Team Work: Getting ALL the Fruits & Flowers

So, in AC:NH there are different types of fruit and flowers to grow in your town. Before I elaborate, your town has it's own fruit and flower to start with. A quick walk around town will make it obvious for you as it is the only fruit tree you'll see AND the only flower you'll see. For example, my town fruit is cherries and my town flower is mums.

Here are the types of fruit:

• Apples
• Oranges
• Pears
• Peaches
• Cherries
• Coconuts

And here are the types of flowers:

• Mums 
• Pansies
• Hyacinth
• Windflower (they look like poppies)
• Roses
• Tulips
• Lillies
• Cosmos (they look like daisies)

Now, there are a couple different ways to obtain all the fruits and flowers (which increase your islands rating), but by far the easiest is to get them from friends. Most people who have played previous versions of Animal Crossing know the trick to getting the fruits is connecting with other players who have the fruit they don't have...it could be time consuming. But, this game, honestly, made it a little easier. We had all the fruits in the first 48 hours of the games release.

Not everyone will get the same fruit and flowers for their islands. For example, I had cherries, my mom had peaches, my sister had cherries, and her boyfriend had oranges (if I remember right). So we were all able to trade fruits to get what we needed. To extend that further, my sister had other friends with pears and apples, so she brought back those fruits for us. 

The other way you can get all the fruits takes a lot more patience and I'm sure would take MUCH longer. And that's through mystery island tours. While you can't pick what mystery island you go to (it is all based on a random algorithm), you can end up at an island that has a fruit that is NOT native to your island. For me, I get more islands with pears and cherries (cherry being my native fruit) than anything else. You can also get coconuts on every mystery island. 

Flowers work pretty much the same way, but become a little more easier to obtain than fruits once you get the option to build Nooks Cranny store. Building the store gives you access to flower seeds that are not native to your island which is nice. However, you still have the option to see what flowers your friends have and ask them to bring some to you OR pick some up from their island as long as they give the ok. 

Keep in mind, all flowers start out in 3 basic colors: red, yellow, and white. HOWEVER, the way you plant them can give you a chance at the colors breeding in some way to give you DIFFERENT colors (most AC OG's call these hybrids). Now, if you want info on that, I'm going to post a link because I could NEVER do it the justice others have. Each type of flower can have hybrids in these colors: purple, blue, orange, pink, black, blue,and green. However, keep in mind, blue, black and green are limited to certain flower types (green is limited to mums only; black is limited to tulips, roses, cosmos, lillies; and blue is limited to roses, hyacinth, pansies, and windflowers).

A side note to breeding hybrids: if you do a google search, take everything with a grain of salt. It seems to me there are MANY different ways to breed hybrids and what works for some may not work for you. So, honestly it's all about experimenting and doing what works for you. For me, I plant in a checkerboard pattern only putting flowers on what would be one color of square. But, I've also had luck just plopping them side by side and having hybrids grow. Ultimately, do what works for you! :)

Ok. I think that's about all I have on fruit trees and flowers. Tomorrow, we'll cover whatever new question I find in the discord. :D

What Endgame?

So, the inspiration for this blog came from a friend who asked me 

"the islands everyone is on, is there like an endgame, is that forever your island or can you get another on the same playthrough?"

You get ONE island to beautify and make your own, thus your forever island. Because the format of this game has changed since earlier versions, there really is no end game that I know of. Ultimately, you are working toward collecting all of the in game items (which I don't know that anyone has actually ever achieved this in ANY of the game versions), getting your town to a 5 Star rating, breeding all the flower colors there are to breed, catching all the fish and bugs, collecting all the fossils and art work for your museum, and fully expanding and paying off your house.

Personally, my main goal is to ALWAYS fully expand my house first and foremost as it gives you TONS of room to decorate. And in this version of the game, plenty of in home storage for items you collect. Note: you don't have to keep EVERYTHING you buy or find, just keep the stuff you like including bugs, clothes, crafting materials, and furniture items.

You can also go visit your friends islands. This can be done a couple of ways: through being friends via Switch codes OR via something called a Dodo Code that you get from the Dodo at your airport. Obviously, the easiet way to travel is by already being friends via Switch code because all the friend has to do is open their gate to all their friends. If you are not friends via Switch, you'll have to get the Dodo code from whomever island you want to visit. To be honest, even though traveling by Dodo code is a pain in the butt, it has it's advantages:

• I've seen Twitch Streamers use Dodo code to allow viewers onto their islands while playing.
• I've seen people within the AC community post Dodo Codes for others to come over to sell their turnips for high prices (another post in itself), trade recipes, trade fruit, trade flowers, have yard sales (to sell duplicate items or make quick bells)
• It keeps you from having a MASSIVE Switch friend list full of people you may not know well, and being bogged down when you open your gate for friends you WANT to come over (note: I will post more on traveling between islands and how you can cut down who comes to your town even further in another post).

The second part of the question asking about getting another island on the same play through can be a little misleading in the game due to the fact that you can travel to Mystery Islands to gather crafting materials. In this version of the game you end up crafting quite a lot of items (though recipes can be hard to come by or you find yourself getting the same ones over and over). These mystery islands can be traveled to multiple times a day. I highly recommend taking ALL resources that you can off the island when you go (even if you just get back to your Home island and sell them for money).

Those points being covered, this game has a VERY different feel than previous versions due to it's digital nature. Nintendo pushes out time-limited content every so often via game download updates.

So far, we have seen a fishing tournament (best played with friends, which will be it's own dedicated post), Bunny Day (for Easter), Nature Day (which celebrates Earth Day), May Day (I'm not sure what this one celebrates just yet, but I will do a post just about Events and update that post as needed). I am going to assume (per previous game versions) that they will also have a Halloween Event, Thanksgiving Event, Christmas Event, and New Years Event. But, I will dedicate an entire post later to events with brief descriptions of what the events entailed.

Honestly, this game is just a mindless run around and do whatever to better your town game with no real End Game. So, enjoy to your hearts content!

Join me tomorrow for: How To get ALL the fruits and flowers: it's all about team work!

What is Animal Crossing?

Figured I'd start easy.

What is Animal Crossing you ask?

It's a video game developed by Nintendo and created by Katsuya Eguchi (source). It was first released in 2001 on Nintendo GameCube as Animal Crossing. Since then, Nintendo has released 4 more in the series, with the latest being Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch (AC:NH).

Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be the focus of this blog (which will likely be heavily influenced by questions being asked by first time player friends I have on a Discord server).

Game play for AC:NH consists of you moving to a deserted island after buying a vacation pacakge from Tom Nook (he's appeared in every game and serves as the main NPC who increases your house size after you get done paying off each loan, this will be covered in another post in more detail).

Upon setting foot on your new island, it is filled with weeds, lacks bridges and inclines, and puts you in charge of beautifying it and making it welcome for other NPC animals. The game is played in real time (meaning you log in each day and it's the current real world day). Side note, you CAN time travel in this game, but be ware it can have consequences in game in the form of spoiled turnips (if you go BACK in time with turnips to sell) or lots of weeds if you go FORWARD in time a significant amount). Again, another topic I'll elaborate on in another post.

To beautify your island you must pick the weeds, plant flowers, plant trees, and it helps if you have ALL the different kinds of fruit, again, another topic I will help you with in another post.

Let's see. That seems to be about it for now.

I will see you all tomorrow for the next topic: What Endgame?