unofficial Animal Crossing: New Horizons island development thread

[Raccoon]

So, after about a year and a half, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is finally reaching its full potential with the incoming version 2.0, the last major update to the smash hit game. Like many of you, the exciting new content has compelled me to move forward with renovation plans for my island. The plan? Think smaller.

My town, like most I've seen, is spread all across my island of Avalon. However, the low density has made the town feel less connected, and with the functional confirmation that no new structures will be added to the game, I'm rebuilding my town as only a portion of Avalon, which will have more space dedicated to orchards, a small farm, and nature.

Now, unlike many, I've tried to maintain my town somewhat realistically, and I feel that it has been imbued with a sense of history that way. For example, my general store has never moved. The plot of my original home is now a park. The original plot of the Able Sisters now has a home built on it. As such, I was concerned that downsizing would be too drastic, and indeed this will be the greatest redevelopment of my island since I landscaped my cliffs to allow a full circuit around the island. However, the changes feel natural due to the space that I've wasted in my attempts to make my town feel more complete. Here's a simple markup of the changes I intend to make:

I'm very excited to work on this project ahead of the November 5th update, but I'm certain I'm not alone. How are you renovating your island? Are you starting now or when the update is released? Please feel free to share your plans or progress in this thread!

 

[Raccoon]

I see that my image is a webp, which is fickle on some browsers. I'll try to fix this later.

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

Currently moving everything around to fit some farmland close to my house, lol. It's being entertaining so far.

 

[Mr_No_U]

My current island is basically a grid with 3 levels and tons of empty space. The idea was to reserve room for future buildings, but since it looks like that isn't happening, I think I'm going to be remodeling. I guess I can use some of that space to farm and such.

 

[KilgoreWolfe]

I had dropped the game for six months until yesterday, and the biggest issue I have is an ungodly amount of flowers overran my island even back then. So I've been slowly removing them so that I have space to work with (I really wish there was a faster way to remove them but it's slightly meditative so I don't mind too much).

Don't really have a grand plan at this point but I'm excited to play around with the new stuff next month.

 

[Raccoon]

the biggest issue I have is an ungodly amount of flowers overran my island even back then.

Just as a fun fact about New Horizons, it's most likely that it's only from then. Like many things in the game, nothing changes if you aren't actively playing: villagers don't move out (or even in, from my experience), and flowers don't grow. My friends and I have found that the best way to preserve an island is to never even look at it, which is of course the opposite of older Animal Crossing towns.

Just a fun fact, and one of many small things that bothers me about the game.

 

[KilgoreWolfe]

Just as a fun fact about New Horizons, it's most likely that it's only from then. Like many things in the game, nothing changes if you aren't actively playing: villagers don't move out (or even in, from my experience), and flowers don't grow. My friends and I have found that the best way to preserve an island is to never even look at it, which is of course the opposite of older Animal Crossing towns.

Just a fun fact, and one of many small things that bothers me about the game.

Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. The only impact leaving it alone for so long had was a lot of weeds (but not as many as I expected), walking out of my house with bedhead, and... bleh, cockroaches.

I get why that's frustrating but I'm just glad none of my favorite villagers left, haha.

 

[GJ]

Probably gonna stock up on some podcasts and start demolishing half of my island pretty soon. A lot of my island is heightened, so it’s gonna take a long time to terraform all that stuff again. Then when the expansion drops I can start designing and developing a new island with a whole new look and feel.

 

[Symtendo]

Chalk another one up for the flower plague crew. When I last played, I had set up a little flower growing farm to try and breed the colours I don’t have. Now, as my daughter has been continuing to play, these flowers have seriously taken over.

I’m currently in the process of digging them up, selling them, but keeping the ones I can use to breed other colours which is going to take me about a week, but as mentioned above, I find this quite relaxing, something I’ve needed for a while, so that’s my current plan.

 

[Raccoon]

Oh yeah, I'm aware of that. The only impact leaving it alone for so long had was a lot of weeds (but not as many as I expected), walking out of my house with bedhead, and... bleh, cockroaches.

I get why that's frustrating but I'm just glad none of my favorite villagers left, haha.

Oh absolutely, there are pros and cons to most of the changes made in New Horizons. I could write a dissertation on how this series has changed and the impact that has had on each game's relationship with the player.

 

[TurtleRock]

I used to have waterfalls as the backdrop of my museum but after seeing all the new content coming out I decided to basically revert my museum area to how it was before I got terraforming. The major issue is that while it looked cool, a lot of space was basically unusable. After seeing all the cool stuff coming in the update I figured space is a premium now and so the waterfalls have to go to open up more land space!

I found some old pictures in my switch screenshot folder that I used as reference to revert things back. I managed to get it my layout back to around 90% of what it was before terraforming. Now I’m clearing out the new area for the museum that will take up way less space than before. This is the longest I’ve played the game in 6 months! I’m hyped for the update and prepping for it has been pretty fun and relaxing.

 

[KilgoreWolfe]

Oh absolutely, there are pros and cons to most of the changes made in New Horizons. I could write a dissertation on how this series has changed and the impact that has had on each game's relationship with the player.

Honestly I'd like to read that. My only prior experience with the series was New Leaf, and it was hard for me to keep at that one because I owned a physical copy and other games just grabbed my interest more. With NH I went digital which was much more conducive to daily play (I actually played every day except for like, two or three days since launch until April this year).

 

[ArchedThunder]

I had stopped playing for a year and 4 months, but luckily the way I set up my island means I don’t have to move anything to make a farm.

D6 and E6 are perfect for a farm, it’s mostly empty space after I moved all the houses into a town grid. All that’s over there is trees and a tiny swimming pool that I threw down because I didn’t know what to do with the space.

 

[Mr_No_U]

I had stopped playing for a year and 4 months, but luckily the way I set up my island means I don’t have to move anything to make a farm.

D6 and E6 are perfect for a farm, it’s mostly empty space after I moved all the houses into a town grid. All that’s over there is trees and a tiny swimming pool that I threw down because I didn’t know what to do with the space.

Cool island name! Also love the layout.

 

[Thorakai]

Does anyone know whether the feature where you can walk through small gaps works outside as well? That would help change how I view the potential for spaces in my current island.

 

[jnWake]

My island has a similar idea for the layout. All villagers are in a 3-tiered "neighborhood" that takes less than 1/4th of the island. Next to it there's another 1/4th of the island with the Museum and the player houses. Just below the player houses there's a small space for the main stores which leaves roughly 1/2 of the island for just farms, forests and stuff like that. It's fun.

 

[Sheldon]

I could never get my head around how to terraform the hills and rivers into the desired shape without moving all the villager houses around dozens of times, so my island has been stuck in a half-civilized, half-chaotic mess.

 

[ArchedThunder]

Cool island name! Also love the layout.

Thanks, I did custom textures for roads and sidewalks too, wanted it to feel like an actual town. Even have a little park (second screenshot, though it‘s not fully visible.)

 

[totofogo]

Just as a fun fact about New Horizons, it's most likely that it's only from then. Like many things in the game, nothing changes if you aren't actively playing: villagers don't move out (or even in, from my experience), and flowers don't grow. My friends and I have found that the best way to preserve an island is to never even look at it, which is of course the opposite of older Animal Crossing towns.

Just a fun fact, and one of many small things that bothers me about the game.

I was surprised by how little had changed since I dropped the game, that was always one of my favorite parts of the old games… odd thing to change. Makes the game feel more like Minecraft and less alive.

 

[Raccoon]

I was surprised by how little had changed since I dropped the game, that was always one of my favorite parts of the old games… odd thing to change. Makes the game feel more like Minecraft and less alive.

Not feeling alive is unfortunately New Horizons's biggest problem. It's pretty far removed from the soul of the old games, but I still enjoy it for what it is. Getting some of the superficial but recognizable aspects of classic Animal Crossing back in the incoming update might help a bit, but fundamentally it's a very different game.

 

[E.Gadd]

First I'm moving my house to the cliff at the top of the map. Then I'm relocating the playground to where my house was and making a nice little park around it.

My carnival grounds, Farm, zen garden, and hot springs will be getting nice overhauls, but mostly via new set pieces through Happy Home Paradise.

I'm not sure how much terra forming I'll do, I've tried to keep it to a minimum whenever necessary.

 

[totofogo]

Lol my relaxing Saturday night just turned into hours of terraforming and sketching my new layout out in my journal

I’ll share a digital version of my mess of notes sometime as it comes together, thanks for the inspiration off of yesterdays direct @Raccoon !

 

[jeelybeans]

This is a really fun thread idea. Enjoying reading everyone's stories.

Right now I'm working on a few things since the Direct re-ignited my interest. Planting more trees and flowers for the 5 star rating, and doing some terraform remodeling to make space for a farm. In the process several parts of my town are getting a clean up/edit.

 

[Xita]

It’s been more than a year since I actively played the game and I wasn’t too attached to it when I left so I decided why not start all over again.

Honestly really made me remember how much I loved the game at the start. There’s not a whole lot to do yet (and yet I spent 3 hours trying to get materials for shops yesterday haha) but it’s just so peaceful. It feels nice to play. Also I never did the Halloween stuff last year so that’s new for me.

I don’t have any big plans for my island at the moment though I do think I want it to be less city-like than my last island.