I've been doing a couple of interior designs every day without fail now. I'm really enjoying how contained each in-game day is, and I've been pleasantly surprised that despite being 100% contained to Main Street and your job, you still get a feel of a growing town which Animal Crossing usually provides.
Last night I got to design the interior of the school, and I ended up agonising over it for nearly an hour. They only needed four desks but there was so. much. room! - After many projects wishing I had more space to work with, I was suddenly paralysed by having too much space. It took a few concepts and tries, but thinking back to my own primary school experience I remembered classrooms with different discreet areas - desks for regular classes, an arts area for paints, and a reading corner/book nook (pun intended). Working from this concept I was able to produce something I was genuinely proud of, which was an emotion I didn't expect a silly, cute 3DS game to provide:
I'm also learning to love the various clutter items, despite my natural tendencies to prefer a neat/clean look. I was struggling at first as putting just the furniture down still leaves a room feeling weird and incomplete, but once you start to put items around, even leaving odd socks or other stuff that needs tidying away, the scene starts to come alive. The site AmyK posted earlier was a big help in this process!
These are lessons I'm very excited to take forth into New Horizons when I get to design my own home interiors.
I just started being able to design house exteriors as well, which seems a whole other discipline:
So I really recommend this game for anyone who was - like me - unsure about whether it'd be a good investment. Yes, it's more limited than a full Animal Crossing game, but with its focus comes a different but no less satisfying feeling of comfy escapism. It's also a really nice change to speak with fellow villagers as either co-workers or clients, rather than as neighbours. It's a subtle difference, but a fresh one.
... now if only it let you rotate items into a diagonal position rather than simple four directions, it'd be perfect.