose, always worrying somehow what I say will be wrong. I ask my husband to look over every single thing I do because I don’t have the confidence it looks okay. It just feels like too much. I’m honestly glad I stuck to just small changes as I don’t think I would’ve ever been even somewhat satisfied with my island otherwise.

And yet I still constantly am asking myself if it’s enough. When I see how much people do with it, it makes me feel like everything I did was a waste. And it always extended a bit to designs too, but it was kind of easier to ignore that. It’s why I generally tried to not do much with custom designs, but as they add more ways to use them and have it really look like part of the game itself, it feels more out of place to not do so and that extends to terraforming too.

And in a sense, just because I get so overwhelmed and can’t really work from nothing, I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with anything I’ve done in this game.

In New Leaf, I kept the patterns to a minimum and just could focus on all my favorite items and using as many as I could to make something nice.

In New Horizons, a lot of my favorite things are gone and I don’t feel as familiar with a lot of the new stuff. I don’t know what I like or how I want to plan things because we don’t even really have everything yet.

While I think the game came out at the best time to get as many people as possible due to everything going on in the world and I’ve made some great new friends and became closer to others, I also truly feel it needed more time. So many old features shouldn’t be gone, especially ones that have been around since the very beginning. It just makes it feel weird and rushed.

I love Animal Crossing and I have an attachment to these villagers for so many years, but I’d be lying if I said I was having a lot of fun and if it wasn’t for my love of the series, I don’t think I’d still be playing. I barely play now and it’s going to make some Nook Miles a huge pain.

I keep trying, but between the pacing and where some of the focus is, it doesn’t feel like the game is still for me. I can’t make great designs myself. I can’t work from nothing. I can’t stand crafting. I can’t stand things being walled off just to make people forced to check back later (7 days before you can really do things, the Nooklings’ store not being there from the start, lowering your sell hours when built, and requiring 30 days to update no matte much), and I can’t stand how random it all feels. The prices of items also still just kill me.

I just, I wish I could understand the changes. It just doesn’t feel like a game you can play how you want anymore and customize to your own desire.

I wish it didn’t get to me so much. I’m not sure what about New Horizons is making it so much worse for me this time. I think I just wish if they wanted to go the crafting-terraforming-sandbox route, they should’ve made it another spin-off with nothing but the characters and an empty land for people to build on and share. Heck, maybe I could’ve done something with that if it was that open, but as it is now with this weird hybrid between something like Minecraft and a simulation game, I just find myself lost.

When I play AC, I want to relax a bit, but instead I’m just constantly thinking. Don’t run, don’t accidentally hit Y if you’re not hovered over an item, don’t screw up half your terraforming, don’t remove a pattern you like… Or even with bugs and fish, I have little motivation for catching things beyond the museum, but that motivation is dead when any catch could be the end of my net or fishing rod– especially when it’s my cute star net or ducky rod. Sure, I can just refurbish it each day after some use, but it’s another thing I need to constantly keep in mind in a game where when I’m fishing and catching things I’d want to zone out if anything. I can’t even save and continue easily or work on terraforming in short bursts and reset the work if I’m not happy with it. I just feel like I need to constantly be moving and that’s… the exact opposite to how AC should feel.

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Day 135

I decided to boot up the game late today as I wanted to update Dream Suite in the evening. Unfortunately, it was raining which kind of put a damper on things so I guess I’ll have to upload an update again tomorrow… On the bright side, I love this flag.

I received my voucher in the mail from Luna which I still have mixed feelings about.

As for today’s special guest, I was surprised to see Redd back here already…

The Scary Painting and Ancient Statue were fake while the Basic Painting and Beautiful Statue were real. I didn’t need any of them, but kind of wanted to get the Ancient Statue.

With my tree branch gathering finished, I headed back to my house to update my Dream Address. It sucks to have to do it again tomorrow, but I’d rather have the more accessible version available even if it’s raining. At least the rain makes all the lights go on earlier.

I’m sure I’ll update again once a balloon.

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Day 136

It’s officially August! I already caught everything new in friend’s towns, but I always enjoy the Mom letters each month. All the Mom items are super cute too.

Mika also sent me the new Rodeo Horse from the catalog so I wouldn’t have to wait until tomorrow for it. I managed to fit it into the Playground area.

Good thing I’m updating Dream Suite tonight anyway I guess. I really love all the new seasonal items. I’m a bit bummed we won’t be able to get the Grape-Harvest Basket or Moon Rug for another month though. They look really nice and I have an idea with the Grape-harvest basket that I want to see if it’s possible or not to look okay.

Since it’s Saturday, K.K. Slider is here today. Cookie and Flurry are already enjoying the concert. I wonder if he’ll still be there in the dream. Can I visit my own dream? Probably not.

If there’s a Bug-off or Fishing Tourney this month though, I wonder what will happen with K.K. Slider. Will he perform on Sunday with the fireworks? Or will he just not play that weekend? Or go back to Friday?

I loaded the game up a bit later than I planned, but quickly ran to the bed to update the Dream. And then I had a K.K. Slider concert to finish things off.

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Day 137

It’s officially Sunday which means the first day of Fireworks!! I made sure to get all dressed up.

Thinking about it, maybe I should’ve considered giving all my villagers one too…

I then went to check my mail and had forgotten entirely about the HHA ranking. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about the score as I changed my house up, but it’s actually about 40,000 Points higher.

After, I hurried over to the plaza where Isabelle eand Redd were. Sadly, I couldn’t do anything until 7PM, but it was still nice to see them.

While my island wasn’t ready yet. Meg’s Southern Hemisphere island sure was.

Isabelle even gave me a Flower Bopper.

And with a lot of raffle tickets, we managed to get everything from Redd and I even got my first Pink Balloon thanks to Meg.

Of course, I did want extras of some things too so I still did more pulls as well.

I always love these types of little trinket-y items too.

I love how you can wave around the Sparklers too.

It was definitely a lot of fun.

After heading back, I decorated the little “vendor” area with balloons.

I also placed some stuff in my house.

Seeing how the Windmill moved, I figured I’d try placing the Flag somewhere as well. Considering this stool can’t actually be seated n due to how it’s placed, I thought this would look cute and fitting.

Mika invited us over for a bit to see the Fireworks over in SomSom as well :) I ended up getting the Bulb Bopper while there!

Finally, the time was approaching on my own Island…

I was a little surprised that all my villagers weren’t crowded together on the plaza. Maybe that only happens if your gate is open.

I was also surprised when Marina called over to give me some Sparklers. It was really nice.

I then went to Isabelle to see what bopper I’d get… I was expecting the Star Bopper since that was what both Meg and Mika ended up getting first, but to my surprise, I got the one I wanted most!

I spoke to all my villagers too and Judy’s and Diana’s comment especially was really sweet.

I was worried the patterns I picked too wouldn’t look really nice, but they actually came out pretty well.

I had some more fun with my villagers too, but it definitely felt a bit more alive when with friends.

After a few more longing looks out into the sea as the fireworks lit up the sky, that was enough for today.

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Day 138

Today’s entry will probably be the last one for a while. Mainly as I’m just… barely playing right now. I’m only really poking on to work on catalog stuff with friends and to talk to my villagers as I slowly try to befriend them for photos. The way I usually befriend my villagers just doesn’t seem to work as well– partially as you can’t actually ask if you can do anything for them.

It seems silly to just be making entries just to document each day so while I’ll still record that down, I think I’ll hold on posting any of it until something big actually happens.

Going into the actual day itself, Mika sent me the Star Bopper so now I have all four :D I may still pop in for each fireworks day, but at least now it’s not the end of the world if I don’t manage to.

To my surprise though, I somehow got Redd again already…

Only the Serene Painting ended up being fake so my husband was excited to get a lot of new art. With Meg’s help, we got all three of the real ones.

On my way back to the plaza, I noticed a weed up on the cliffs…

I swear, these random weeds I somehow miss T__T I quickly removed it, but apparently can’t place a flower here even though weeds could be?? So I just put a transparent pattern down.

Meanwhile, Cookie and Judy ended up having a fight. I did my best to help, but Cookie’s gift for Judy… the colors… T__T

I didn’t want to hurt her feelings though so… I really wish we could play with their wardrobes. XP

I also gave Peanut a new outfit.

Finally, there was a nice double rainbow today. Marina is happily singing which is nice after she asked to move right before I noticed the rainbow (obviously I told her not to).

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Day 123

I received K.K. Birthday in the mail from K.K. Slider which finished off my music list.

And there was an announcement about the Bug-off being this weekend.

Besides that, I ended up finding a lost item. Based off the description, I knew it belonged to a Snooty Villager.

I ran into Judy first so I asked her, but it ended up belonging to Diana.

I think right now we’re really hitting the situation of just… nothing really happening. Anything I could really do is incredibly monotonous and grindy due to ridiculously large numbers (and I’d rather save them for when I literally have nothing else left to do), something that makes me really anxious due to it not being fully thought out, or waiting on something from the game itself and whatever pace it wants me to follow.

There is still technically a minor exception with redoing my house’s interior even though it does technically hit that second part, but I just feel so stressed out about it. There’s several reasons for why:

1. The forced auto-save (While I never actually reset, the idea of knowing it was possible to do so I guess felt like some safety net if I hated everything I did)
2. The lack of familiar sets– after playing for so many years, I had an idea of what I liked to use and how and now I just feel like I’m thrown into chaos.
3. No good way to plan. With “surprise” monthly updates for who knows what we’re getting back and what’s actually new, I can’t fully frame of reference WHAT I want to do. I don’t like scrapping things out and it just ends up stressing me out more than any kind of inspiration. Some things do work as a perfect update or replacement, but other things just leave me baffled on how to make it all work.
4. Smaller spaces for side rooms. Even with brief plans in advance, I was expecting, at minimum, the same room sizes as New Leaf. Most of my ideas just don’t work as well in a 6×6 space and I still can’t figure out how to adjust them.
5. A lot of what we do have just doesn’t inspire me. I lost so many of my favorite sets and items and it’s hard to really come up with anything I feel could be unique or my own.

And in that same sense, in general, it doesn’t feel like anything about my island is unique or special. There’s nothing “wow-ing” about it. There’s nothing impressive. It’s just another island with no set theme or ideas.

As for other goals in general, my full goal list is essentially:

• Complete all Nook Miles – This is just a grind the same way some of the medals were in New Leaf, but with even higher numbers. I feel like those are the numbers they expected people to catch while working on completing their museum and/or getting all the models, but like… I’m even less motivated to do that when my tools keep breaking. And there’s not much you can do to speed up special visitor encounters unless you time travel.
• Finish my Catalog – I’ve finished with all wallpaper, flooring, rugs, music, and orderable furniture, but still need non-orderable furniture and soooo many clothing. And Able Sisters just… needs a cart system and an option to not send to storage. Also in general, I wish they would say if you have an item already or that color… And you could see what color an item is when on the ground :/
• Get all my Dream Villagers – One of the few things on this list I managed to do.
• Finish the Museum – Just need to wait for the Dung Beetle in December unless they add another wing to the museum…
• All Reactions – Dead out the gate due to requiring each personality type because they learned nothing I guess :(

I’m actually fine being “done” and having nothing to do. My issue is there’s stuff I could technically do, but the grind is just so bad or I’m stuck constantly waiting to be able to pass certain walls due to the pacing they keep forcing on players that you can only really circumvent if you time travel or hack and it’s not something that ever felt so heavy-handed in past games.

Part of why I’ve really enjoyed Ooblets (I’ll talk more about it soon) is that I feel like I can play at my own pace entirely with nothing really shaming me for not putting my full time into it always to get as much done as possible.

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Day 124

Thanks to allergies, I had a really late start and didn’t play until evening.

I crafted some stuff for someone.

And then while diving to try and find a scallop to summon Pascal, I noticed Gulliver was here.

I’m still really tired of digging up clams… But at least the phone parts are easier to find than Wisp’s spirits :/

It took me over two hours to finally find a single scallop. Thankfully Pascal showed up immediately, but wow did that burn me out on him.

I only need to see him two more times now to be “done”, but I might need a break.

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Day 125

Chip was here.

I went to Meg’s island and got the Spider Crab which let me finish my Sea Creature collection.

I quickly donated it to the museum.

And I managed to get a second one to finish up the Pirate Cove area.

Finally, I gave Cookie the Desert Princess Dress in Pink and I wish we could wear outfits with pants like they do because it looks so cute as a dress…

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Day 126

Labelle was here. I will admit I feel a bit less motivated knowing she just gives recolors… but I suppose I do still need to catalog those considering Able Sisters still just leaves me an anxious mess.

There was also a Camper– Kabuki.

And I found Pascal again… Just need to find him one more time now.

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Day 127

Today I honestly just went around my island getting some photos of my town for Instagram— I don’t really plan to use it (I’m just not a fan of Instagram in the slightest as I already have a general one), but I wanted to set it up incase of another situation like what happened with New Leaf, especially as I’m sure Dream Suite will be out eventually.

Nothing about my island is particularly interesting or impressive though, so I probably have nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile, the plaza benches continue to baffle me.

And essentially, for the final time unless he gets new stuff (like that Mermaid fence in the data T__T) as this finishes off the Nook Miles stamps, I found Pascal.

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Day 128

Redd was here today. I grabbed the Perfect Painting for my husband, but the other three were fake.

I also visited Leo for cataloging.

I have under 2,300 items left to go— mostly recolors too.

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Day 129

It was the Bug-off. I just played once for the stamp.

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Day 130

K.K. Slider was here. I always find moments with Mira and Teddy nice as it’s like the original three again. I would’ve felt terrible letting them move.

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Day 131

Flurry tried to move away. I told her no, obviously.

While it’s nice knowing that villagers can’t move without your approval (which means I wouldn’t need to keep my game the same date like I did with New Leaf), I still feel super anxious about it– like somehow they’ll move if I don’t talk to them, but I also always worry I’ll somehow hit the wrong dialogue option especially when Joy-con drift is such an issue.

I gave Peanut a bow too. I’m trying to flush out some of the clothes she got on her old island– some are nice, but others I just don’t think look that great. And sadly, Isabelle’s option to talk about what they are wearing only effects custom designs. It’d be really nice if we could play around with our villager’s wardrobes.

Finally, Mira asked about her catch-phrase which I told her to keep.

Honestly, the only ones I’ll actually be changing are Teddy’s (done), Diana’s (done), and Peanut’s.

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Day 132

We’re in a heat wave right now so I can’t spend a lot of time where the game systems are at the moment nor my computer. I finally got to play that evening and was surprised to see Gullivarrr here again.

I also gave Diana a Jumpsuit– I really love how it turns to dresses on the Villagers and I wish we could have this option too somehow. I like my dresses.

Besides that, the Update 2 trailer went out and well, it’s nice that Dream Suite is officially confirmed to be back along with the Fireworks Festival, but I still don’t really like the whole “oh hey thing that was already a feature is now returning in a later update” thing.

I would guess maybe some of the items you can get from Redd’s Raffle will be new (and I guess it’s a raffle instead of fortune cookies this time), but I suppose we’ll see.

I kind of hoped maybe the Mermaid Fence could be part of the second update, but it doesn’t look like it unfortunately… I’m guessing we’ll get the next update video mid to late September in time for October.

So, it’s officially my birthday today! I always look forward to seeing what birthday celebrations are in games. I decided to start with Pokemon which I figured would be quicker and a fun way to start my birthday off.

I’m a little sad there wasn’t a special slower Pokemon Center theme, but it was still cute.

I also couldn’t resist making some of the curry…

Even though I only show a few above, I did go through and make all of them :P

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Then it was Animal Crossing time! Right from the start it was kicked off with Isabelle wishing me a Happy Birthday.

As I exited my house, Mira was waiting for me and took me to a surprise party with her, Teddy, and Judy.

I wasn’t surprised about Mira and Teddy as they were my original two villagers, but I didn’t realize Julie was my third highest… I guess she is the only other one I got a photo of though…

After blowing out the candles and receiving a gift….

…It was time to break the pinata!

I then headed off as there was a K.K. Concert to have and cupcakes to give out!

I promised friends I wouldn’t do the K.K. Concert without inviting them over first so…

The messages were so sweet T~T ♥

Unfortunately, my computer crashed and I lost a bunch of screenshots I had taken. I did my best to get some from my recording, but could only do so much so some of the stuff below won’t have screenshots or will be incomplete.

I got really nice letters [and gifts] too (and I’m including the special stationery versions of above as well) and lovely messages on the bulletin board.

I also did my best to go around to all my villagers to give them cupcakes. I sadly wasn’t close enough friends with Peanut yet which I wasn’t surprised about or anything, but was still kind of disappointing. Regardless, all the messages were really sweet.

And especially with the way this year has gone, we can really use those hopes T~T ♥

After, I went to Meg’s Southern Hemisphere town for a big Model cataloging party. I now have just 55 Models left to catalog (not counting the DAL Plane model)– 44 Fish and 11 Bugs!

Then I went to her Northern Hemisphere town to say Hello to all the sheep :3 I gave Dom, Stella, and Vesta cupcakes as they are my favorites (I also really like Etoile, but she isn’t in yet…).

I managed to get all the Birthday furniture (and recolored them all) so I just need to catalog two of the Birthday Hat and 3 of the Birthday Shades colors and I’m all set there. I really wish we could recolor clothing!

The final thing I ended up doing after finding a scallop was checking in with Tom Nook and Isabelle. While Tom Nook had nothing to say, Isabelle surprised me with a sweet birthday wish too.

—————-

Finally, separated from the above game experiences, I received so many lovely gifts from friends too. Besides all the kind messages, I also got so many Steam games I can’t wait to play (Thank you to Rec, Greylace, Filia, and Cheesey) along with some physical gifts from family and friends (Thank you Theo for the plushie!)

Kymera also made this for me featuring my MCL OC and my favorite route and it was just… really sweet:

Really, just thank you so much to anyone who wished me a Happy Birthday today at the least. I really haven’t been doing super great lately and you all helped make this birthday one of the best I’ve had in a long time.

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Day 116

Didn’t do too much today. The main thing was just mailing the Purple Hyacinth Wreath to Peanut and saying Hi now that she had started moving in.

Her house looks so nice with the yard set-up too.

After, I did the K.K. Concert…

…Plus found Pascal (who gave me a pearl).

But I ended up stopping by a friend’s island and she gave me the pink mermaid shoes so yay. Now I don’t care if he keeps giving me pearls. Just 10 more days of seeing him and I can stop looking for Scallops…

Later, Leo also stopped by and I gave a small tour.

——–

Day 117

Peanut send me a really sweet letter thanking me for the Purple Hyacinth Wreath. It fits her house just as much as I hoped.

Gulliver also ended up being here, but still not his pirate doppelganger.

And also added a little more dirt in the camp site area for the other camp fire.

Diana asked me to deliver a present to Mira. I’ve noticed they always set it up so you can keep the present yourself by saying you do not think it fits the receiver, but that just feels really rude to me so I never do it.

When I headed back to let Diana know, she was in a really nice spot.

Finally, while I’ve seen this conversation a few times now, I always forgot to take screenshots of it. I would love a Book-reading tea party under the stars.

Meanwhile, Cookie ended up being sick today so I brought her medicine.

And once again I missed a Treasure Hunt chance :(

I ended up playing again later that evening. It was Whitney’s birthday in a friend’s town so I stopped by.

I also got two new sea creatures while there.

After donating them, I went to take a little tour around the aquarium and realized you can actually sit here by the tank!

I will say as much as I love the new Fish wing of the museum, I’m sad there isn’t really a view as dynamic as the big tank in New Leaf.

Finally, Merengue was hosting her own little concert in the plaza.

I wish our villagers could sit on the floor. I know we can kind of do so with a cushion, but you can’t place furniture on the plaza so…

Anyway, with Peanut fully moved in, my town map is complete. I don’t see myself doing any further terraforming or moving things around so…

The only change I’d maybe consider is some kind of wrap around near where the trees and flowers and pool is at my house area to make it similar to how my map originally was. I don’t know if I could make it look any good though. Especially with tree restrictions and how close they can be to rivers.

——–

Day 118

Kicks was here today.

The only other thing is I went to Leo’s town (shared with their sister) and received a tour around. It’s really nice.

——–

Day 119

Flick was here today. Meanwhile, while cleaning up some tree branches, I found a hidden weed where I forgot to put a flower… Thank goodness I’ve kept some extras on the beach so I quickly put in a Pink Windflower.

I also noticed my villagers running around with leaves/stems today which was new. Normally it’s just tree branches…

——–

Day 120

Leif was here today. I ended up stopping by Meg’s as it was Frita’s birthday.

I also ended up cataloging at a friend’s town.

——–

Day 121

Gullivarrr was finally here!!

I have to say, him being so close to the Pirate Cove was perfect and honestly, this was so much better than digging for parts.

After, I headed over to Meg’s again to celebrate another birthday to finish my Nook Miles Villager Birthday achievement, but much to my surprise, there was another party– an Early Birthday Party for me.

Saying I was completely blindsided by this surprise would be an understatement for just how completely thrown off I was. Even as they popped the party poppers at me, they pretty much had to come out and say it. I’ve never had a surprise party, let alone any party organized outside my family, so even the idea of it was never on my radar because it was such an unheard of thing for me. Most of my birthdays growing up were just my family so I really can’t say enough how sweet a gesture this was.

I’m really excited to see all the birthday things tomorrow. I just hope my allergies give me a break.

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Day 113 (and 112 redux?)

Today was a bit of a weird day. It initially started with nothing really going on. Chip ended up being here so I gave him the Goldfish to get a Goldfish model.

The only model I still want to get is a Betta model now, but I still need two more Betta fish and I suck at finding them (I know where they are, they’re just rare and I do not get them most of the time).

I had just taken some nice screenshots otherwise with nothing really happening.

It was also Meg’s birthday today so we went over to her NH town to celebrate.

Back on my own island, I continued to look around for a move prompt, but… No matter how long I looked, I couldn’t find one. Anywhere. There was no rain and no though bubbles. I have been in the random “daily move prompts” part for a while in hopes Margie may want to move so I should’ve seen one, but I couldn’t get one to pop. And the only way I could find to help trigger them again was a quick time travel back and forth until they started appearing again.

I don’t like changing the date, but I didn’t really want to wait another 15 days when my birthday is next week so I figured I’d try to get it kicked into gear.

For the most part, I didn’t do anything beyond check in with my villagers, but because I had Label yesterday, I was worried something could get messed up in the future so I spoke to her just incase (I don’t know, seeing how Gracie worked in New Leaf, if they add things in, I could see having her line unlocked effecting something). I ended up getting four themes from her during my trying to fix the moving issue: Goth, Theatrical, Outdoorsy (which I didn’t get a good screenshot of), and Vacation.

Label’s dialogue also seemed different on completion? At first I thought I was just doing well, but she would say it each time no matter what, even on an outfit (I got Gothic theme twice) I showed previously where she wasn’t as ecstatic:

In the end, she actually just eventually started giving me the set in a different color which was kind of underwhelming, but it meant I could concentrate on fixing the issue without worrying of screwing something up.

Regardless, I eventually saw them popping back up on the 8th and quickly made my way back to the 9th permanently to actually finish up things.

I got a nice letter from Teddy that actually had a fossil in it (Dinosaur Track) which was surprising?? But I do love mysteries so he’s right about that.

I had found a lost item, a book, that after investigating could belong to Judy or Diana… I ran into Judy first so I tried my luck and was right! The biggest surprise though was she gave me her photo in return.

This is my third photo and I never would’ve expected Judy’s before villagers I’ve had a bit longer. Part of it is likely that Judy is one of the ones I’ve given the most gifts. I know a lot of people like to give gifts every day for this very reason, but it just feels kind of cheapened to me? I prefer only to give gifts when I see something and feel it fits their aesthetic/that they would like it/it makes me think of them than a random gift each day just to build up a point value. I wish it was possible to do favors for them more often to befriend them that way.

As for Pascal, he once again gave me a pearl…

Finally, it was time to find my move prompt for the day and well…

While I’m happy she’s finally moving so I can try and find Peanut, it’s bittersweet too. I always feel bad when they move out. I’ll miss you, Margie. Here’s hoping I can find you a good home. On the bright side, we’ll finally be able to island hop on Saturday! Fingers crossed we can find Peanut…

With the weird day out of the way though, I wanted to talk a bit about some of the datamine stuff. I’m glad Dream Suite may make a return (likely in the same sense of Harvey’s Island) and then I may even do some island tours which could be fun.

That said, I really really really do not want farming. There’s not enough storage space as it is, let alone if you need to hound up ingredients. I feel like it could come into use for Thanksgiving considering Franklin’s New Leaf event if it is the case, but just… Let Animal Crossing be Animal Crossing. I never enjoyed the crops-part of Harvest Moon (or other farming games– I preferred focusing on the animals and chaacters) and honestly, we only have so much island space. The only way I would even be SOMEWHAT okay with it is if we had a separate island that was just a farming plot we could build up and store things there. And if we did cook (which I would guess is just… like… food-related DIYs but), if that was tied to it, it would just pull from whatever we have stored there.

But otherwise? The game has enough in existing features and I’d rather any kind of farming not be part of it. New Horizons has some things convoluted enough.

————————

Day 114

I ended up being up late due allergies and other issues so I decided as 5AM hit to check and make sure Margie really was moving… Isabelle’s message confirmed, but when I went to say good bye, Margie was actually still asleep. I didn’t really think about it as when a villager is moving in, they are packing all day as soon as 5AM hit so I figured it was similar when moving out.

Regardless, while Margie wasn’t awake yet, Maple was with an early morning. I have those days too, Maple.

5AM is my favorite time today. The music is actually relaxing and not grating at all and I love the colors of the sky and sea (the colors are at least tied with 6PM). I honestly kind of miss the natural sounds before upgrading Resident Services. I wouldn’t mind that switching with the 5AM music every so often…

I wasn’t planning to play long before heading to bed, but I decided to at least see who my visitor was and it ended up being Redd today.

I only need to catalog some fake art still so it was a bit disappointing, but oh well. I hope I can at least see Pirate!Gulliver soon. Regardless, today he had a Fake Quaint Painting, Fake Serene Painting, Fake Solemn Painting, and a Fake Beautiful Statue. This was my fist time getting all fakes. Let’s hope Pascal will be nicer when I play more later. At the same time, when I just need to catalog fakes, I guess this is what I want. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any of the fakes I still need.

After getting about 6 hours of sleep, I booted the game up to say farewell to Margie (Also a thank you to Ruu for the continued catalog help!!). On the way though, I noticed the Bulletin board updated with a notice about my birthday! I wasn’t expecting that.

I then finished my walk over to bid farewell to Margie.

I had some people interested in picking her up so hopefully that does come to fruition later…

I went into the Able Sisters shop to talk to Sable as usual and she ended up having some new dialogue about Label as well so maybe I wasn’t crazy about the completion dialogue sounding different.

I then looked for a Scallop for Pascal only to get a pearl, yet again. Even if it was an issue with cataloging, I still haven’t cataloged the pink pair of shoes so I should have a chance to get something from him…

For now, I put the pearl over here.

I wish the private beach was a little bigger so I could use the rocks a bit as I like the idea of a little treasure beach, but it just feels kind of cluttered without being able to angle things more.

Finally, I finished off the day with someone coming over to invite Margie to their town. I’m happy I’ve managed to find most of my villagers homes… Still feel bad I couldn’t find Phil one too though.

————————

Day 115

It is officially the day of the Peanut hunt!! I’m nervous, but here’s hoping I’ve saved up enough Nook Miles Tickets and Nook Miles to find her today…

First I made sure the plot was really available.

And then I was off. With my recipes complete and just wanting to get through as many as possible, I decided to focus solely on the villagers only this time. The only exception will be if it’s an island I haven’t been to before to just check out a bit.

• Island 1 – Ellie. Ellie is actually one of my favorite Elephants. I believe I even had her in the original AC, but then she was gone until New Leaf. She’s still absolutely a Tier 2 for me though.
• Island 2 – Walker
• Island 3 – Ribbot
• Island 4 – Jambette
• Island 5 – Hamlet
• Island 6 – Eloise
• Island 7 – Julia
• Island 8 – Fuchsia
• Island 9 – Filbert. He’s actually tied with Marshall for my third favorite Squirrel. First is obviously Peanut while second is Poppy. Pocket Camp’s descriptor for him really won me over.
• Island 10 – Margie. My Margie had found a happy home so I know it wasn’t mine, but I can’t believe I ran into Margie again after her only finally moving out.
• Island 11 – Cashmere
• Island 12 – Rocco. While not picking him up, he has a special place in my heart as he was one of my original New Leaf Villagers.
• Island 13 – Gala
• Island 14 – Clay
• Island 15 – Bella
• Island 16 – Zucker
• Island 17 – Fuchsia. Our first repeat. Also first time on Dorsal Fin Island.
• Island 18 – Lyman
• Island 19 – June. I’ve mentioned before that I really like June and honestly, I wish we could have like some side island where all our favorites could hang out.
• Island 20 – Olaf
• Island 21 – Ankha. I actually have no interest in her at all (and to be honest, am not a big fan of any of the Cats in general? Lolly is the one I like most), but I know a lot of people who like her so it still hurt to leave her. If only I could suggest another island to her.
• Island 22 – Octavian
• Island 23 – Renée
• Island 24 – Miranda. Another of my original New Leaf villagers.
• Island 25 – Big Top
• Island 26 – Shari
• Island 27 – Bangle
• Island 28 – Olive
• Island 29 – Naomi
• Island 30 – Sly
• Island 31 – Tybalt

At this point, I paused briefly to just get my Summer Fish Tourney stamp.

I recently learned I could’ve gotten Fall if I also did a Southern Hemisphere one during the first one so I’m kind of kicking myself now. Not sure if I’ll manage to get a Winter stamp today too though.

After getting my stamp with the free run, it was time to continue flying to islands.

• Island 32 – Norma. Still my favorite cow.
• Island 33 – Drift. From the side, he almost looks like an orange version of Camofrog.
• Island 34 – Bubbles
• Island 35 – Axel
• Island 36 – Ketchup
• Island 37 – Renée
• Island 38 – Naomi
• Island 39 – Beau
• Island 40 – Tangy
• Island 41 – Bettina
• Island 42 – Audie
• Island 43 – Hamphrey
• Island 44 – Margie
• Island 45 – Carmen
• Island 46 – Gladys
• Island 47 – Deirdre
• Island 48 – Bruce
• Island 49 – Midge
• Island 50 – Boyd
• Island 51 – Mac
• Island 52 – Quillson
• Island 53 – Chevre
• Island 54 – Gladys
• Island 55 – Ketchup again maybe? I thought it was a bird and not a duck, but I can’t find any other bird that is red with green on their head.
• Island 56 – Sprinkle. She’s tied with Aurora as my favorite penguins. Honestly, if I didn’t keep Teddy or Mira, I think she or Stella would’ve likely taken the last spot(s).
• Island 57 – Puddles
• Island 58 – Snooty
• Island 59 – Tia. Another Elephant I really like. I still think they should’ve used a different shade of yellow though, if not different accent colors altogether.
• Island 60 – Renée
• Island 61 – Hopper
• Island 62 – Rhonda
• Island 63 – Beau
• Island 64 – Beau (yes, back to back…)
• Island 65 – Savannah
• Island 66 – Kitt
• Island 67 – Penelope
• Island 68 – Frobert
• Island 69 – Rhonda
• Island 70 – Shep
• Island 71 – Chow
• Island 72 – Chops
• Island 73 – Patty
• Island 74 – Velma
• Island 75 – Celia
• Island 76 – Static
• Island 77 – Filbert
• Island 78 – Hamphrey
• Island 79 – Wade
• Island 80 – Lionel
• Island 81 – Raymond. Like Ankha, I felt bad.
• Island 82 – Plucky
• Island 83 – Rhonda
• Island 84 – Blanche
• Island 85 – Sydney
• Island 86 – Sherb
• Island 87 – Rudy
• Island 88 – Kit
• Island 89 – Pango
• Island 90 – Goose
• Island 91 – Bianca, my favorite tiger.
• Island 92 – Dole
• Island 93 – Bertha
• Island 94 – Biskit
• Island 95 – Frank
• Island 96 – Peck
• Island 97 – Hazel
• Island 98 – Amelia
• Island 99 – Rocco
• Island 100 – Shari
• Island 101 – Sprocket
• Island 102 – Tipper
• Island 103 – Spork
• Island 104 – Tank
• Island 105 – Octavian
• Island 106 – Cesar
• Island 107 – Winnie
• Island 108 – Cranston
• Island 109 – Cyrano
• Island 110 – Patty
• Island 111 – Tiffany
• Island 112 – Plucky
• Island 113 – Elise
• Island 114 – Octavian
• Island 115 – Robin
• Island 116 – Alfonso
• Island 117 – Rex
• Island 118 – Pecan
• Island 119 – Octavian
• Island 120 – Rodeo
• Island 121 – Puddles
• Island 122 – Molly, my favorite duck.
• Island 123 – Snooty
• Island 124 – Boone
• Island 125 – Willow

I think I missed writing one down as I believe I did 126, but oh well. In the end, between just not feeling well and it being a rough week, I ended up getting Peanut from someone. I’m kind of disappointed with myself as I really wanted to try and find her myself, but I just am not doing great today.

Regardless, I am thrilled to have her and be done with my villager search. I’ll be mailing her the Purple Hyacinth wreath first thing tomorrow and then I just need to wait to be able to give her gifts.

The only other thing I ended up doing was visiting Meg’s Southern Hemisphere town for my Winter Stamp… Hopefully I can get the Fall Fishing Tourney stamp soon!

…It just hit me that I probably could’ve done this for the Bug Tourney as well so now I’m kicking myself all over again.

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Day 109

Well, it’s Sunday so Daisy Mae was here. There was also an announcement on the bulletin board about how the next Fishing Tourney will be this upcoming Saturday. I’m glad all I have to do is participate for the Nook Miles stamp this time at least.

Even if I no longer need the Mermaid DIYs, I still want the clothes so I made sure to find another Scallop today.

HE GAVE ME THE MERMAID TIARA. I quickly put together a loose Princess dress… I still wish it had sleeves. There is a version someone made on the Wavy dress base which looks nice too, but I don’t think it gets all the details enough.

I ended up going to Meg’s Southern Hemisphere island again later in hopes of the final three Sea Creatures I needed this month… and I got them! I had accidentally sold the first Red King Crab, but thankfully found another an hour or so later T~T

I’m now set until August where I believe the only new thing will be a Flatworm which I can try to catch in my own town after 4PM. I have just 6 Sea Creatures left now (so I’m at 34/40) and have caught over 800 total so far @-@

————

Day 110

Today was Mira’s birthday so I quickly made my way over there.

I found it really sweet that Teddy was there celebrating with her as they were my first two villagers.

I’ve been continuing to find a scallop for Pascal only to get a Pearl again… At this point, I’m kind of glad I just traded for the DIYs v-v But it’d be nice to get all the clothes… I still really want the pink shoes.

I ended up using the Pearl to make another Mermaid Lamp to put near my house. I think it looks nice, but am considering maybe moving it back a space…

I then ended up over to Risha’s that evening and managed to get a few new things.

When I got back to my town, I may have had a bit too much fun flipping into water.

That evening, the mysterious plaza bench returned. I still don’t understand why seats suddenly appear here. I wish I could add some seats myself…

The biggest surprise though? Celeste’s sudden appearance!

I had noticed a few shooting stars, but it was still a surprise to run into her. With all my zodiac gathering, I too the opportunity to listen to all of her Zodiac tales.

I have to say, I’m having incredibly conflicted feelings on how to feel on my own zodiac’s tale.

A friend of mine ended up giving me some of the Pirate furniture and after having put a pearl over on this rock, I thought maybe I could make it into a little cove-esque theme. You can see how quickly it began to evolve as I worked on it.

I think the finishing touch would be a Spider Crab, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

————

Day 111

I received a sweet thank you letter from Mira.

We also had a new campsite villager: Velma.

But the best thing was I ended up getting another double rainbow today!!

I continued my Scallop hunt for Pascal, but it was another Pearl today…

As I was finishing up, I ended up running into Wisp… It took a while (and heck, he even changed locations due to my break), but I did manage to find all 5… Unfortunately, he gave me wallpaper (which I already have all of) so there wasn’t much to do with the Blue Blossoming Wall he gave me.

I also took the time to finally add some dirt around the fires at the camp area. I saw so many people doing it and realized maybe that actually makes sense to do as you wouldn’t want to set the grass on fire (can you tell I’ve never been camping?) so I finally got around to adjust it.

————

Day 112

Another day, another Pearl.

I can’t say I agree with this, Pascal XP

Regardless, the Plaza was actually pretty busy today. I was surprised to see Label again so soon. I was a bit worried at first about the theme, but then I remembered I had a great outfit to go with it… She gave me the Labelle Coat. It kills me that my town seems to get the Twilight coloration from her. The Passion color is my favorite :( (Followed by Love, but the pink looks too purple sometimes).

I had been debating on giving Merengue one of the Soft-serve hats thinking it could maybe look like whipped cream to further her aesthetic, but the color didn’t match up enough unfortunately.

A friend also ended up surprising me with a Mermaid Tiara so I gave it to Marina as I felt it fit her pretty well.

I then stopped by Meg’s Southern Hemisphere town as she was celebrating her birthday a bit early. It was so cute and we could submit birthday wishes.

It makes me really excited for my own birthday, though, I wish it was possible to submit wishes through your own K.K. to help increase the surprise factor, especially as I don’t open my town much, let alone for K.K. who everyone has the same day.

To finish off the day, we then had a little afterparty over at Risha’s island where I got another new Diving creature: The Spiny Lobster!

Her islands are in June right now while she catches back up with dailies, but now I’m essentially set until August and September. If I’m lucky, I should be able to have all the Sea Creatures done by September :D Fingers crossed at least.

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I ended up doing some trades for Mermaid DIYs and some Pearls after getting a Pearl again from Pascal today. I’ll still need to try and find Scallops for the clothing, but I just couldn’t deal with the extra randomness. If it was just 3 weeks for the DIYs and Outfits and Pearls afterwards, fine, but getting two peearls in a row when I had one DIY and none of the clothing made me really sad.

I don’t mind dealing with a random order to earn things. I just mind when there’s a bunch of things that are clearly just there to pad it out and make it take longer.

Regardless, I ended up putting a pearl here. I think it looks nice. I would love to put the Pirate treasure chest over here too. I have some ideas on how I could decorate this little back area with some of the pirate stuff that could look nice. Maybe I’ll also add some barrels.

I also made a second Mermaid lamp just to put right here and honestly, while I thought it would look nice, it came out a lot better than I expected? Kind of considering if I should place them other places on the island… No idea where though. I don’t really have much room lately.

Making the Mermaid set ended up taking all of my Sand Dollars… It’s nice to see them have more use at least.

The big thing today was Meg was hosting a early birthday party over on her Southern Hemisphere island! First minigame was a diving contest! I ended up getting second with 9 sea creatures.

I received a Frozen Tree for second place :)

Next up was Pitfall Sumo!

I somehow ended up winning. I’m surprised too.

I ended up getting a Screen– it was the order design I really liked and had been planning on ordering too so it was really nice.

The final game was a treasure hunt! We had to run around the island looking for buried items. We got to keep anything we found.

I ended up getting 416K, 1 Conch, 3 Pitfall seeds, 1 Stone, and a gold present that had 10 Star Fragments in it. Between this and Diving, I think I may finally be okay with bells again. At least until more housing upgrades come… I need more storage and bigger side rooms :( (and I’d take more rooms in general).

We finished the party up with a K.K. Concert and visiting the Fire pit!

With the festivities over, it was time for more diving! I didn’t have as much luck today (WHERE ARE YOU SEA PIG, SPIDER CRAB, AND RED KING CRAB…), but I did get two new things between Meg’s and Risha’s islands!

I’m up to 31/40 now :) I think the thing that really gets me though is that I found so many of both of those immediately after finally finding one… It really feels like there’s some “new” ticker I need to hit before even having a chance…

Once back in my town, I was surprised to see so many villagers hanging around at K.K.’s Concert. It seemed like the perfect time to do one.

Bonus: I adore Judy so much, you guys.

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Day 102

It was raining again today which really frustrated me. I heard you can’t have moving prompts while it rains and just, I know I’m due to one so this is super frustrating.

At least I got my Bug-off Trophies.

I will say, my many issues aside, I love that you can get all three at once and that at least means I don’t have to worry about it in the future beyond helping friends. I can just do one round for the Nook Miles and be set.

On my way to the plaza, I noticed a new Bulletin Message for Mira’s birthday on July 6th:

Daisy Mae was also here, of course, selling turnips for 98 Bells each. I haven’t been playing early enough to see her for a while, but I still have no interest in doing turnips again no matter how many bells I need.

I don’t actually have anything to say about this– I just thought Cookie was looking adorable.

———–

Day 103

It thankfully wasn’t raining today. Unfortunately, Leif was here and Margie was inside so even if there was a moving prompt, it wouldn’t be for who I hoped would move :(

I ended up checking again later and Cookie had a moving prompt… I told her to stay. Hopefully she means this.

But ugh, Margie please ask to move T__T I guess I’ll try to only check later in the day… I feel like it’s important to mention that Cookie was actually indoors when I played earlier with no moving prompt so I guess them being indoors isn’t a definite sign… Hopefully I haven’t missed a chance.

———–

Day 104

From the load screen, I could tell Kicks was here. Today is also the final day of the Wedding Event. The only Bug I need for July is the Walking Leaf which won’t appear until 8AM so I wouldn’t have anything to do at midnight either. Upon booting up, Isabelle let me know we had a Visitor at the Campsite as well.

I had some mail from Ruu with some items I was still missing from my catalog which was really nice of her. I’m just missing the Blue Celebratory Candles now.

On my way to the Plaza, I found a Lost Item. It clearly belonged to a Normal type though and when you love four Normal types and also have one you still can’t get to move, well, half your town is Normal so that’s not really helpful. I ended up running into Flurry and Maple first. Considering Maple hadn’t been here long, I didn’t think we’d be close enough for me to have fully investigated, but I guess so as when I showed Flurry, she told me it was Maple’s.

Unfortunately, Margie was inside so I’d have to check again later, but considering I had just told Cookie not to move yesterday, it was unlikely we’d get a new moving prompt today. I feel bad as I’m getting really antsy about it and I’m generally more patient, but I just really want Peanut to be in and befriended before my birthday.

With my hopes dashed again, I went to see who our campsite villager was. Big Top.

Even though I didn’t need anything else, I wanted to finish the Wedding Event on a positive note and with it being the final day, I decided to go to take one last Photo Op. It ended up being a Garden theme which I was actually excited about as I didn’t get to hold a party there yet.

The only other thing I really ended up doing was a little crafting… You need to craft 3,000 Furniture for one of the Nook Miles and since Document Stacks can make Scattered Paper which can make Document Stacks, that’s an endless recipe you can do to not constantly need more ingredients. Unfortunately, sitting there crafting about 2,000 items still isn’t very fun so I didn’t get very far v__v

———–

Day 105

It’s officially July! And thus, my first order of business was catching a Walking Leaf which actually didn’t take long at all. (Also I had gotten more stuff for cataloging so thank you, Ruu!!)

Label ended up being here today. Unfortunately, the request was absolutely not my forte. I tried my best though.

Thankfully, she liked it and gave me some Labelle shorts.

———–

Day 106

Depending on things, we could have the update tonight which could be fun… Which also just makes me want to get as much done as possible. To my surprise, I had more catalog help from friends, but also a really sweet letter from Diana.

Besides that, Saharah was here (after watching the opening screen for over an hour because I sure couldn’t find anyone anywhere) and that was it for now at least.

I also stopped by Kymera’s island. She had these cute turtles around. It’s honestly pretty clever, but ignoring my pattern problems, I don’t know if I’d manage to do something as nice.

I then ended up visiting another friend’s island for some cataloging and to get recipes I needed. Now I can just focus on the Mermaid recipes at least.

And as expected, the update was out that evening! I kept watch and as soon at it hit 9PM EST, I had the update start. There was a letter from Nintendo thanking us for updating (with a Snorkel mask attached– I got the Orange one) and a letter from Nook Inc. letting us know about new items available.

I quickly made my way over to Nook’s Cranny, as it would be closing in about an hour, and bought a wet suit which they explained to me how to use.

And then I was off.

I was so happy that we could catch Jellyfish and not worry about being stung by them (or anything, we could just swim and sit there for hours, the music drowned out by the sounds of the waves…).

I won’t be showing every single fish as that would be… a lot of pictures, but I will at least show my favorites. I ended up catching 8 things so far.

Even a Scallop! And right on cue…

He ended up giving me the Mermaid Sofa DIY!! And then I desperately searched for another Scallop which thankfully didn’t take as long as I thought it would. It was then off to Blathers!

I then stopped at a friend’s town as it was Agent S’ birthday.

And then I headed back and immediately jumped right back into the water.

I ended up catching 8 more things that night for a total of 16.

And thanks to Ruu, I got this lovely wet suit. I also couldn’t resist putting the Horseshoe crab on the beach…

———–

Day 107

My schedule right now essentially consists of two things only: Diving and checking if Margie wants to move. I had gotten the Nook Inc. Wet suit in the mail which is essentially my favorite design, but I wish it had another color variant. Why can’t there be a Coral version??

I did, however, get the Bamboo Grass I ordered from the Nook Shopping app as well so I adjusted some things in my Zen area.

And then I was off. I even found my first Pearl! (And also got a Pearl from Pascal in return for the Scallop I found…)

Gulliver ended up being here too, though, just the usual one.

And Judy asked me to deliver a gift she had gotten for Teddy.

I managed to get a second of the Giant Isopod and I love how it kind of pokes its head out of its container so I ended up putting one here alongside some seaweed (which I put a few around the island).

Meanwhile, Diana wanted a new catch phrase and hers, like Teddy’s, is one of the few I really wanted to change… I just wish other villagers wouldn’t pick it up.

I also ended up stopping by Meg’s Southern Hemisphere Island. Besides cataloging the various wet suits and snorkels, I caught several new things too.

Of course, I still had things to find in the Northern Hemisphere too… And I managed to get them to finish getting all the Northern Hemisphere sea creatures I can get this month.

To my surprise as I was diving around, I saw a few shooting stars… And then ended up running right into Celeste.

To finish things off that night, I managed to get another Mermaid sofa from a very nice person which I used as a little watch area in my Cafe by the music area. I think it looks nice.

————

With all that out of the way, I do want to give my feelings on the update itself. I DID end up liking it more than I expected, despite not really finding much “new” with it and that’s due to a very specific reason: Diving is actually kind of relaxing.

Diving is absolutely not perfect. The swimming is a bit slower (or at least feels that way due to how big the ocean is), you still have to annoyingly tap A to swim faster (and the only real reason not to is for certain creatures you need to “sneak up” on) because I guess we should all have wrist pain, and sometimes you still have to chase things down (though, most aren’t too bad and the ones that are can either be approached slowly with the non-tapping swimming oooor herded towards a barrier to catch).

The nicest thing is that things can’t actually escape this time! They can’t go under a barrier away from you. You don’t risk losing things forever beyond if someone decides to join while you’re trying to catch something. It can still be annoying and take a while, but you won’t actually lose them which relieves SO MUCH stress.

But the biggest stress reliever? NO TOOLS BREAKING. I can swim to my heart’s content and dive as much as I want. I’ve caught well over 500 things already and I’m okay with it. Diving is absolutely not perfect, but they did fix some of the biggest issues from New Leaf.

If anything, this just tells me more and more how much I wish tools didn’t break. Some of the designs are so cute and gold tools especially breaking is awful.

I would say my biggest “complaints”, besides the few things mentioned above about swim speed, are the rarity of pearls (which thus makes part of why Pascal gives you pearls… but even that is frustrating as you can get them otherwise unlike everything else he gives.

I have yet to see Pirate!Gulliver, but honestly, the game just feels so random this time around. I don’t even want most of the pirate stuff. I just hope I can catalog a lot of things and get the few things I want.

But the mermaid stuff? I love all of it so much. I just wish the Mermaid dresses had sleeves T~T Cute shell sleeves would’ve looked so nice… Or even poofy ones with lines of pearls…

There were a few other adjustments in the update as well such as Leif, Kicks, and Saharah not always being guaranteed and a few other changes that seem helpful too. Now if we can just buy stacks of more than 5 at a time…

Finally, something I didn’t expect is that you can actually earn a fair amount of bells from Diving? Just doing one inventory bundle gets me 20K on average– sometimes as much as 30K-40K. I’ve earned so many bells which I never would’ve expected. It’s been a nice surprise.

Now if I can just get the diving creatures I still need before the month ends XP

Twitch Collection | Youtube Playlist | ACNH Overview

Day 93

Saharah was here. Judy picked up Teddy’s new catchphrase so I immediately ran to Isabelle to revert that. And the only thing I really did of any consequence was adjust some things on the path here– I think while a little still spills in Cookie’s yard, it overall looks better than how it did.

Besides that, I just gave some of my villagers some new clothing gifts today…

I did get a request from Cookie though later that evening– she wanted a new greeting. It was my first time getting that request.

I also finally got the pillars I wanted which does finish up the grove area completely now. I think it helps add that old temple feel. At least I hope so.

I saw a nice pattern that could possibly work a bit, but I just don’t have space for more designs unfortunately.

———-

Day 94

We had a new Camper today.

Judy asked to move. I told her no, obviously. Hopefully Margie may ask soon…

———-

Day 95

The Bulletin Board let us know the Bug-Off is next week. It still kills me how little this board is used and how pointless the daily announcements are most of the time.

While talking to a friend, it really hit me how little I genuinely enjoy about New Horizons and that makes me really sad. With all the “creative” freedom, the game play itself feels so much more restrictive and it’s just not a lot of fun.

———-

Day 96

C.J. was here. While I didn’t feel up to his challenge, I did at least get a third Cherry Salmon for the model of it.

And that was it today.

———-

Day 97

I found a Lost Item. Unfortunately, Investigation wasn’t super helpful as all it did was narrow down it being a Snooty… But I have two snooties I’m close to: Judy and Diana. I decided to check with Judy as her house is closer and she’s been here longer, but alas, it turned out it was Diana’s…

Meanwhile, Leif was here and it was raining again, but that was really it today. I did end up poking in that evening to go wish on stars at Sami’s though. Fingers crossed for three Cancer star fragments tomorrow.

———-

Day 98

Kicks was here today.

But more importantly, I did manage to get a Cancer Fragment!

I actually got three so I had enough to craft a Cancer Table plus one for outside…

I would like to get one more for my house though…

———-

Day 99

It was raining again today. And Saharah was here. I didn’t even take any screenshots as there was nothing to show, so instead I’m going to talk about the upcoming update:

I already ranted a bit over on Twitter, but it’s just… hard to be excited for small updates like this. I like being able to get a good idea on planning my time and this just leaves too much up in the air. I also don’t enjoy constantly redoing things.

Not to mention that these are mostly just returning features over anything new :/ And Swimming and Diving were kind of frustrating… Maybe if they fixed the issues from New Leaf, it won’t be so bad, but I can’t say I missed them.

And as happy as I am to see the return of the Mermaid set, I’ve been struggling tons with storage space (1,600 is not enough– especially when you have a crafting mechanic) and it’s just makes the whole situation harder.

I wish I didn’t feel as disappointed with New Horizons as I do.

Regardless, with the Mermaid furniture being through recipes from Pascal, I would guess, especially considering Gulliver’s outfit in the update video, the pirate furniture will be through Gulliver. What about his other rewards though? I hope this at least still counts to the 30 needed, but I have so many questions and they just skipped over the Gulliver thing entirely.

We got a small preview about more Summer stuff coming in August and I’m assuming it’ll be the fireworks event back with fortune cookies (maybe also bringing the Nintendo items back?), but I just can’t find myself being excited for updates set-up like this.

———-

Day 100

It’s Marina’s birthday! Also K.K. was here? I guess a day early due to the Bug-off…

I then made my way over to Marina’s. I’m glad she liked her gift, but she’s also picked up Teddy’s Bud and it’s killing me.

I’m only not resetting them with Isabelle right now because I’m paranoid that contributed to Judy being my first move prompt. I’m still hoping Margie will ask, but it’s been raining or events and I don’t even know when I’ll get a new move prompt at this rate… I really want Peanut moved in before my birthday :(

———-

Day 101

It’s the Bug-off!! Also I got this lovely letter from Marina.

Regardless, I had gotten up bright and early for the fist Bug-off, though, possibly a little too early…

I forgot it didn’t start until 9AM despite the date rolling over at 5AM. Due to my early rising, I ended up stopping at Mika’s and Meg’s to catch bugs. It took about 3-4 hours, but we did it!

It took about 3-4 hours, but I did manage to get to 300 Points at the end.

I had planned to play with more friends later too, but ended up feeling really dizzy so I took a pause from the game after finishing up in my own town a bit.

Bug Spawns were absolutely atrocious as usual, but the bonus still made it the better way to play. I never got more than 7 Bugs at a time and usually struggled just to hit the 3 minimum. Nintendo really needs to adjust how spawns work. My best guess is since the game tries to spawn things near us, but they also don’t last long, we just constantly end up missing the small spawns as we’re all over the place, but it shouldn’t be this hectic or stressful.

Anyway, I had this delight from Teddy who will be very happy to know I did, indeed, go for Gold.

You were too slow, Teddy. Too. Slow.

So, last Wednesday was a big press conference for Pokemon Announcements. I mainly just expected more information on Isle of Armor, maybe with some more teasers for Crown Tundra, and at most possibly something in relation with Pokemon GO, the Detective Pikachu sequel (aaaaah), and Pokemon Sleep (which we still haven’t heard of).

To my surprise though, we had gotten three new announcements– Pokemon Smile, Pokemon Cafe Mix, and a game I have dreamed of since I played the very first one: A sequel to Pokemon Snap.

In general, anytime I see 3D renders of Pokemon, I get excited as most spin-offs featuring 3D models are some of my favorites (Stadium, Colosseum, Snap, etc.) so it had my attention from the first screen.

And when the Wailord showed up, slowly popping out of the water, I whispered “Pokemon Snap?”– a hope I couldn’t help but have. All the Pokemon? Seeing them in these natural environments? The spin-off I’ve wanted for so long?

So when I saw this, I screamed. And then nearly cried.

I don’t even have words for how excited I am about it. It looks amazing already. I just hope it may feature every Pokemon. I know it’s unlikely, but I can’t help but hope… And honestly, I’d absolutely buy DLC that adds more Pokemon.

As for Pokemon Smile and Pokemon Cafe Mix, they both have really cute art styles, but just aren’t really for me. With Pokemon Smile, I just am not comfortable seeing myself or focusing on my teeth in a camera so it’s not really possible for me to play. I wish I could still catch Pokemon though.

Pokemon Cafe Mix had me really excited briefly when it described as a “puzzle” game– here I was thinking of trying to figure out what Pokemon wanted to eat or helping them with problems while working at a cafe or even something Diner Dash-esque, but instead the gameplay persisted of a TsumTsum style minigame and I just… can’t stand most of those types of games (Tetris, Match 3’s, etc.) nor do I consider them puzzle games (there’s too much of an RNG faction to them).

I’ve still been playing it a bit as the graphics are really cute and I love the general aesthetic, but I can’t help and be disappointed about the game play.

The stream ended with saying there would be more news on the 24th (yesterday) which lead us to another trailer for a new game… Pokemon Unite. I’m not a competitive person nor do I care much for MOBAs (Starting over from scratch per match is not a funn time for me), but considering the Pokemon Snap announcement last week, I was still perfectly content. Though, I do hope we’ll see more on Detective Pikachu sooner rather than late too.

The only way I would’ve been disappointed is if it was a remake announcement. I’m so tired of remakes and lately they even made the timeline super weird. I’d rather them just focus on new things over constantly remaking the old games.

Anyway, moving passed the recent announcements, Isle of Armor was available as the first video last week was ending and I quickly got started on playing it.

I was super excited to get started. And one of the things I really need to compliment was the character work. I loved getting to interact and know more of the characters than I really feel we got to in the original campaign. The cutscenes also made things feel a lot more fluid.

I also really loved the new Bike options (though, it could sometimes make it hard to notice item sparkles) and bought some new clothes. I was a little disappointed with the dress selection though– once again, light pink was just not really an option for most of the new dresses? Also I don’t know why they were all sleeveless… I think my new League Card came out cute though.

The Isle of Armor also brought along a new dex due to all the new Pokemon now in Galar for it and a special hunt to try and find 150 Alolan Diglett.

As for the Dex, you actually got a crown for finishing… Which I can’t actually wear with my ponytail.

Considering the ponytail hairstyle in X/Y and how Hilda/White has a ponytail with a hat just fine in Black/White, I find it silly how all hats are just banned if you’re using a ponytail this time around. There are absolutely ways to wear hats with a ponytail.

As for the island itself, I found myself constantly just heading to cliffs and looking around. It was just such a nice place.

The main gist of the story was that you were accidentally mistaken as the new student for the Dojo. There were three trials: Catching 3 Super fast Slowpoke, Finding 3 Batches of Max Mushrooms, and winning a battle against your Dojo Rival (Avery for me as I played Shield).

Upon finishing the trials, my trainer received the special Armor… Kubfu.

Our job was to befriend Kubfu by showing it around the Isle.

With that done, we were told about a special challenge we could take at one of the Towers. I personally picked the Tower of Water.

Kubfu had to be at least level 70 to participate and the only one if your party which worried me, but it actually went better than I thought. Unsurprisingly, Mustard was our final battle.

I wasn’t even surprised about his costume change. I think the only thing that bugged me is he essentially references the Tower of Darkness as well and I don’t understand why we couldn’t do both/had to be locked out of the one we didn’t choose. Especially as he’s clearly the final battle of both of them.

Regardless, our Kubfu beat Mustard’s and thus, we had completed our trials.

To finish things off though, we had to evolve Kubfu by looking at the scroll. I honestly found this kind of disappointing as I would’ve liked to not evolve my Kubfu.

With that done, Hop ended up being at the Dojo waiting.

I would guess Hop’s appearance requires finishing the main story as you can apparently head to the Isle of Armor as soon as you have access to the Wild area.

We then had a new set of things to do with Hop and it really focused down on one of my least favorite things with the Isle of Armor: I constantly get lost. The island is very compact (which also makes repels not working on Pokemon that walk around outside the grass all the more frustrating… Especially the Sharpedo) and so I got turned around A LOT. It took me an hour to find Hop in the forest.

Thankfully, reuniting Lilligant and Petilil went better than me finding Hop in the first place.

Finally, we had a battle with Mustard at “his full power” or well, with his proper team I guess and not just a Kubfu.

I will say this battle went fairly well considering my fairly Fairy-oriented team versus his fighting one.

It then ended off with this ominous message which I would guess means we have more to come when the Crown Tundra DLC hits…

With the story done, I focused my efforts on finding the rest of the Alolan Diglett. It took a while (again, because I kept getting lost and also so many Pokemon…), but I did it!

We were then given the Alolan Diglett we first stumbled upon that started this quest to find the other 150.

With that done, I actually only have one thing left: Upgrading the Dojo… but to be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever manage to. Honey requires over 3,000,000 Watts to fully upgrade the Dojo and honestly, that’s disgusting. I get that there’s Digging Pa who can get 100K-500K Watts in a dig if you’re lucky, but it requires getting 7 Armorite Ore for each dig attempt and they’re just random spawns or you can try and gamble some from Digging Ma who shows up randomly around the Isle (reminder that I am constantly getting lost as it is) and there is no guarantee you’ll get anything. Three times in a row, she broke her shovel on the forced dig and I got nothing. I had no option but to fail and that sucks.

And without that? Earning Watts is super slow. I have no reason to keep raiding beyond occasional campaigns or helping friends. And the people who will have that many watts are generally those who kept resetting and switching their date to raid for specific Pokemon/Shinies. And like, it’s fine if people want to play that, but as someone who just plays more regularly and doesn’t grind the same mode over and over, I’m stuck. It’s especially frustrating as I have all this BP from using Bank I have no use for and tons of Pokedollars to the point where I haven’t even sold all the items that could get me more, but I can’t use either to help me with this. My next tier is the 800K one and I really would like to finish off the Dojo, but I just am not sure I’ll ever get that many watts through just casually playing and that is super disappointing.

Regardless, outside of the few issues I had, I really enjoyed the Isle of Armor. And I can’t wait for the Crown Tundra, Detective Pikachu sequel, and New Pokemon Snap.

Edit: It took a while, but at least I can say the Dojo is complete!

I ended up being closer than I thought (just a couple of upgrades left), but that was still a ridiculous amount of watts.