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Welcome to The Viles

Island/Town Name
Vylbrand
Hemisphere
North
Native Fruit
Peach
Native Flower
Windflowers
I did a thing.

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I re-read my journal so far and was surprised to see how much has changed since I was posting in it more actively. My island looks completely different and only three of my first ten residents remain: Goose, Katt, and Wolfgang.

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I almost forgot that Julian wasn't one of my original ten villagers! He came from Oblivia's island soon after Lucha (my first ever move out!) departed. Raddle moved onto my island on May 18th (my birthday, coincidentally!) and the rest of the residents are far more recent additions. Carmen and Sylvana both moved in within the past two weeks. I don't have "dream villagers" but I'm quite happy with my current line-up. However, once I receive their pictures I will be letting most of them move on.

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Seeing the plaza in that first picture surprised me, as I'm not used to seeing it look like that! I raised the terrain around the plaza as soon as I started terraforming, and over the past few months I've tried so many different approaches to decorating the area around it. My plaza is close to my airport and one tile off from lining up perfectly, which annoyed me quite a lot! But I made some changes to it in the past couple of weeks and now I really like how it looks! :D

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For many months I had a massive pond and waterfall in this space behind the plaza, but I fell out of love with it and decided to turn it in a field of rainbow flowers instead. It's not finished (there has been some overgrowth into the spaces I left) but I really like how it looks. I've never cared much for flowers in AC (except for red roses) so I've surprised myself by falling in love with this look and replicating it all over my island.

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If you know anything about me at all, then my house probably looks exactly as you would expect. This is the castle of the self-proclaimed Scorpion King. 🦂

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Recently I've not been in love with the area around my home. I've been fed-up with looking at these blasted gourds since October ended (actually, before then too) but prior to October 4th there was nothing in this spot at all. I hesitated on tearing it down when I didn't know what I wanted to replace it with.

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Since I originally planted the purple roses at the front there (back in May or June) the rest of my island has since taken on a rainbow colour scheme, as shown in the post above. I didn't think this would look right with the vibe of my house and as a whole isn't really representative of 'me' - even though I love the look throughout the rest of the island. So I tried several different things to change up this area, and I hated most of them, until I happened on something that is just so perfectly me while still fitting with the overall feel of Vylbrand:

Romantic garden date local in-progress.

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Materials to be acquired:
- 3 black lilies
- 2 black tulips
- 1 girlfriend

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Bonus: Wolfgang photo-bombs.
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I just had an epiphany and I feel equal parts amazed and stupid at the same time. So, I decided to add some fencing to this area, but if I tried to go all the way around it didn't look good, then it hit me...

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Why don't I move these two houses back so I can make use of the seven tiles of mostly unused space behind it to make an even larger gothic/romantic garden?

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Island design work is never finished, is it? 😓
 
The Vylbrand Restoration Project
Bringing a neglected and overgrown island back to life.
Nov 8 2020, Pt 1.

I started playing ACNH on launch, but I didn't start terra-forming until several weeks after unlocking the Island Designer app. In the meantime, I saw a lot of threads where people were concerned they had built too large and were running low on space. It might be because of this that I ended up with the opposite problem: I built too small. I kept my buildings close together by design to maxmise space for creativity and to build. In hindsight I've realised my preference for environment-driven design (rather than manufacturing locations using objects) does not translate well to lots of large, open spaces. This means a large amount of my island simply feels desolate and consequently dull. The Vylbrand Restoration Project founded November 8 2020 by Chris and Rose—with Goose, Katt, and Wolfgang acting as witnesses—is about to change all of that.

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Of course the first part of the process was to move my house. Tomorrow I will move Rose's house (secondary character) in order to progress toward completing this area.

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On the surface, I am merely moving my house back by several tiles. In reality, this house move is simply the catalyst in a chain reaction. The issue with relocating these two houses is that it then disrupts the entire flow of that section of my island. It was essentially one long 'street' consisting of three 'blocks'. In the first block is the museum, the second hosts Carmen and Wolfgang's houses, and then the third of course the player houses.

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This clear disruption in flow makes the top tier of my island the obvious starting point for The Vylbrand Restoration Project. Thankfully this is also where my clearest vision is for the island. So I pulled up my map in Procreate and started playing about with it. This is what I came up with:

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1 = Goose. 2 = Katt. 3 = Wolfgang. 8 = Carmen. 9 = Papi. 10 = Sylvana.

I'm planning to move the museum back several tiles to bring it in line with the new position for the player houses, eradicating an area decorated with bamboo furniture in the process. Rather than moving Carmen and Wolfgang's houses in the same way, I'm instead going to remove them from this section of the map entirely and replace this area with a chapel and cemetery. I'm going to need help to transfer some items from my second island to Vylbrand in order to achieve this - if anyone is willing to help me with this project I will love you forever. 🙏

I've no idea where Carmen's house is going yet, but I'm thinking of moving Wolfgang over to the north-western corner of my map. To make space for his house I would first need to remove a waterfall. But that's fine, because I wasn't totally happy with how that area was looking anyway. I won't be able to start moving villager houses until Wednesday (Mon = Rose's house; Tue = museum), so I've a few days to think it over yet.

This project is going to take a minimum two weeks to lay the ground work, then likely even longer to completely finish. It'll be worth it to be happier with the overall feel of my island.
 
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The Vylbrand Restoration Project
Nov 9 2020, Pt 2.

My first thought when I loaded up the game this morning was, "what have I done?" The third tier of my island was one of the areas I was most pleased with (you know, if I ignored the big awkward gap behind the buildings that is). A cup of tea later and optimism returned. I was able to move Rose's house today to move towards completing this area.


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Before bed last night I did a little work in the space off to the right of Rose's house. I reduced the size of the pond (leads into a waterfall) and cleared some of the flowers/weeds/trees that had been here. I briefly considered if I should move Wolfgang or Sylvana to this spot and then decided to sleep on it. While decorating today I noticed Sylvana walking around this area. I am taking this as a sign that this is where her house should be relocated to!

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Other than this I also did a little work preparing the area around the museum and the future site of the chapel ahead of the next few building moves taking place Nov 10-12.



NB: reminder that comments are always welcome. I receive the occasional DM about the content I post here so just wanted to reiterate that it's perfectly okay to post in this thread! :)
 
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The Vylbrand Restoration Project
Nov 10 2020, Pt 3.

With the move of both player houses complete, I was finally able to finish off this area of the town. The name I have been referring to this area as is NSFW, so let's call the estate hosting Rose and I's houses The Glockenspiel. I may explain the meaning behind that name choice later. Probably not.

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Today was one of those gruelling days where ACNH served more as escapism than anything. Instead of moving the Museum today, as was planned, I ended up moving Sylvana's house to the wooded area mentioned previously and began decorating with a 'magical forest' like concept in mind. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. I think I'll need to see her house in the spot to decide whether I like it or not.

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The Vylbrand Restoration Project
Nov 11 2020, Pt 4.

Sylvana's house move next door to the player house estate was completed today. After chatting with a friend I plan to make some changes to the decorations, because I'm not 100% happy with it, but I am pleased with the location.

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I also reduced the size of the estate in order to widen the path that runs across the third tier. It was looking a little cramped before with the fencing but I'm happier with it now. I was otherwise too busy to make any big additions to my island, or move any buildings, today.

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