Our first game was Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo
3DS. We bought it a couple of years after it was released, but
it became a game that we played every single day for almost two
years just because it's fun.
Animal Crossing became a more significant game to us in mid-2015
when we began to feel the presence of a new member of our
system, but they were having trouble coming to be. Ora decided
to let them use Animal Crossing to experiment with their
appearance and interactions with the characters and game. It was
this exploration that helped
Thyme separate themselves
from the rest of us and adopt an identity of their own.
This idea came up again when our youngest system member, Mimi,
wanted to explore himself and have more time for him to have the
front. We downloaded a digital copy of the game and let Mimi
become the Mayor of Tuesday. He loved it. He loved it a lot.
Pocket Camp was released in 2017, and it was a new game while we
waited for Animal Crossing to come to the Switch. Mimi took the
reins again and had a lot of fun with it, but the worst of
mobile game psychology started to take its toll. In-app purchase
opportunities abounded, and there was a lot of FOMO-bait in
limited time offerings. It became too exhausting to keep up
with, so we eventually deleted the app and stopped using it.
Animal Crossing came to our system's defense a third time when D
was trying to understand his gender stuff—more on that
here. But
Animal Crossing let her experiment with dress and name and gave
her something to do that he enjoyed even in the worst of his
depression.
We bought a Nintendo Switch to play New Horizons. It was the
only reason we wanted the console. It would be bigger and better
than New Leaf, surely! We noticed a few things about New
Horizons that we didn't like, but the game is still very fun.
We still play New Horizons, especially since the Happy Home
Paradise DLC was added that added a new decorating side system.
Unfortunately, when the Virtual Game Cards were added to the
Switch software, we lost the ability to play on our main save.
In our frustration, we bought Pocket Camp and a new cartridge of
New Leaf.
Having since regained the ability to play New Horizons on our
main save, we now play up to three Animal Crossing games every
day.
Tips and Tricks
Here's some little things we've learned along the way.
-
Set your time to match your schedule. If you can only play
in the evenings, set your clock back a few hours so that the
in-game time is the middle of the day. This gives you more
hours to get stuff done before things close. Just be sure
the game is closed when you reset the time.
-
When catching fish, use the audio cue to know when to pull.
Look away or close your eyes to prevent yourself from
pulling too early when the fish touches the bobber.
-
Shake your trees as often as possible. There's bells and
furniture in there. In New Horizons, you can shake trees
over and over for more resources.
-
Hold your net when shaking trees. When a wasp nest falls
out, you'll turn to face it, so you can press A immediately
to catch the wasp before it stings you.
-
If you're holding a net, put it away before you respond to a
villager ping. Accidentally hitting them resets what they
were going to say.
-
Before hitting a rock with your shovel, dig holes that will
stop you from moving backwards. Wedging yourself between two
holes will make it much easier to hit the rock for the
maximum eight times.
-
Donate the first of every type of critter you catch to
Blathers. The Museum is very fun to explore, and populating
it with critters as soon as possible makes the Museum look
even better.
-
If you want to make a lot of money very quickly in New Leaf,
farm beetles and sharks on Tortimer's Island.
-
If someone asks you to bury a time capsule for them, bury it
right next to their house. Burying it far away in a random
location will make it easy to mistake for a fossil or gyroid
later.
-
The Bell Tree Forums
are the go-to forums for everything Animal Crossing.