28 Animal Crossing: New Horizons Tips to Improve Your Game on the Island

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Louryn Strampe

To review this article, select My Profile and then View Recorded Stories.

To review this article, select My Profile and then View Recorded Stories.

I’ve been a Fan of Animal Crossing for 19 years, so you can realize that things are pretty serious. New Horizons for Nintendo Switch is, in my opinion, the edition of the game to date.

With my deep (ok, obsessive) wisdom of the series, I answer questions about the last game. So I made the decision to collect tricks (some of my colleagues too!) And answers to questions, even if I had to look. Here’s how to make the most of your island vacation.

Do you have your own and tricks to share? Tell us in the comments below. (Register here for an account).

Update for July 2020: We’ve added some new features after recent season updates.

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When you create DIY recipes, it can be annoying to expect animations every time you create something new. Dramatically speed up the procedure by pressing the A button several times in a row once your character starts creating. (In case you don’t know, urgency B will continually also make the animals communicate faster.)

Use your Nook Miles and NookStop to unlock the maximum stock capacity of 40 item slots to have more space in your pockets. I like to have some crafts with me at all times so I can make a new net for insects or a fishing rod at any time. In addition to the tools, I have on hand nuggets of iron, wood, softwood, hardwood, stones and tree branches. Several items are stacked, but once you get 30 pieces of anything like wood, you will automatically start using a new stock location.

Pressing B while you’re moving will make you run. This scares insects and fish and can ruin freshly planted flowers, so be careful. If you press A while moving with a network in your hand, it can sneak in. Letting A through while s sneaking causes the net to tilt downwards. It is the most productive way to sneak into insects like moths, and is the only way to catch tarantulas and scorpions. Walk slowly towards them with the net raised and avoid as soon as your legs begin to tremble. When prevented, continue, clarify and repeat.

When you head to a mysterious island, shake all the trees. There’s a piece of furniture hidden in one of them. However, you will need to make sure your network is out, as there is at least one wasp nest that will also fall. Oh, yes, you can catch those wasps before they attack. Simply press A temporarily as soon as they come out (in front of them).

Sometimes, morning announcements, Isabelle will inform you that a meteor shower is on its way that night. Turns out the timing is absolutely random. With more than 170 hours in the game, I haven’t had an official meteor shower yet, although I met Celeste. She is Blathers’ sister and rarely gives you a special DIY recipe with the zodiac theme. (Looking at various forums, it turns out that this would possibly be a mistake; some players haven’t noticed Celeste, but they’ve had Meteor shower, and others have noticed Celeste, but not a shooting star, etc.)

In all cases, shooting stars appear randomly between 7 p.m. and four o’clock in the morning on clear, cloudless nights. They sound like a kind of gleaming bell. Noise is silent: a headset can be a smart concept for listening to them. Make sure your hands are empty, use the right joystick to look up and press A when a star is above your head to make a wish. Shooting stars regularly appear in bursts, so keep searching the sky after wishing one or three more to pass. The next day, your beaches will have snippets of stars that you can use to create some DIY recipes.

You’ve probably already discovered that eating a piece of fruit and then hitting a stone with your shovel or stone punch will break a stone, but did you know that the same action can help you move trees? Gone are the days of cutting and replanting. As WIRED Louise Matsakis pointed out, once her fruit eating powers have been activated, she can use her shovel to dig up a tree. It will remain hidden in your pocket for easy planting.

Once a day there will be a bright spot on the ground consisting of 1000 bells. Refunding the Bells bag will germinate a Bell tree that grows in cash every few days. However, if you plant even more bells, you have the possibility to grow a tree in which bags of heavier bells grow. This trick led me to grow several trees of 10,000 bells. To plant more bells, go to your wallet and click on the bell counter in the left back corner. From there, you can determine the number of bells you want to separate, then decide to bury them in the hole to plant them.

There are some creatures that only remain for a certain month. They vary depending on the hemisphere you live in, and in the effort not to spoil things, I leave you with this: insects and fish can be more confusing than you think. Some of the fish I caught only stayed for a few hours in places like the river on the cliff, the mouth of a river or in a pond. The same goes for mistakes. Some types will only appear on rotten vegetables, garbage or villagers. Be artistic and diligent in your quest! If you’re looking to spawn fish in a safe place, use fish bait to speed up the process. You can get a few Nook miles for your problems.

You’ll probably stop at NookStop at the center of your resident facilities once a day to earn the big bonus miles. Here’s another tip: redeem your Nook miles from the NookPhone app as soon as you earn them. Once you’ve redeemed the bonus miles, get a new task, and this can be just for anything you were about to do anyway. This is an undeniable step that will help you collect more efficiently.

There’s no deadline for paying off your home, so while it can be smart to put your Bells toward your loan, be sure to spend them graciously at various vendors across your island after paying off your first remodel or two. Spending Bells is typically a prerequisite for certain upgrades. Check out what the general store has to offer each day (and press R to check out the entirety of what’s inside the cabinet). The same goes for the fitting room at the tailor’s shop—you never know what you might find.

That said, if you need to save, keep Bells in your ABD savings account that in your pockets. You’ll earn interest over time (although Nintendo has reduced the interest rate a bit).

While New Horizons undoubtedly offers the most productive fashion pieces and clothing interface in the franchise, there are many traditional designs that will help you perfect your character’s look. Cecilia D’Anastasio of WIRED used face paint and traditional patterns to give her character new eyebrows and short blouses. If you’re not familiar with patterns, you can use the tailoring kiosk to unload models of clothing and paths. Check out Instagram for a massive collection of accounts that post beautiful designs every day. You can also use AC models to locate cool designs or create your own.

On Sunday, Daisy Mae will be your island. She is an adorable boar and the granddaughter of Sow Joan, whom you would possibly have met in earlier versions of Animal Crossing. Daisy Mae sells turnips, which vary in price. You can buy in batches of 10. Then you can get those turnips back later in the week for a lot of money.

If you need to buy cheap and sell superior, take a look at Reddit to locate islands with the best purchase prices. You may have to wait a while on a virtual line, but if it’s decided, this is the most productive way to make a profit. Just stay in the brain that turnips rot after a week, and if you play with the game setup and go back in time, your turnips will get worse right away.

There is controversy around the time jump, which is necessarily an approach of manipulating Nintendo Switch’s date and time settings to trick time into the game. I like to play New Horizons for hours, so I’m pro-hop, although other people prefer the calm, herbal rhythm of the game. Jumping through time is helping you temporarily complete the upgrade and bridge structure, giving you more fossils to locate and restore your daily tasks.

But if recklessly in time, there are risks. Your relations with the villagers may deteriorate, your island may also be invaded by weeds and may also spoil your ability to participate in special events, as they will only begin if you are connected to the Internet.

To save time with less risk, what I do:

Your game will become complex one day, but possibly not far away as to ruin your island. Keep in mind that turnips rot over time.

To, for all, succeed in a five-star island score, it will take time and effort. You can verify your island’s score by talking to Isabelle at resident services. Follow her recommendation literally: if she says she wants closers, she wants closers. The same goes for decoration: does it say you want more decorations or pieces you’ve created yourself? Pay close attention to the clues you give.

You’ll want well-balanced furniture and ornamental pieces scattered around your island, as well as a limited number of flowers, fences and trees. Be sure to collect tree branches and weeds as soon as you see them as they decrease your island’s rating.

Contrary to what you may have read, hitting a villager on the head with your net or at the end of their space won’t make him leave. (However, this will make you feel guilty.) There is no unfailingly shown way to get rid of a villager. Believe me, if there was, Rodney still wouldn’t be living on my island.

However, if you have a full island with 10 citizens and a villager visiting your camp, you can contact the guest again and again to convince him to move to his island. That’s the key: they’re going to decide randomly on a villager to evict. You can settle for your initial offer if you’re looking to exchange sale options with the creature you don’t like. If they don’t decide which villager is right, they’ll want to restart by leaving the software completely and starting the procedure again.

If you are looking to get rid of a villager and have a guest in the camp, I suggest you move to the site without delay when you load the game for the first time. This way, you may not lose any progress if you have to restart. If this procedure is too much work, your next most productive bet is to completely forget about your long-term eviction. Don’t contact them unless they have a bubble over your head, which would possibly imply that you’re making plans to move (even if the bubbles over your heads may mean you need to give something). This is where you can enthusiastically inspire them to do so.

Every day, there is a possibility that you have a special visitor. They hang out at your house, wander around your island or pass out somewhere on the beach. Be sure to interact with them. You can get a new DIY recipe, a gift for your museum, an ornament for your island or a special opportunity to sell pieces like insects and fish. Visitors can also help you plan your activities; for example, when Flick is there, I make sure to catch all the insects I see so I can sell them 1.5 times the same price above.

If you are looking to chat with your friends, the game keyboard is tedious. Install the Nintendo Switch Online app on your original phone and you can type what you need to say using your device’s keyboard. The text then appears above your character’s head in the game. It can be tedious to use two other devices, but this is the most productive way I’ve discovered to communicate with other people without going crazy when navigating the switch’s virtual keyboard.

Note: To link the app to your game, you must press the symbol less on the game loading screen and choose NookLink settings.

Eventually, you can use the Island Designer app to terraform your island. It allows you to indicate roads, replace your rivers and replace your cliffs. Let’s say you need to build a bridge somewhere, but the river is right. You can open the application and use the corresponding permission to redesign the waterway. These layouts and permissions can be unlocked in NookStop.

Want to use a safe song like the melody of your city, but don’t know how to make it sound good? Look at this subreddit. If you can’t locate what you’re looking for, you can ask for more help. You can also visit this site.

The general store on your island sells only a few types of flowers. Other islands may sell other types, or you can buy them when Leif is in town. Hybrid flowers grow when certain types of flowers bloom alongside each other and water them with a shower.

There are all kinds of guides to develop rapid types of hybrid flowers, however, my most productive recommendation is to plant flowers of the same type with others, leaving space around those flowers for others to grow. Then water them for a day or two. The more flowers you plant and the more you water them, the more likely you are to grow special hybrids.

Do you want to send a letter? Head to the airport and check out the card stand next to the main service desk. You can send a letter to an existing resident, your me or a friend who marked as your friend in the NookPhone app. You can attach a gift before sending the letter, and if you need to pack that gift, be sure to do it in advance with gift paper purchased from your island’s general store. Sending a card costs two hundred bells.

If your favorite villager is elusive, you can use his Amiibo card or statuette to bring her to your island. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, locating Amiibo online is more complicated than usual. As a general rule, I propose that you move to your local gaming store, but as they’re probably closed right now, your most productive bet is to find the villager you need on eBay. Cards tend to be less expensive and less difficult to locate than numbers. We have a convenient consultant to buy groceries on eBay that you review before you begin.

Once you have your Amiibo card, you can stop at NookStop, invite a camper, and follow the on-screen instructions.

You may need to finish this set of cute furniture, or you’re having difficulty developing the right hybrid flowers. Enter Nookazon, a huge Amazon-style DIY marketplace committed to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Operating basically through Discord, the site is full of users who promote everything from fashion pieces to furniture. Replace the bells with the products you need. Be prepared to haggle and read regulations to make sure your transactions are secure. Check out this consultant to start being more informed.

You may already know that urgently the square to the left of the Joy-Con will take a screenshot, but you can use the NookPhone Camera app to take stylized photos. Travelling to Harvey Island, your airport, also provides a perfect setting for photo arrangements. Also, if you are recording a TikTok or need to capture photos of yourself capturing this elusive scorpion, you can press the square button for the duration to record a record of the last 30 seconds of playback.

Photos and videos are recorded on your Nintendo albums. There’s no fancy way to save images, but you can link your Twitter and Facebook accounts to post them directly from your console. I replaced my Facebook privacy settings to make sure that Nintendo Switch sharing images are visual-only to me, so I can save them to my PC after sharing them. The album software will provide you with a percentage of up to 4 images at a time if “Publish the batch”.

An update brought the famous Jolly Redd to ACNH. He will occasionally appear on his boat, parked on the personal bevery at the back of his island, and has art and furniture to win. But be careful. On each visit, you will only be able to purchase one of the available artworks, and all are counterfeits. Blathers won’t settle for counterfeit paints, so be careful before you turn to buy.

When you’re on Redd’s boat and you’re looking for an art painting, be sure to tell her that you need to take a closer look. This will highlight the piece in question. You can zoom in to see the details. Sometimes they are easy to detect, like a frowned Mona Lisa, but other times they have to look closely to detect the false details. To save time and bells, I use this consultant to know if an art painting is original or not.

It’s not a game trick, but if you can’t catch the limited edition Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing: New Horizons console, you’re in luck. The popular manufacturer of Dbrand tradition masks offers almost the same masks that will give your Switch console the look of the genuine deal. A gesture that Jolly Redd would be proud of, in fact.

For other tactics to trick your console, you can turn to Amazon for Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch accessories. I’m a fan of this adorable outer printed skin, and those traditional mangoes are an attractive option. You don’t want to deposit several hundred dollars in a new console to show your love of island life.

A recent update allows your character to dive deep into the sea creatures, adding elusive scallops that you can then exchange with Pascal for DIY recipes on the theme of mermaid and pearls (a mandatory component of those recipes). For diving, you need a waterproof suit. You can get one in the general store or in the Nook Shopping ABD option. You can wear your gear while wearing a waterproof suit, so don’t hesitate to wear it on top of your outfit.

To dive, empty your hands (and pockets, if you want to save time). Then head to the shore and press A. It will jump into the water. Press A several times to swim. (You don’t want to press the button temporarily to swim). Once you’ve seen bubbles, tap Y to dive. Looking for a shadow underwater. Swimming over the shadow will make your character dive and catch the creature. You can only hold your breath for a few moments, so be sure to get close to the bubbles before you start. You will fill your Critterpedia, locate new gifts for Blathers and collect bells; some underwater friends sell for up to 12,000 pop-consistent bells.

Summer shells are seasonal pieces that you can only locate during the summer. They look like a conc or a sea snail, but they’re unmistakable blue. You can find some a day on the banks of your home, and they will probably also appear during mysterious tours. These shells can be used in conjunction with special summer-themed recipes that are located through popped gift balloons. Recipes regularly require other types of shells, such as coral and curd, so it’s a smart concept to buy shells in your home garage if you need to complete a set.

I hope you’ve been informed of something new with those tips. Ask our advisor about the things you can do with your Nintendo Switch to be more informed. We also have a summary of the most productive Nintendo Switch games if you’re looking for something new to play, as well as a summary of the most productive Nintendo Switch accessories for your gaming experience. Do you have a query about Animal Crossing that this consultant did not answer? Send me a tweet and I’ll do my best to help you!

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