Chronicles of Crayola Island

[MelanieScribbles]

The Chronicles of Crayola Island​

Hello everyone, and welcome to my island journal thread! This is pretty much me recording the process of making Crayola Island to my liking: the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Like both my island and myself, this thread is pretty much a constant work in progress. And like most things I tend to work on: it might not be much yet, but it'll definitely be something by the time I'm done with it. Hopefully, that something will end up being aesthetically pleasing.

Index:
​

General info posts
Villagers
Plans for the island
Island maps, a geographical history
About me

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Daily posts content warnings 2022
Arachnophobia warnings for February 18th through 20th, and the 26th of that month. Also, this same arachnophobia warning goes for March 2nd.
Content warnings will be included at the start of the posts themselves as well, and on the sections in question.

Daily post content warnings for 2023
Warnings for talk about death in general for February 9th.
Content warnings will be included at the start of the posts themselves as well, and on the sections in question.

2022
January 15th and January 16th: Island creation
January 17th through January 23rd: The Absolute Basics
January 24th through January 30th: The K.K. Slider Concert
January 31st through February 6th: The Big Island Makeover
February 7th through February 13th: Getting Rid of the Island Menace
February 14th through February 20th: Happy Home Paradise
February 21st through February 27th: Festivale Preparations
February 28th through March 6th: Business as Usual
March 7th through March 13th: Home Deco

2023
February 4th through February 12th: Getting Back into the Swing of Things

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[MelanieScribbles]

Villagers​

If you don't know the name of any villager listed here, then please roll your mouse over them for a second or two!

Starter Villagers:



Current Villagers:

Dream Villagers:

 

[MelanieScribbles]

Plans for the island​

Basically, this is my to-do list for Crayola: From furniture to unlocks, these are all of my goals at the moment. it's pretty much here for my own reference, and to keep track of how far I've already come. I'm usually working on a maximum of 3 of these goals at a time, just to keep things manageable. But even little steps towards a goal count, right? Even if you only take one step at a time, you'll reach the finish line.

The unlocks for Harvey's island are organized in order of importance, and any outdoor furniture to obtain is sorted per area of the island that I want to put the items in. As an example of the latter: if I'm making a beach lounge area, then all of the items that will be in it will be grouped together so I won't have to actively look for them in the list.

Anything in bold is a category, and anything in italics is a subcategory.
For example:
General island
Terrain-related

Villager-related
Indoor furniture to obtain

If you are selling, giving away, or trading for any of the items mentioned here, then please feel free to DM me!

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General unlocks to get
- Saharah

General island
Terrain-related
- Finish beach lounge area

Outdoor furniture to obtain
- Deer Scare
- Green-leaf Pile
- Bamboo Grass x2
- Anchor Statue (White)
- Cancer Table

Other items to obtain
- Iron Bench DIY Recipe


Villager-related
Indoor furniture to obtain
- Elegant Bed (Silver variant, Damascus Black bedding)
- Elegant Dresser (Silver variant, no print)
- Elegant Mirror (Black)
- Blue delicate-blooms Wall
- Purple Persian Rug
- Fan Palm (Black)

Other items to obtain
Birdbath (DIY)

 

[MelanieScribbles]

Island Map


Original map:

New map in progress:

 

[MelanieScribbles]

About me​

Name: MelanieScribbles
In-game character name: Melanie
Age: 29
Gender: Female (cis)
Pronouns: She/her
Interests: Art, gaming, goth music that's either from the actual 80's or is modernizing the 80's, Dungeons and Dragons, food

Well, there's not much more to say about me: I like gaming, I like art, and I like both goth music and the fashion. I'm autistic, relatively high-functioning, not that good at talking about myself, and on the political left. But I sometimes need a break from political discussion. I genuinely like learning new things about other cultures and other perspectives then my own: I dunno, it just fascinates me that people can have such vastly different ways of living, even though we're all human in the end, and even though we live on the same planet. But then again: the human mind is quite interesting begin with. For example: It's just intriguing to me how different people can remember the same event so differently.

I'm also definitely a foodie: I have been blessed to not have many texture issues due to my diagnose, so I'm always willing to try new foods. People sometimes ask me whether I like a dish that I haven't eaten before or not: I'll be honest about that and say that I won't know until I try it. Presentation isn't everything, after all: some food looks awful, but tastes absolutely amazing. My mother once wisely said: 'If you have to eat to survive anyways, then you might as well enjoy it.' Good food was always important in my family, and I've been raised on dishes from many different cultures. I especially love the Italian and Japanese cuisines, and often branch out from well-known dishes to some of the more obscure ones. I'm still quite easy to please with a good pizza, pasta, ramen or mochi, though: I'm definitely not a picky eater. I'm also a sucker for anything mango-flavored or cherry-flavored.

If you feel like nerding out of any of the topics mentioned, or just generally want to fawn over shared favorite villagers, then please do feel free to message me

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 15th​

Crayola island has been created, and boy, has the first day been a productive one! The first order of business was to take in all of the natural resources: which other place is going to have a natural star-shaped pond?

I have big plans for this island, but I'm definitely keeping this for aesthetic purposes. Might eventually turn this into a little park near the plaza: I kind of have the urge to eventually plant flowers near the points of the star. Either way, it needs some plants near it. I'm also planning on a bamboo forest: Genji and Kabuki are two of my dream villagers, so I thought it might be nice to have a bit of a bamboo forest idea going on around their houses once I start placing down those plots. Either way, there's going to be a lot of greenery on the island once I'm done. But after fawning over this lovely pond a bit, I decided to get to work. Those big plans aren't going to happen on their own, after all. It was time to get started with the tutorial, and give Crayola its name. I originally wanted to call my island Scribble-topia, but that wasn't within the character limit. After that disappointment, it was between Colora and Crayola. I thought the latter sounded just that bit better.

It was definitely a hard day's work: I've already managed to pay off my first debt to Tom Nook. I know it's famous last words, but is 5000 Nook Miles really the worst he can do? But I later found that there was no way that this old tanuki had mellowed with age: he charged me 98k IGB for a house instead of a tent. I'm getting ahead of myself, though: before landing myself from one debt into the next, I was hunting fish and bugs.

I had a pretty good haul: I casually kept turning them in at Tom Nook's to start filling out my museum immediately, but before I knew it, I was placing a tent for that museum. He should be moving in tomorrow. Good thing too, because I only needed to turn in 5 critters to Nook before this happened, and the rest is basically burning a hole in my pocket. My inventory is way too full, so Blathers is probably going to see my face pretty often tomorrow.

After a hard day's of work, I decided to kick back, and mess around with the new Pro Design function I've treated myself to. The system took some getting used to compared to New Leaf: I'm a pretty good designer, but my first clothing design definitely needs some work. But as a real-life goth, there was no way that this blue checkered shirt, white pants, and blue shoes were going to cut it. I've definitely done better in the previous game, but luckily, this dress only really needs some general polishing to truly look good.

I'm happy about the idea behind this design, since the corset actually looks like it's worn OVER the dress, and that was exactly what I was going for. And the final colour scheme looks so good on it. But it definitely needs some finalizing: The lacing of the corset is a bit of a mess, so that is going to need some simplifying to look better. And both the skirt of the dress and the bow on the back definitely needs some more detail. The sleeves are coming together pretty nicely, but they might also need some highlights to look less like plastic. Please don't mind the nasty shoes and socks: I've got some nice plain black loafers for under this, and I guess the socks are workable for now... But I definitely need a nice headpiece to go with this dress once it's done. For now, it'll do, but this design definitely needs more love by the time I unlock the Able Sisters in-game. I'm not sure, but I might make a hat to go with this: I wouldn't actually wear it long-term, but I've seen some pretty hats match this dress model. I dunno, it might look pretty.

But for now, it's time to call it a day. This design took me a while, after all. Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!
Up on the to-do list for tomorrow: explore the museum tent, and spook Blathers with some bugs. I know he was scared of them in New Leaf, so I'm curious to see if they kept that fear of his. Glad to see him return, though.

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 16th​

Well, let me actually tell you who my starter villagers were this entry: Phoebe and Biff. I've decided to keep Phoebe around for a while, since I kind of like her best out of my two starter villagers. I'm not a fan of Biff's appearance an personality, so I won't mind if he moves out. But I lowkey want Phoebe's photo at some point before she moves out. Also, she really saved my butt today, as my axe broke yesterday. But that's kind of a story, so let's start at the beginning of it.

First thing on the agenda was to explore my new house! It's not much yet, but it's a place to hang your hat. The extra storage was definitely more then welcome!

After that, it was time to start the day proper. My first order of business was to visit Blathers. He needed 15 donations for the museum and I needed inventory space. He also asked me to look around the island for fossils, but that proved to be a bit more of an adventure then it needed to be due to a mistake of mine yesterday: I broke my axe, and sold off the leftover stone... And I had no way of harvesting more stone at the time, since the only shovel I had as a flimsy shovel.

This also unlocked the DIY recipe for that vaulting pole I had been pining for since yesterday, but that needed wood to craft... So I was kind of in a bind here. And that's where Phoebe really saved me: I had visited the Resident Services to decide what to do about this, and this is where I learned that Timmy needed materials for a shop upgrade. With no way to gather those yet, I went outside to look for a solution to this issue, when Phoebe had a ping. Ill-timed, but I decide to humor her. And it paid off: she gifted me the shovel I so direly needed! A nice shovel, no less. Talk about rising from the ashes... Phoebe, you're a lifesaver! As if I needed even more reasons to like her. So with more stone harvested and a fresh flimsy axe in hand, I set out to gather enough materials to finally craft myself a vaulting pole. And with that valuable tool in hand, it was time to set out for the wild, uncharted lands beyond the rivers.

...Oof, wild lands indeed! It was time to get to weeding the entire island. I also saved a couple of pears from here: the ones in that little area from yesterday hadn't really respawned yet. I also had no trees cut down yet at this point, but I was planning to eventually going to clear everything out and start an orchard instead. I've also got some cherries from the letter from mom, so that's definitely a good start to this plan. I've purposely left a bit of space behind my house to do so, so that orchard is going to look small but awesome when it's done.

Well, with the adventure for the basics over with, I decided to focus on getting the materials for that shop upgrade. But before that, I had found all 4 fossils on the island, so I to handed those over to Blathers first.

He needed a total of 15 items to turn that ratty tent into a majestic museum, and I managed to find enough new fish and bugs for it today! Poor owl is still scared of bugs, so getting him a museum is the least I could do after spooking him with a few... With that out of the way, it was time to get to that shop upgrade. 3 types of wood were involved with the materials, plus some iron nuggets. I decided that needed a better axe for this then I had for sure, since I thought that I might as well clear some trees out in that area while I'm at it. So I treated myself to the DIY recipes for the nice tools with some Nook Miles. Sadly, I got attacked by wasps twice during while gathering materials for them! I used to be fast enough with the net to avoid getting stung, but they really did a number on me this time. But nevertheless, I got at least the wood materials together. And I got my orchard going!

And while combing the beach for the sight of fish while gathering items for Blathers, guess who I ran into...

Gulliver! I'm honestly glad to see him again after New Leaf, I was already hoping he was amongst the returning characters. So I did a bit of part-hunting today. I do have a furniture wishlist with one Gulliver item already on it, so fingers crossed! Not holding my breath, though: I kind of want the Katana, but he said something about pizza while waking up. I do like Italian food though, so here's lowkey hoping for an actual pizza furniture item. I mean, it's a perfect furniture item for a future kitchen...

Also, I worked on my dress design some more: it's amazing what one or two well-placed pixels can change. I'm not completely satisfied yet, but it really only needs some final quality-of-life upgrades. The bow now does look like it has some volume, but it's still looking like it's a flat print on the dress to me. This definitely means that it needs a bit of shading at the sides as well. But I'm really happy with the skirt: it would've been absolutely perfect if we just had some more colours to pick from on this slider: this frankly still looks a bit too 8-bit in comparison to the other graphics. But it's really the best I could do with this system.
(Please forgive the wasp-face in the pictures: I can't buy medicine yet, and Biff left me hanging on that one.)

And after a little bit of collecting some Nook Miles, it was time to call it a day. I had spent a bit too much in the Nook Miles redemption shop, and I need 5k Nook Miles for something inventory-related. I mean, I could use an expansion for sure... Another highlight of the day was that my airport is functional now, so I can both visit others, and others can visit me! I'm not itching to travel to other people's islands with my poor character's wasp-stung face yet, so that'll have to wait.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed! Up on the agenda for tomorrow: gather more iron nuggets. It's the last material I'm going to need for the shop upgrade, but my rocks stopped spitting them out for the day. I'm at 7/30 nuggets at the moment. Also, last post, I made a mistake! I only had about 10k IGB saved up in my ABD. But now, I'm at 39k/98k IGB to pay off my new debt.

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 17th​

Today really was a day full of surprises and opportunities! Yesterday, I did run into some new bugs and fish for my critterpedia, but Blathers wasn't taking new donations due to the museum being built. So I just tossed them into my storage to drop off later. Since the museum was still under construction today, anything new I found today temporarily went into my storage as well. Including fossils, because appraising those was also not a thing today. So Blathers is going to see a lot of me once that museum opens!
But in the meantime, I just did some casual nook mile missions, and material gathering. I still needed to get myself 30 iron nuggets for the Resident Services upgrade, so I decided to take a deep breath, and go redeem my free mystery ticket.

I mistakenly thought to be meeting other players when they said 'new neighbors', but I now see the appeal of these tickets: they actually meant villagers! I met Rex on my first mystery island trip ever. And since I heard that a lot of new stuff unlocks when you get your 3rd resident, I decided to invite him over to my island. He's a bit camera shy, though: I could barely get him to stand still long enough for this screenshot!

And after that, it was time to do some serious exploring, and I wasn't planning on leaving without a full inventory. I had earned enough Nook Miles for that inventory expansion today, and I'm glad I bought it before I went here. I also treated myself to the tool ring yesterday, and it's been a big help so far.

I also walked away with some new coconuts to plant, some flowers that did grow on my island but which I couldn't reach yet because they were on an unreachable ridge back home, a few new entries to the critterpedia, and a few pears for my orchard (I was missing exactly one, so that came in handy). And with my new loot in hand, it was time to head home.
...But after that visit, I was still only at 20 / 30 iron nuggets! So I unloaded my loot, did some light Nook Mile collecting, and with a second ticket in hand, I set out for a second go.

And boy was this one eventful! So the first thing I noticed was the bamboo on this island... Which meant bamboo shoots! I have plans for a bamboo forest on my island, and I was planning to get those from buying enough turnips eventually. But this meant I could start my plans for a bamboo forest on my island earlier then I expected. I was happily surprised, so I set to digging!

Also, Rhonda is one of my dream villagers: a doubtful list choice for me, but guess what: I actually ran into her on this go!

Needless to say, I didn't think twice about an island invite. I also came home with a gold nugget, and enough resources for the shop upgrade (plus a few to spare for DIY projects). All in all: Score!
So back home, I unloaded my fresh finds, and set to do some landscaping in the area I want that bamboo forest. My net broke during the trip, but luckily, my axe was still okay. So it was time to fell some trees. Tim-buuuuuuurrrr!

This little bamboo nursery isn't quite a majestic forest yet, but it's a start. I have Genji and Kabuki as dream vilagers as well, and I thought it would be fun to have a bamboo forest sort of thing going on around the plots they'd be living on. Maybe toss a few traditional fitting Japanese furniture items like the Deer Scare in there for aesthetic's sake. I know for a fact that I want a waterfall in that area, preferably pretty close to the plots, and there was already a naturally-occuring one around that area. It's not as majestic as the waterfall I want, but it's nothing a little terraforming can't fix once I unlock the feature.

I honestly can't wait to unlock pathing, as I've been planning everything I do around where the paths on my island are going to be. Since I forked over the last resources needed for the shop upgrade, I got to place Nook's Cranny today as well:

I decided it was a good idea to place it close to the plaza, so both me and visitors can get to it easily. The museum it north of there either way so I thought it would be nice to have that to the north of it, Nook's Cranny to the south, and maybe I'll just make that a shopping area / small park. I know I started planting flowers around that star pond: flowers at the points of the star was a good idea! It's going to look amazing.

Might even end up placing a few benches nearby for aesthetic's sake. I do need more flowers to complete the star point plan, though, so I set up a little flower nursery outside my home to figure out the flower breeding mechanics of this game. I'm planning on white and yellow mums alternating between points. And having a few pink ones to dump into my storage couldn't hurt either...

I still had some flowers left even after that: red mums to be exact. The shovel that Phoebe gave me finally broke today, but as a bit of thank you to her, I started a little garden for her. Not sure if the other mums in her garden are going to be white or yellow, but I'm urging towards yellow.
For the rest, things mainly came down to waiting: the bamboo shoots still needed to grow, the shop and museum both still needed to be built, and two villagers won't move in until later. I've also treated myself to a new wetsuit today, which should be there tomorrow as well. So I've done some Nook Mile missions, and called it a day after that. And while I was at it: I didn't know I could already buy medicine! I'm not fast enough yet to catch the wasps from the falling nests yet: I nearly had caught one today, but I was just one second too late. But hey, no more wasp-face! I had the good sense to buy some spares while I'm at it, so I have the time to get used to the mechanics of tool switching enough to eventually add those to my critter-pedia.

Also, I made some fences for my garden, and started making a bit of a fence around my flower-breeding area as well.

The latter of the two still needs some better placing, but I'm lowkey kind of proud of my little front yard now. Just wait until I unlock prettier fences! There's big plans for this little house as well. Well, I guess I have some updating to do on my current villager list: Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 18th​

Ooh boy, it has been an eventful day, both in real life, and in the game! So today, I got my booster shot to the corona vaccinination: I got a Pfizer-brand vaccination, same like the previous two. And this one was done by such a good worker that I didn't even feel it! I did have a nasty fever after the second shot, but I basically soared through the first one. So since Pfizer tends to work well for me, let's hope I get through this one well!

And after that, I of course to take it easy for a few days. Which means I'll have plenty of time to play New Horizons! I pretty much had the dailies done before I headed off to go get my booster shot, and noticed that my villagers had upgraded their tents to houses as well. So once I got back from that little outing, I could get right into the meat and potatoes of the gameplay. So first on my agenda after the dailies was to drop off the donations from my storage at the new museum.

...Wow, those investors really spared no expenses, huh? Who thought some butterflies impressed them this much? I'd certainly call this an upgrade compared to the relatively stuffy old museum in New Leaf. You bet I did some exploring in there, and I personally think that the aquarium area is the most impressive. I mean, those tanks already look majestic when they're empty! Just imagine how they'll look once I'll fill them with fish... Really makes me want to fish more.

But I have to admit: the bug area is also pretty impressive.

Especially the fountain that holds the common butterfly: that was actually the first bug I caught in-game, and funny story... As a kid, I actually caught one of these very butterflies with my bare hands in real life. My mom didn't believe me until I showed it to her! It was alive and well while I was holding it, so I released it again. It was not amused, of course: poor thing was probably in pain while I was holding it. But boy, was my mom ever surprised! She just thought I had swatted one. You should've seen her face back then! So it's kind of meaningful to me that this was the first bug I've ever caught. You can understand: I found it lowkey appropriate that they're housed at such a majestic fountain in that area: I wouldn't have any other bug as the centerpiece of the room.

And lastly, I stopped by the fossil area. The art area was still a little barren, of course, since Redd hadn't visited Crayola yet. But I did dig up quite a few fossils so far, so I at least had something to look at in here.

And with the new museum explored: the wetsuit I ordered from the Nook Mile store arrived in the mail today, and of course, I had to test it out. That was 3 new critterpedia entries in one go. I'm definitely diving more: it's easy entries at this point.

After that, it was time to go check on Tom Nook: he got a phone call during the morning announcement, and the dialogue made it pretty clear this was about the new villagers. Well, with Rhonda involved, it was about time to check up on that tanuki to see if he wasn't scamming my dreamie here... Tom isn't someone you can let out of your sight for long enough, right? Turns out: the two villagers I've invited on mystery trips weren't the only ones wanting to move in! There's a mysterious 3rd villager on the way... Taking the Crayola population up to a total of 5 islanders. I'm already pretty curious who it is. But since 'ol Nook promised these villagers more then he could deliver, I got to place and decorate the exterior of 3 new plots today: two plots went next to Phoebe's house, and one went across the northern river. I kind of want some clumps of houses together on the island, so my dreamies are settled in groups of similar aesthetics: for example, Diana and Rhonda look visually similar, and so do their houses to a degree. So those houses will naturally look good standing next to one another. Myh plan is that Muffy, Diana, Rhonda and Quinn would have plots near eachother, and Cherry, Eugene and Apollo as well. And Genji and Kabuki are going to set up shop in the bamboo forest. But that all takes careful plot placing: I've already set the basics for that now. No matter who lives there: easy access to the villagers's homes themselves if I need them.

Not sure what to do with Fang, but I now have one plot set a bit away from the main groups. Maybe he can eventually move in there. But since these 3 houses needed both 3 interior and 3 exterior items, this meant that most of my day consisted of crafting. And thus, that I needed a lot of materials. I had also cleared out most of the trees on the ground floor here. So with a ladder recipe unlocked and the tool itself in hand, it was time to yet again, explore wild, uncharted lands. It was time to finally explore the cliffs that had been looming over me all this time.

Nice view up here, but what a mess with those weeds... Oh well, I needed those for one of the craft projects for those houses anyways: a Hay Bed to be exact. I was consistently running out of regular wood today for everything that needed to be placed, but I had softwood and hardwood piling up in my storage due to all of the chopping I needed to do to get that regular wood to drop from the tree. So I had to go up and down a few times to drop off some items at my storage. But after I was done crafting everything, Tom Nook proved himself useful for once, and came to the rescue.

He handed me a few test fences to place around the area, and I got my hands on a recipe for that same fence through Nook Miles. And lucky for me, the recipe used softwood! I had a grand total of 72 of these suckers lying around at that time, so you can understand: I dragged those out of my hoard, and set to crafting! And good news: while gathering materials, I caught a few wasps today! Only got stung once out of three wasp attacks, but I still had some spare medicine on me. Never leave home without, right?

Boy, did those new fences ever improve the aesthetics of the island. No more ugly log stake fences! It took me a bit to figure out how to do proper corners with these new fences, but I managed. So Crayola was getting a boost as well! First up was the area around my house: the front yard to be exact. I expanded the front yard a little, and I'm planning to put more plants in there.

Next, I decided that my orchard behind the house could use a bit of a glow-up. It's really starting to come together! I did leave enough room around the fenced area to expand should I find more fruit types, though. All I'd need to do to fit more trees is craft more fences. Once I unlock the pathing part of terraforming, I'm planning to use some dirt pathing to make the ground look more like it was worked beforehand: I've seen that done on Youtube before, and I think that would look cute here as well.

After that, I took on Phoebe's garden: with her two new neighbors, it was time to separate the front yards. She already had a log fence going, but I wanted to give her something nicer.

And I eventually spent the last few fences in my inventory on my little plant breeding area. It took some trial and error, but they should have enough room to spawn new flowers.

Because most of those other fence pieces went into setting up a fence around my planned park area around the plaza. It turns out to be pretty close to my character's house, which I absolutely don't mind. It has exactly one square in between the two areas that's frankly perfect to place a path in. I'll be going for stone paths to walk on, but I might change the exact pathing up in this park. Not sure about that yet.

This place is going to be a joy walk through on your way to other stuff on the island once I'm done. The flowers look a tad weird in the snow, but once spring rolls around, this place is going to look absolutely amazing. And it'll probably take me that long to get it fully set up anyways. I'm also planning to put a few benches in this area, but I haven't really decided on a specific furniture item yet. I'm urging towards the Iron Bench, as I'm already planning to put one of those somewhere in my bamboo forest area. But I'm not sure about putting one in the park area, and if so, which colour variation it should be. I usually don't decide on these areas overnight: there's big plans for Crayola, but some aren't set in stone just yet.

And with Crayola looking a little more acceptable compared to the start of the day, I decided to end the day by attending a few opening celebrations: the one for Nook's Cranny and the museum were today.

Well, glad I learned to take screenshots during events. Hope I get to post the opening of the Able Sisters soon, as I did see Mabel around Nook's Cranny... Heard a few different things about setting up her shop: one source says you have to spend 5k bells at her stand, and one says she'll set the shop up after 3 weeks of visiting the island. Either way: she'll probably stock something I like within that timeframe, so I'll just do both of those things, just to be safe. If there's nothing I actually like in there, then I can always either sell or gift the items away later.

In addition to finally unlocking Reactions today, I've also unlocked Turnips: back in New Leaf, I tended to have a good knack for guessing whenever I'm at a selling price peak. So once I learn the price mechanics of this game? I'll be up to a mansion in no-time: back in NL, I was knocking out loans of over 200k in weeks. I'm not betting high for my first purchase here though, just to get a feel for how things work. There's more of a time gap between price switches then New Leaf: back then, prices switched every hour. Here, it's thankfully just in the mornings and afternoon from what the dialogue told me, so you can at least get some other stuff done while you're waiting for price changes. But I definitely have some wiki reading to do on that Turnip subject: knowledge is power when it comes to making profits off of that.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 19th​

Well, today could've definitely gone better... Last night, I had the most heavy fever: involuntary shaking, sweats and all. I couldn't even hold my water bottle straight: I was so thirsty that I could've chugged the entire bottle, but nausea in addition to it all sadly put an end to that idea. My heart was racing so fast I got worried! The shaking and heart stuff might've been due to the stress the fever caused, though. Either way: even after throwing my stress management techniques at it, there was just no hope for me to actually fall asleep with the amount of tension in my body. It's a miracle if I've even slept at all! I did lowkey expect a fever-type reaction to the vaccine, and so did my mother. But not to this degree. And this morning, I'm still feeling sick: less bad then last night, but I have a splitting headache and the nausea is still present. It's also my mom's birthday today, so now I kind of feel bad that she's stuck caring for me. But luckily, I could at least do something in the game: I'm already feeling miserable enough, and not being able to participate in one of my favorite hobbies would've only made things feel worse. I didn't do a lot, but got at least two things unlocked today.

Now the first thing I noticed was a new character on the plaza: Harvey. I had read about him on the wikia, and guess that Photopia was what I unlocked with this 3rd villager!

Well, I certainly wasn't feeling up to modelling yet, so after shortly exploring the studio, it was time to head back home to Crayola. And what did I see on my map once I got back...? Please tell me I'm mistaking that gingko leaf for something else!

Oh no, not Redd again... Isn't one scam artist on this island enough!? I ran across him while looking for fossils, and yet again, he's selling fake art, with some real art mixed in. Years of knowledge obtained in art history class, don't fail me now... Redd, if anyone can tell a real 'Girl with the pearl earring' by Van Gogh from a fake, it's the Dutch artist girl. But in all seriousness: Redd has never managed to sell me a fake artwork to this very day, and I wasn't about to ruin my perfect score on that one. Back when I was still in school, we were always kind of forced to sit through art history for an hour each class. Most of the artworks in Animal Crossing have appeared in my art history book at least once, and since I'm a pretty visual learner? I actually have a few paintings memorized on how they're supposed to look. Sometimes, I feel like I'm scamming Redd instead! I have to admit, though: I do sometimes have to look up an artwork comparison between real and fake. Sometimes, the tells for the fake art are sometimes in the smallest details. And we really didn't go in-depth on classic Japanese art all that much in art class, and some of those are definitely in New Horizons. But on the wistful painting that Redd had up, it was pretty easy to tell: it was the real deal for sure, as she had her regular pearl earring on instead of a star. Nice try, Redd, but you still didn't manage to scam me out of my Bells today! I walked out with a real Van Gogh.

After that, all I managed to do was take Nook's customization workshop, officially open a bridge...

...And pay off my loan!

I did change my mind to start a new loan today, but still no payments yet until I master the Turnip system in this game. I'm in absolutely no state to learn new information today. And since I kind of have to wait for new villagers to move in anyways, I decided to call it a day there.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 20th​

Good news: my fever is down to just a slightly raised temperature, the nausea is gone, and the headache is mostly gone. So I can at least function again. I am glad that most of my goals in the game now kind of come down to waiting. To unlock the Able Sisters, I have to wait for Mabel to set up on the plaza at least a few times. And to upgrade Resident Services, I have to wait for all of my villagers to move in: I need a total of 5, and I have that exact amount of plots set up already. So really, all that takes is waiting until the move-in queue finishes. So for now, I have to do is the dailies.

And since I'm still recovering, that's actually great timing, since I honestly can't get a lot done at the moment. So it's a good time for me to casually drum up both some Bells and Nook Miles: I've gone a little hog-wild on both while both paying off my loan yesterday, and buying both a few Nook Mile tickets plus some new hairstyles and colours. So a few extra funds definitely won't hurt while I'm waiting for some unlocks: I've already seen that buying both terraforming options isn't going to be cheap when it comes to Nook Miles. So I might as well get a head start in saving up for those, right? Not to mention that when it came to productivity, I had some catching up to do!

So first on the agenda was welcoming my new dreamie to the island! In the daily announcements, I heard that Rhonda finally arrived. So naturally, it was time to give her a warm welcome. Glad to see my first permanent villager move in. Also, at some point during the daily double Nook Mile missions, the last two tasks were catching 5 fish, and catching a squid. About every ocean fish was showing up, instead of that squid. But after some captain Ahab-like determination, I finally got the sucker! Hmm, chasing a squid... in a game... There's a joke in here somewhere.

So off to sell my doubles I went: if it's not a new critterpedia entry and it's already in the museum, then it's usually going straight to Nook's Cranny. On my way home, I moseyed past my house, and found that Rex was kind enough to be watering my orchard! All right, Rex, you're officially allowed to stay on the island for a while! A villager with the nature hobby definitely comes in handy if you're trying to breed more flowers and grow some trees.

Speaking of that orchard: it bore fruit for the first time today! One tree isn't fully grown yet, but I still consider this a big milestone for it: nature hobby villagers can reach it, it's functioning, what more can you ask for?

A few villagers gave me some gifts as well: I think I'm on a certain friendship level with Biff already, as he gave me a whopping 2 gifts today. Don't know how I managed to do that, as I really only bothered to talk to him daily. I frankly put in more effort when it came to Phoebe, and lord knows I'm going to put in some effort befriending Rhonda. Oh well, at least Biff will make himself good for something while he's here. Here's hoping I won't get his friendship levels all the way up to getting his photo, because otherwise, it's going to be a challenge to cycle him out.

Also, you probably noticed that I gave my character glasses! I wear glasses in real life, and she's supposed to look like me. My hair is not that wavy or curly at the bottom, unless I style it to be so, but I've been told that looks good on me. And the bangs were as close as I could get to my actual hairstyle. And any customizeable character made in my image without glasses always feels like my avatar looks a bit naked in game somehow. Like she's not completely me. In real life, I'm kind of like Velma Dinkley from Scooby Doo: can't see without 'em!

In real life, without my glasses, I can only legit see everything sharply a few inches in front of my face. Stuff close to me still looks like blurry blobs, but identifiable blurry blobs. Like, if my mom is standing at a medium distance from me, I can still tell her from the potted plant in the distance. She's the human-shaped blob out of the two. If she gets closer: a human-shaped blob with blurry facial features and all. But said plant looks like one blob to me, plant pot and all. So the 'blind without ' em' trope is definitely true for me to a degree. So I dunno, it's kind of funny to imagine that my character managed to do all this good on the island without seeing what the heck she was doing. Imagine what she can do now that she can actually see...

I also fully finished my first design today: I added some last details to the bow in the back, smoothed out the sleeves, and it's basically good to go once I unlock the Able Sisters.

I honestly can't wait to properly share the download for this one, I'm pretty proud of it. I compared it to my designs in New Leaf just for a laugh, and I have to say that it's my best work yet. I've definitely improved over the years, even though I haven't played any Animal Crossing title in years. I'm glad that I took my time with this one. I think I'll make a separate thread for all of my designs: once I've unlocked the Able Sisters, I think the floodgates are going to be open, because I've already been mucking about with more ideas.

I have been working on a matching hat to this dress, but brimmed hats are hard to design. I had been messing around with where to put the bow on it: on top of the hat looked semi-okay, and the bow itself turned out nice. But I never settle for just 'meh', and I couldn't get it to only be in the front of the hat: it ended up being on both the front and back, and that just looked plain weird! Also, there were major lighting issues with the hat once I playtested it: I wear all of my designs for a while in-game, like I did with the dress, to get a good feel of how something will work once someone actually downloads and wears it. And to also get an idea of how the lines of a design will actually look on the player: if you make a custom design, then it always looks slightly different on the mannequin for some reason...

Turns out that the hat itself looked way too light for the dress in normal daylight, even though I used the exact same shade of black for both. And the purple of the bow still looked the exact same as the purple on the dress for some reason. But with indoor lighting on it, the black on the hat looked like it matched the dress fine. And no matter how much I darkened the black shade to migitate this problem, it persisted. So it definitely still needs some work before it makes its screenshot debut. I'm thinking of just keeping it simple, and keeping it at a black hat with a purple brim. Might still bring that bow back, though: it really adds that bit of extra oomph to the overall design.

For the rest, I'm playing with ideas of either a leather jacket or one of those poofy-skirt dress bases with the floor-length skirt. You know, the kind that sort of look like either Victorian gowns or Princess Peach's dress? Sadly, the coat base which used to be my go-to for designs like that in New Leaf is fully closed as opposed to sort of open-ish, which places the collar a little weird for a leather jacket. That's workable to a degree: I can always draw an asymmetrical zipper that's zipped up. So that will take some futzing around. But then again: my designs are like 90% futzing around... Believe it or not, but I'm not as much of a professional as Labelle! But yeah, after some basic design troubleshooting, you can definitely look forward to more eventually.


And after a few days of trying and almost getting it, I finally built my first perfect snowfolk!

I was rewarded with a snow chair DIY recipe for my troubles. After the surprise at that wore off, I decided to work on my park area a little more. I finished the flowers around the star pond: I just went for yellow mums here, since the alternating thing wouldn't have worked. Also, one of the double Nook Mile missions was to plant trees, so I took the chance to plant some trees in the corners of the park.

I later planted the beginnings of some alternating flowers near the trees, so that idea is now semi-recycled? Alternating yellow and white mums is the idea. I needed to make some room in my flower breeding area anyways, so it seemed like a good idea to place a few down here.
After all of that, I decided to go deep-sea diving to fill out both my critterpedia and museum on that area more. I eventually walked away with 10 new entries over the course of the day, and I'd definitely call that a successful hunt. So of course, I ended my play session with admiring my handiwork at the aquarium area. It's definitely still my favorite part of the museum.

Also: I'm about halfway through my current Nook debt: I'm at about 100k / 198k IBG. Today, I didn't really visit the ABD at the end of my play session as usual, so I'll have more accurate numbers tomorrow: some of that amount is set aside for Turnips, so definitely expect to see that debt cleared pretty soon. Also, I made a mistake yesterday: 'The Girl with the Pearl Earring' is a Vermeer, not a Van Gogh. Got the wrong old Dutch master, shame on me! But then again: all art history kind of blends together at some point if you had to study the entire book for a final... And I still find it kind of appropriate that a Dutch piece of art was the start of my museum's art collection.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 21st ​

Today, the 3rd and last villager moved in: Peanut. Oof, good thing she's more of a bubblegum pink instead of neon pink! I'm a bit oversensitive to neon colours due to my autism, can't stare at them for too long. Not a fan of her, though, so I'm definitely cycling this one out eventually: not exactly going to bully her out, but she IS leaving, preferably before Biff. She's really just here to help me upgrade the Resident services... But I took the time to welcome her anyways.

I've also recieved a letter from Luna this morning, with a new bed attached. I don't really have an online subscription yet, so I can't do much with Dream codes and such. I think it's kind of a jerk move on Nintendo's part that we have to pay for online functionality in the first place. I am considering it, though: the yearly plan is really only 1 euro a month. Still: the principle of it just really bugs me. I might stick to Dodo Codes. Anyhow: the bed itself is definitely an upgrade from my old cot. I've also put together a little dresser for myself today. This is definitely nowhere near the final planning of my house, but it's better then it was.

And that incoming Resident Services upgrade tomorrow means that I had a flag to design! This is what I ended up with:

...I couldn't help myself: the place is called Crayola. Of course I have to put SOME kind of crayon on the flag! It's not neccesarily that brand, but it's a crayon. And since both of my starters had warm-coloured fur / feather colours, I decided to go for red and orange. I know that Phoebe is yellow and red, but orange is also the Dutch national colour. So it seemed appropriate.

My homegirl Rhonda also had a ping today: I got a little thank you gift from her for the warm welcome yesterday. Don't worry, Rhonda, you're going to get spoiled rotten with while you're here, this is going to pay itself back. Biff had a quest that said that he did get into an argument with her today: he definitely would've gotten hit with a net a few times had he not wanted to apologize to her!

Also, Phoebe taught me a new reaction: Apologetic. Ironically, she was the one who said sorry for not knowing any other ones to teach me!

Well, as an autistic girl, a 'sorry' emote always comes in handy.
I also ran into Pascal today: I already met him yesterday since one of my new critterpedia entries was a Scallop, but my first new catch always goes to Blathers first. But this time, I didn't need to disappoint him: I got a Mermaid Dresser DIY recipe from him. And some nice philosophy about dinosaurs, oil, and wondering whether that means they're bad drivers. Plenty to ponder on indeed, Pascal...

I am planning something new on my island involving that furniture series, and while that isn't one of the exact items I needed.. It's a decent start. I do like the entire furniture series, so no complaints here! I had this little weird sort of outcropping on my own island that I wanted to do something with, but I never knew what. I was considering putting some kind of lighthouse down there, but recently, I had a better idea: a sort of beach lounge area. I mean, it would make all of my beaches look a bit too busy if I'd place it on the actual sand, and this has a perfect ocean view.

I'm planning to put in some of those Beach Towel rugs in the Shell variation, a Mermaid Sofa and maybe the matching chairs, that Anchor Statue you can get from the Fishing Tourney (customized to the white variation), a Cancer table you can DIY after a meteor shower, and some shell partitions at the 'entrance' of the area. I know that most of those are all rare and expensive as all hell, but I already said I have big plans for this island... I'm in no rush, so someday...

And Leif had set up on the plaza today! So happy to see him return: he sounds like the Bob Ross of plants in this game, and I'm living for it.

I think I spent half of the Bells I've earned yesterday in his shop, because he had some nice stuff this time: some nice shrubs, my first few crops (sugarcane: how appropriate, since I have a major sweet tooth). Thanks for helping pretty up my island, Leif! And after finishing the dailies, I decided to head over to Harvey's island: Photopia to be exact. I found out about villager posters recently, and I do lowkey want to hang up some of those from my favorites at some point. So I dragged Phoebe and Rhonda over there for a 'day with the girls' kind of photo session.

Yay, all of my current my homegirls in one shot! Look at us painting the town red. Or at least, our nails . I dunno Phoebe just reads to me as being good at this kind of thing, an Rhonda doesn't seem to mind getting her nails done. Even if I don't get Phoebe's photo before she ends up leaving, then I at least still have some kind of memento of her. I've kind of taken the liberty as well to unlock posters of everyone else currently on the island as well: so at the time of this post, that's Biff, Rex and Peanut in addition to these two.

I've kind of made a spreadsheet for the game to help me keep track of all my goals, and I've recently added list of villagers that I don't really want to keep as dreamies, but like enough to want both a poster and a framed photo of. How am I going to achieve them if I end up forgetting about them, right? Like, these villagers will move out eventually, but not without becoming my bestie first. Amongst the highlights are Blanche, Shino, Ankha and some aesthetic choices like Sprinkle and Pinky. I kind of like Ankha because ankhs were a really big thing in the goth subculture at one point. Like, everyone in the subculture was wearing one during the 90's, and you can still buy necklaces and other stuff with an ankh on it on alternative clothing sites that cater to us. Also, I was really into ancient Egyptian history as a kid: those pyramids and pharaohs fascinated me! And as a lowkey anime fan and Japanese culture enthusiast, I'll just be all over anything with either a Japanese sort of aesthetic or an anime or gaming aesthetic. And really, I'm just a sucker for aesthetic-looking villagers in general.

Well, after some Nook Mile missions, it was time to call it a day. I'm at 120k / 198k IGB on my current Nook Debt, so only a little bit left to go! I've also saved up enough Nook Miles to instantly buy both terraforming tools once they unlock after construction finished on the Resident services. That was pretty much my goal by the time I'd get here, so yay! I needed 12k in total for both the tools, and I got that amount together today. It's kind of hard to show restraint in the Nook Mile store, but I managed, and still got my hands on some items I actually wanted in the process. Now all I've got to do is do some missions whenever I want to buy something in the store. I've also used the recycling bin in the Resident Services tent for the first time: I didn't know that Gulliver left behind items after leaving! But I pretty much emptied the thing today, so I'm not losing anything in there on the construction of the new Resident Services. And now, we wait for it to finish...

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 22nd​

Today is my grandma's birthday! Funnily enough, my mom and grandmother have their birthdays right after one another. My dad's is somewhere around Mother's Day, so I at least have a bit of a breather when it comes to all of that party spirit. I congratulated her via video call, since I'm still not feeling well enough to actually attend and I kind of struggle with phone calls due to my autism. Things are just easier for me if I have social facial queues to read in addition to reading someone's voice queues. If either one of those is missing, I just have trouble reading the social situation. I just can't tell how someone is feeling if I only hear their voice, but I can even tell whether someone is genuine about an emotion or not if I'm talking to them face-to-face. Even if it's through a screen.

Well, today really wasn't that eventful of a day on Crayola... The Resident Services was under construction: I was already scared that I'd have to place it as a separate building, but I'm relieved that it's just going to be on the plaza! Now I just get the fun of planning my island in advance. Also, Mabel finally visited my plaza for the first time today! I was so happy to see her. Not sure whether I have to spend a certain amount, wait until she visits 3 times, or both, but I decided to have a look at her stock just to be safe. I can't risk missing out on the Able Sisters store!

She had a hat and a pair of boots that I liked, and I invested in a red pair of pants. Black matches every colour, after all. But I'm glad to be replacing my old straw hat with this appropriately spooky one. It's very summer goth: these hats are pretty popular within the subculture around summer... Because goths and summer often don't mix. We have to do SOMETHING to stay cool, and having a potable bit of shade like that definitely helps. So I guess I'm planning ahead? It's cute either way, though.

After that, it was time to get to some Nook Mile Missions: I don't have much space for new plots, so hunting for Nook Mile Ticket villagers was kin of off the table for today. So that and a bit of generally mucking about was really all there was to do. One of the missions involved a group stretching session: it's not my first one, but the first one I could take screenshots at. I'm really bad with the button combinations: it's like there's a semi-big lag between me inputting it correctly, and my character actually doing the motions: I'm almost always out of synch with the rest somehow! Next time, I'm trying motion controls...

Also, while I don't have an online subscription, I did unlock the dreaming functionality yesterday, so I decided to get the cutscene with Luna out of the way. I am glad to see her return, but I'm still against basically having to pay for a console a second time to even go online with it.

Maybe later, Luna... I have found my first rare flowers on my island today, though: some wild flowers had turned out to have bred while I was looking around for fossils. And they had produced pink mums! So I scooped those up, and put them in my flower nursery to hopefully produce more of these.

Another Nook Mile mission was to plant some trees of any kind: I do want some regular, non-fruit trees around the Museum, so I decided to take the opportunity to plant a few around there.

I think that Leif would be proud of me with all of this gardening. I've also changed up the wallpaper and flooring of my house today: this wallpaper is close to my dream item for it. Also, I had to go and match up the flooring to it a little more. The Nooklings sure had some good stuff in that cabinet of theirs today, as I managed to score some gray wrapping paper as well!

...And they had an uchiwa fan that sort of matched my dress. Yup, guess I'm preparing for summer in advance. I feel so stylish here, though.

I also had some spare fencing left, so given that there's going to be a big, giant building in front of my park area, I decided to futz around with the fencing there. I also dropped by on Rex's yard, since I had struggled with the Swing Chair I was obligated to build there back when he moved in. After some messing with it, I had to retrieve some extra fencing from my house storage. I actually had enough left to expand my orchard a little!

After some more Nook Mile missions, I called it a day, since the same ones kind of kept popping up after a while. I made around 40k IGB today, but could not deposit it into the in-game ABD due to the Resident Services construction, so my Nook debt recording for today is going to be an estimate made by adding yesterday's recording to today's final earnings. I should be at around 160k / 190k IGB on my Nook Debt, so almost there! I know that on the daily Nook Mile sign-in bonus, the ABD will just set me to a chain of 7+ consecutive days. Which I already was at, so good that it's keeping me where I was. Through some achievements and the dailies, I do now have a few extra Nook Miles to spend tomorrow in addition to being able to unlock the terraforming tools once construction finishes. So I'm curious if I get any new stuff in the Nook Mile store by then. It's a bit of a short post today, but my play session just wasn't that long or eventful. Rhonda randomly singing while I was fishing around her was really the highlight here. I hope to have more of a story to tell tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 23rd​

Well, construction of the Resident Services finished today, and you know what that means...

..Isabelle! Man, I've missed her since New Leaf. Animal Crossing really wouldn't be the same without her, and I was really waiting for when we'd see her again in this game. Tom Nook doing the morning announcements just felt a little.... off. Still looking sharp, Izzy! The Animal Crossing / Doom memes really only made the character better in my eyes, though: so THAT'S what going Isa-ballistic looks like! Back from your vacation to the Doom dimension, huh? I honestly don't blame her, though: Tom Nook sounds like a horrible boss. But in this game, she's yet again helping us with making a flag, the town tune, and just generally helping me make the place look pretty. Any big plans for Crayola wouldn't happen without Isabelle.

Well, since terraforming isn't unlocked yet, I haven't moved any buildings yet. But I'm already on my way to unlocking my planned island makeover, since I placed the Campsite today! Let the cycling and dream villager hunt begin Sorry, Peanut and Rex, but you're going to be the first to go. once things really kick off And don't think you're safe, Biff! He's lucky that I accidentally built some friendship with him, so he's probably the last to get kicked. I did strengthen my bond with Rhonda and Phoebe today: I've learnt more on how to raise that friendship level quickly, so I've started some daily gifts on those two.

I mean, Phoebe is still eventually leaving, but she's planned to be staying for longer for photo reasons. And since Mabel was still on the plaza, I decided to drop by. She had a long-time favorite umbrella of mine in stock: the Bat Umbrella. I've loved this thing since New Leaf, and I still think it's the ultimate goth parasol for my wardrobe.

Really, the only thing better then this is a parasol I'd design myself. And speaking of Pro Designs: I invested in another upgrade for it, so you can look forward to homemade parasols! I've also started making a new dress design: I was looking at that full-length long-sleeve dress design, and I couldn't help but think of a Victorian gown. It's definitely not where it needs to be yet, but I have the basic design idea and final colour scheme down.

I've kind of made this to fit the Elegant Hat better then the current pre-made Victorian dresses we have, so I'm going to be making it in several different colours, to match the variants of the hat. Once the design is complete, all I'd really need to do for that is copy it, and swap the palette. For example: this is made to match the purple variant of the Elegant Hat. The idea behind this was 'slap a hat and a parasol on there, and you've got yourself a look'. I did take this design out for a test drive today, and turns out I had to shorten the bustle on the back a little, since it looked like it was automatically copied on the inside of the skirt. And that was VERY visible when walking in the dress. Lucky for me, the bustle actually ended up looking a little better with a little less length. I wouldn't exactly call this my best work, but it's not horrible either.

As with all my designs, I did take it out for a test drive today, so you might see it in screenshots here and there. I thoroughly playtest everything I make for a while before I'd upload it, so I can catch small mistakes that wouldn't show up on the mannequin in the Pro Design menu. This way, I can be sure that my designs work well with regular gameplay. What's the point in designing something that isn't wearable or useable in other ways, right?

I've also paid off my Nook Debt today!

...And of course, gotten myself right into another. The new one is 398k IGB, but since I made about 110k IGB today, and oenough to pay off the last one yesterday? That's really only going to take me 3 days at most. Daisy Mae was visiting today, so of course, I invested in some Turnips. Just 10k IGB, no risks taken yet.

Well, we're going to see if I manage to turn a profit here. I honestly didn't know that Joan had a granddaughter! Don't worry, Daisy Mae, you're doing great, and Joan is probably proud of you.
I've also stopped to officially open the new Resident Services.

After picking those Turnips up and cutting some proverbial ribbons, off to diving I went! Those critters sell for A LOT if you've got a full inventory: you can make up to 100k per go on those alone. In addition to 2 new Critterpedia entries, I managed to score a whopping 3 pearls today!

Pascal was nice enough to give me one, and I couldn't believe that I caught 2 while diving! I must have had more good karma saved up then I thought... I kind of went diving on and off today, and somehow managed to go home with 3 of these suckers. I've been playing for a bit longer then usual today: I usually don't play past 9 PM or so, since I just kind of feel done with the game by then. But I still wanted the Critterpedia entries for whatever could be caught after this time, so I did some late-night bug hunting, fishing and diving. And I ended up with a grand total of 5 new entries over the course of the entire day.

I've also changed the flag to my own one, but the town tune still needs some work.

...And I learned a new reaction from Rex. Umm, Rex, are you okay? Do you need talk?

Well, I ended the day on that critter hunt. It was a little late to be posting this on the day itself, but better late then never, right? I did have some trouble with getting the screenshots moved from my Switch to my PC, so sorry if I sound a bit frazzled at some points. An autism diagnose and unexpected technical issues don't mix well. But I've managed to solve everything, and I could still post this. I did clear the memory on my Switch for more screenshots, as it only has that much memory to work with, so I decided to just keep all my screenshots from that console on my computer. But everything is still good, no screenshots lost in the process. So all that really happened was a little delay in posting. All in all: no harm done.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 24th​

Ah, what better way to start the day then tanuki-free morning announcements? Well, construction on the Campsite finished today.

Nobody was here yet, of course, but I was kind of stopping for a short screenshot on my way there to something else... Rhonda's birthday! Yeah, when it's a dream villager birthday, then of course you attend! It was time to score those full 8 friendship points from a successful gift.

I got her a Sewing Kit to not mess up her house too much. And the Nooklings just so happened to have black wrapping paper in-stock... Needless to say: I stocked up on those suckers.

After that, I did some shopping at the Nook Mile Store: amongst the highlights were new Reactions, new hairstyles and hair colours, new eye colours... And they had a DIY recipe for a Zen Fence in the store today: I had only been eyeing it since yesterday, but it was perfect for that bamboo forest I'm planning: tell me that wouldn't look amazing at it's edges! I have a cubic buttload of Clay and Stone lying about, so that's a good use for it.

The thing is: I was running low on Iron Nuggets, which the recipe also uses. I had already tackled every rock on my island, so I decided to take a break from collecting, and cleaned out my storage a little. Turns out I still had like 5 Nook Mile Tickets just chilling in there! So it was time to go cash those in, and hit the Mystery Tours.

Weirdly enough, the first island had no villagers on it. It was the bamboo island, so the memories of meeting Rhonda there... Anyhow, I did take the opportunity to swipe a few bamboo shoots for the forest, and walked away with about a lifetime supply of chopped bamboo for future crafting: I had like over 60 pieces. I don't have the desired recipes that use that ingredient yet, but can't hurt to have a bit of that lying around in advance. Also, found a message in a bottle here, with a DIY recipe.

Now on to round 2! Not sure what this island is called since I've never rolled it on a Mystery Trip before, but my vaulting Pole was my best friend on this one, as rivers divided the whole place. Also, a lot of fruit trees.

And yet again, no villagers... Now this is getting weird! Might be because of that first Campsite visitor business going on. After this one, I'm saving my Nook Mile Tickets for later. This island gave me plenty of loot, so I now have a nice stock of Iron Nuggets again. Found another message in a bottle with a DIY as well.

I have two stacks of what I need in storage now, plus some bonus clay and stone. I tend to just wear the wetsuit instead of carry it on Mystery Trips, to be able to carry as much as I can back to Crayola. But now, I decided to stay back home, just to be safe. I don't really want to waste tickets on accident, but two is not that much of a disaster. I decided to take a bit to start re-arranging the villager homes, because I'm very much not happy with where they are now. First order of business: moved Rhonda closer to the plaza, and thus closer to my character's house.

Also, map reveal! Clearly not the final island: I'm planning to adjust the cliffs spanning the west and northwest of my island. The cliffs at the north are just going to be flattened for space's sake. The west and southwest of the map is where the bamboo forest is going to be, and thus where the plots reserved for Genji and Kabuki will go. I've already planted a few shoots there: not quite the majestic forest it's supposed to be yet, but it's starting to look more like a bamboo nursery then just some random shoots.

The island's waterfalls happened to be around there, but they're not in the shape that I want them: they're just not majestic enough. I am looking to keep it as sort of a tiered thing, though: just more controlled then it is now. And with a bigger pont at the top then that tiny little puddle that there is at the top now. Basically, the cliffs with the waterfalls are getting flattened and fully redone. I'm sort of planning this hill idea with inclines and stuff, so you could go all the way up to the pond at the top if you wanted to.

Developing that area is going to involve moving and adjusting the river (keeping the mouths of it in mind, of course, since we can't change those), which is why I haven't placed the Zen Fences there yet (despite now having enough resources to produce 100 stacks of it!). I'm also planning some outdoor furniture somewhere in this area: a Deer Scare, Mossy Garden Rock, Green-Leaf Pile (to mimic fallen bamboo leaves), and Outdoor Bath, and a Rattan Towel Basket (to make it seem like a naturally formed onsen). With two Bamboo Grass at the 'entrance' to the area, and some Bamboo Partitions at its edges. You can understand: this is all going to take a cubic buttload of bamboo to craft, so good thing I got a head start in stocking up at that bamboo island today.

Also, the homes of Phoebe, Peanut, Rex and Biff are all going to be moved. Phoebe is going to be settled right next to Rhonda. Peanut and Rex are going to be sort of 'behind' where Phoebe's house is going to go, and they'll form a bit of a house corridor for a residential area. Biff's plot is going to be moved post-terraforming, to serve as a guide for where the plot that either Genji or Kabuki will be moving into (depending on who shows up first), so that's getting placed around the bamboo forest. After that, I'll know where to place the other plot. But Biff's plot is WAY in the future: the rest is just going to be moved ASAP. I kind of want to place the campsite where his house is now, so he'll have to move at some point. The Museum is also getting a little nudge, to more easily lay a path to it once terraforming unlocks. I'm currently just digging holes to map out the starts and finished of a path for placing purposes: that's how I placed Rhonda's house. It's just one tile off where it needs to be, though, so I'll have to measure that out just that bit better tomorrow.

Also, C.J. visited today: I knew he does outside of a Fishing Tourney sometimes, but I was already wondering if I had missed the memo that one was today! I think they were more frequent in New Leaf, and they somehow always snuck up on me. Luckily, the challenge he gave me wasn't timed, I just needed to catch 3 Dab-sized fish in a row. But just to be safe: I only went after large fish shadows. I think it only took me about 5 to 10 minutes to finish it, much to his surprise.

That's right, C.J.: you're looking at the reigning fishing champion of my old town in New Leaf! Had defended my title at least 10 times back in the day. Might want to up the challenge rating next time, buddy. I didn't really commission anything from him yet, but I got a great deal on selling fish today.

And for the second room of my house, I just made a bedroom for myself today. No more apartment feel! I still want to replace that Lantern with something else, though.

Well, for the rest of the day, I didn't play all that much. I've made an account on Nookazon: I might only be able to work with Dodo Codes for the time being, but I might want to trade with others at some point. I was kind of copying my current catalog to there, which sure took me a while. I might have only started, but boy do I already have a lot of entries so far! Also, I've of course made a massive wishlist there to keep track of what I already have for my island, and what still need. Also, I made a mistake on the total amount of the Nook debt that I need to collect: current Nook debt is already at 243k / 350k IGB.

And I didn't even go diving to maximize my profits today! Turns out that Tom Nook is not the only one who has not mellowed with age since New Leaf... At some point, he can't keep up with the pace at which I keep paying these loans off. I was sort of blindly saving up to move the villager homes around since I thought that each move would cost 50k, but turns it that it only costs 10k. That's a big financial relief! Once this debt is gone, I'll start saving up to flatten my island. Heard it's not cheap...

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 25th​

Another day, another step towards terraforming... First thing on the agenda: check the Campsite! Meeting Rhonda on that bamboo island mystery trip taught me that you never know when you might run into a dream villager...

Oh, gross... Extra arrogant (even for Smug personality standards), an eyesore, and judging by his dialogue: can't seem decide what real-life country he's pretending to be from. I'm not quick to actively dislike a villager, but I can't exactly say I'm a fan... I already can't stand arrogant people in real life, and I frankly can't take anyone who objectifies entire cultures remotely seriously. All I'm seeing here is a more internationally-oriented neckbeard personality type: most just limit it to Japan, and assume that the entire country is like their favorite anime. But Olaf takes that kind of cringe all over the world! Since my next goal is to get KK Slider to visit the island, I begrudgingly had to invite this one for that purpose. Not like the game left me much choice anyways... But I can always cycle him out later: Ooh boy, I'm going to have a lot of 'in boxes' threads to make later! Might end up hitting this one with a net a few times. ESPECIALLY if he pretends to be Dutch for a hot minute. Don't you dare insult my culture like that, Olaf! You're dang lucky that the game didn't let me ignore you...

Anyhow, I have most of that list to invite KK crossed off already, all I need now is to improve the town rating. This is exactly why I kept on weeding before I unlocked those ratings, so I wouldn't have too much work on that area once I did. Oh well, I was making the place aesthetically pleasing anyways, might as well take the opportunity to get some stuff done. So now all I'll have to do is plant some flowers and put down some fences: since I'm pretty much re-doing everyone's front yard, that shouldn't be a problem.

I started things off with moving Phoebe's house: she's going to be Rhonda's neighbor. I had started re-doing Rhonda's front yard and preparing one for Phoebe as well, but Peanut's house was terribly in the way. Guess whose house is going to be marked for moving tomorrow...?

I've also noticed that I'm going to have exactly one tile left between Nook's Cranny and where the path to the Plaza is going to be: I've taken to planting some flowers there for town rating purposes. I've picked a few that are going to match the flag pretty closely, for pretty purposes.

Also, you might have noticed me wearing something else in this screenshot: a balloon present dropped that new dress for me today! I was thrilled to find a random black variant of this one, so I kept it. I'm usually not that into pre-made clothing items, but I like this dress more then I expected: I had seen it on the wiki, but it's so much cuter in-game.
I've also planted some bushes and some more flowers behind both Nook's Cranny and Rhonda's house: if there's awkward empty space, then it might as well help my island rating, right? Some red camelia's and yellow mums kind of match the flag, so it seemed appropriate.

I've also mapped out a little trading area near my airport: it's going to take breaking a rock to lay the pathing there correctly later, but I heard that those rocks get replaced elsewhere on your island over time. So no harm done by doing so. I am planning some statue-like items near the 'entrance' beyond the airport dock area, but not sure what I'm going to put around there yet.

And lastly: I know I'm going to move the Campsite later, but I couldn't resist pretty-ing it up a little as well. Every little bit helps towards those 3 stars, right?

With this out of the way, it was time to do some dailies: get some fossils, hit some rocks, do some Nook Mile missions... I did show some restraint while shopping yesterday, so I still have enough left to buy the two permits you're going to need for proper terraforming: they're 6k each, and I have enough. But I still need to drum up some extra Nook Miles to treat myself to my two desired paths once terraforming unlocks: 2k each. So to get my island looking the way I want, I'm going to need a grand total of 16k Nook Miles at the very least. I was at 13k at this point, so I had my work cut out for me.

One of the Nook Mile missions was diving, since that gave 5 times the normal amount of Nook Miles today! I ran into Pascal again since one of my catches was a Scallop: in addition to dropping some wisdoms, he gave me a Mermaid Crown this time.

And Flick visited my island today: I got a great deal on selling bugs to him, and commissioned a model from him. My mom has a thing with dragonflies, and I happened to have 3 damselflies on me. So you can understand: I had to support a fellow artist here. Also, I think I really made his day selling all those bugs to him over the course of the day. I think I like Flick better then Nat.

Well, Flick, you made my day pretty good as well, because thanks to your Bell contributions, I managed to pay off my debt to Tom Nook today! I'm very happy that they included a specifically alternative-looking character in Animal Crossing: not many games dare do go beyond 'acceptably alternative' for some reason: you know, the watered-down amalgamation of several subcultures that we usually get, both in character design and characterization. People are often just too afraid to anger the over-sensitive soccer moms. Flick is frankly a breath of fresh air for me: He visually looks more like some people I have been friends with in real life then anything else. He seems more based on a general punk aesthetic, though: would make sense, since his dad, Nat, had an English accent. Punk music is basically goth music's grandfather, and the granddaddy of subcultures in general. And England definitely had an active punk scene back in the day. Still has an active alternative scene in general to a degree: I've actually been to Camden in London once, the birthplace of batcave music and goth clubs.

Anyhow, after paying off my debt, I luckily still had some Bells to spare. Sorry Tom, no new loan today: I have some villagers to move around first. We'll talk about more home expansions later.

Also, I headed over to the bamboo nursery today, and saw that some of it had grown! I guess you have to plant them one space apart like trees, because a few shoots did not want to grow any further. I also couldn't help myself, and test that Zen Fence out for a bit to make sure that the aesthetics would work well together. Sometimes, you think something will look nice, but then it ends up looking plain ' ol weird once you actually go through with the idea. But I think that the fence sure looks aesthetically appropriate for this area.

Now THAT'S a bamboo nursery! The actual forest is going to be bigger then this, but I couldn't resist leaving the fences there for now.
Also, Phoebe really seemed to want to socialize with me today: she invited me over to her house today, taught me a new reaction (even Flick is happy for me)...

...was part of a quest between her and Rex, and then came over to my house! Kind of embarrassing, since I have her poster in the first room of my house... She didn't really comment on it, though, so I think it's okay. Please don't mind all of the weird, random feng shui stuff: I'm kind of just having that around since my plan for that room is not complete yet.

After that, I worked on the Gibson Girl dress a little more: it definitely benefitted from making the shading on it a little less harsh, softening the line-art, and simplifying the bustle a bit. I've also added some more detail to the sleeves, and the back of the skirt.

It definitely still needs some final tweaks, though: those often take me the longest. I'm not quite happy on where the pink line on the 'poof' of the sleeve is, for example. It's also the reason why I tend to wear my designs for a while: this way, I'll catch small stuff like that over time before I'd upload a design. In the Haus of Scribbles, we don't settle for sloppy work!

For the rest: I managed to get to my goal of 16k Nook Miles today, and I've paid off my current Nook debt! With about 30k IGB to spare after that, this means I'm free to get Crayola Island closer to where I want it to be. I think I'm not signing up for a new debt until then, so I can divert all of my funds to island development: gotta get a head start on that terraforming. I think that most of the money is going to be sunk into buying the two types of tree saplings: I can get the fruits I want to keep on my island from both my orchard and the palm trees I've planted on my beaches. Boy, the development of this aesthetic mess of an island has been a ride up until this point, but I'm getting closer and closer to my goals. Terraforming, here I come! Crayola had better be ready to live up to its full potential.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 26th​

Well, despite my best efforts, Olaf moved in today... So after reluctantly dragging him to Photopia to unlock his poster, the first thing on my agenda was to check with Tom Nook what was next. Turns out that I unlocked island evaluations today! I knew in advance that I was going to need 3 stars to get KK Slider invited to play a concert. So needless to say, I needed to know where I was at.

1 star!? Isabelle, I'm feeling lowkey attacked here... I worked hard on this island so far, you know! One of the feedback points to improve on was invite more villagers, so I saw that as a free pass to cash in some Nook Mile Tickets. I only met 1 villager today out of the 3 Mystery Islands I've visited, so I guess I only need a 6th villager for this purpose? Well, I guess Paula is going to solve that particular feedback issue... I guess I could've gotten an uglier villager. At least she has a decent aesthetic going on.

But the other tickets weren't completely wasted: While the the second island had no villagers on it, there was a fruit type there which I didn't have back on Crayola yet... Oranges!

Needless to say: I shook every fruit tree on that island, and left with over 50 of them. Almost every tree there had fruit on it! I saved a few for planting in my orchard (which I had to expand to fit two orange trees, might move the entire orchard someday), but the rest made me over 50k IGB in one trip. That sure is a cozy little profit! I've also sold my Turnips at a profit today: I was probably in a Small Peak pattern, and I think that I sold at the height of the peak. It wasn't a big profit, but then again: I hadn't really invested much yet. I kind of assumed that since no other villagers showed up after Paula, that my villager hunt was cut short. So I decided to just do my Nook Mile daily missions after that.

After doing a few more, I somehow got the mission to change my outfit twice today: Is the game insulting my sense of style here or something? I don't know what they're talking about: I look okay at the very least!

I've also needed to plant some more flowers according to the island evaluation, so I dragged some spare flower seeds out of my storage. I had placed two new plots down, and Paula is moving into one. So I decided to make some small gardens there.

I've also moved Peanut's house to where the bamboo forest is going to be: remember how in the way it was yesterday? So tomorrow, I get to finish Rhonda and Phoebe's front yards. Olaf's current house is also around there as well, but not at my desired location yet. Once that 3-star island evaluation mission is done, those two are probably going to be the first villagers to get cycled out. I've actually been saving up trash items over time: I'm not a fan of the DIY recipes using Tires I have at the moment. I mean, the succulents in the can DIY is cute, but all of the tire DIY's just aren't my style. So those Tires I fished up are probably going to serve as 'you're getting voted off the island' kind of gifts. It's probably going to take a while on cycling out Rex, as I sold him an item today... So I'm probably on friendship level 6 with him. I have no clue how I got there, since I only really talked to him if I absolutely needed to, and never gifted him anything. But that means I'm going to have my work cut out for me once I start cycling him out.

I also am probably at friendship level 3 with Biff, as he has a nickname for me and came over to my house today.

Well... At least he doesn't clash with my wallpaper. I kind of kept the nickname at the default 'touchdown' he came up with for me, since he's getting cycled out anyways. Might have to bust out the net for this one once it's time for him to leave, though. I kind of asked Phoebe to stay a little longer when she came over, but I just let Biff to leave my house once he suggested it. Oh well, at least I got two items out of him today: one was a gift he brought, and one was from winning a game of higher or lower. I had already met him at the Museum earlier: he only other villager I saw there was Peanut. I wish more villagers visited the Museum, it's kind of weird being the only one in there most of the time.

Phoebe also invited me over again, so I'm definitely at a good friendship level with her as well. Good thing too, since I kind of want her photo. I haven't had either her or Rhonda try and sell me an item yet, which is weird, since I put in a lot more effort on raising their friendship levels. Anyhow, won a game of higher or lower from her as well.

I just tend to just base my guess on the card that the villager has drawn. I mean, if that's something like a 9, then the odds of the number being lower is just greater then it being higher. The risk is a little higher with a 4 or a 5, but most of the time, It's pretty clear what the best guess is going to be. This way, I've won like 3 rounds of this so far: zero losses, baby! I dunno, I'm diagnosed with autism, so maybe higher or lower is just my Rain Man moment? I know that calculating odds is math, and I'm usually horrible at that: my talents really lie more on the creative and linguistic end of things. I was actually so bad at math and calculus back in high school, that most adults there insisted that I get tested for dyscalculia! It's like dyslexia, only with numbers. Turns out I didn't have it, I'm just THAT bad at anything math-related. So I guess I break the stereotype about autistic people that we're all like Rain Man by merely existing? Wouldn't be the first time, by the way: people's stereotypes about whatever community I'm a part of don't really tend to last long around me to begin with.

I'm also growing some of my first money trees: I finally figured out what that golden glowing effect after digging up those daily Bells was for! I had just been closing up the holes like a goof up until yesterday. But now, I have two of those trees growing already! I moved them to near my orchard for now. I had buried 10k for each, so I should be getting 60k total once they finish growing. But I'll be burying more tomorrow as a little experiments: I hear that you get bigger gains by burying more money, but that only goes up to a certain limit. I'll look into that before actually doing so, though: I did do some basic reading, but I definitely need a little reminder there. Anyhow, this is definitely going to be a daily activity for me, as my next home loan debt would be around 550k IGB... Every little bit is going to help around those amounts!

Also, Rex taught me a new Reaction today: Shyness. Another one that comes in pretty handy for an autistic girl: we're not exactly known for being the most social people, after all.

In the screenshot, I think I look more like I have some kind of evil plans, though. I do have big plans for Crayola, but I'll leave it up to you whether you should call that an evil plot or just 'plans'.

For the rest, I just did some more Nook Mile missions, and then called it a day. I currently have no Nook debts going on, and 170k IGB in my ABD for island developments. I've heard that having at least two of those Mario Anniversary pipe items during an island flattening will help speed up the process tremendously, so I've invested in a second one recently. Future Mel is probably going to thank me a few times later, and possibly a few times more after I get my island to where I want it. Oh well, that island flattening is probably still a long while away: I've heard that this particular phase of the main storyline takes the longest.

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 27th​

Well, Paula moved in today, so I decided to go welcome her.

And when I stepped back out of her new house, I noticed that the plot next to hers got sold! Spike is moving in there, it seems: I looked him up on the wiki, and well... he's not completely ugly in my book.

I've counted, and I had 8 house plots placed: so I decided to place 2 more to get up to the max of 10 villagers. Was high time that my character got some actual neighbors, right?
So with that bit of island evaluation feedback from yesterday progressing forward, it was time to get a lay of the land on what there was left to do.

...Really, Isabelle? Good thing Leif visited again today, because that environment feedback was somehow still a thing! He actually brought some Lilies today, which I didn't have on my island yet. They're one of my favorite flowers in Animal Crossing apart from Roses, so score! I had planted a few near those 2 new plots for pretty's sake.

I also decided that my current look is a bit too 'goth in spring', so since it was snowing in-game today, I decided to winter up my outfit a little.

I still had this coat and the boots just chilling in my storage, and some black denim pants I've ordered yesterday arrived today. I'll save the lace dress for spring. Also, I had treated myself to an Stone and Iron Fence DIY Recipe a bit ago, so it was time to at least get my front yard looking a bit less like a yard from Stepford Wives, and a bit more like the Addams Family's front yard.

I've sort of got the exterior of my house planned out: I'm going for a Black Fancy Door, Red Cobblestone walls, and a Black Curved Shingle black roof. If my house is going to look like this majestic, haunted-looking mansion... Then I can't have that picket fence standing around it, right?
Also, I was moving Rex's house so it lined up better with Phoebe and Rhonda's house: the game would only let me place it ONE tile from where I actually wanted it. I did bother with a front yard for him: He has the Nature hobby, so that was a good excuse to spam some more flowers.

And while I was there, I finished Rhonda and Phoebe's front yards today: I couldn't place all the fences yet with Peanut's house in the way, but everything is set now.

So with the aesthetic improvements Crayola for the day out of the way, I decided to go to a Mystery Island to pick up another villager for that population thing. I had invested in a few more Nook Mile Tickets, since my stock was dwindling. But I was only using one of them today.

O'Hare it is! Rabbits are my favorite animal in real life, so I'm DEFINITELY not mad: yay, my first rabbit villager! He's moving into the plot right next to my character's house.
For the rest, I did some Nook Mile missions: Since one was DIY'ing and I had treated myself to some recipes that I need for my bamboo forest area, I decided to go get to work on that.

I also went for a Fountain recently: that one is going in the area around my character's house, since I kind of the area in front of it to look like an old Victorian garden. Both this and the Outdoor Bath I was crafting for the bamboo forest needed multiple items crafted for it, so I hit the required 3 DIY's pretty easily here. Another Nook Mile mission was planting trees, and I thought one would look nice near Paula's current house.

Also, Olaf sadly had a ping today, but he at least he had the common decency to hand over a gift. He was his arrogant self about it, but at least it sold for a decent price at Nook's Cranny and at least I have a new catalog entry.

Rhonda saved the day, though: she also had a ping, and actually brought me an item I needed for my final front yard: A Garden Lantern in the black variant!

Rhonda, you made my day. And this is why she's a dream villager of mine: if she gifts me, it's usually something useful. I know it's completely random and a complete coincidence, but it's like she knows my plans for the island... Well, with her support, the island is sure to look awesome in the end.


Also, I did some planning for the details of the bamboo forest area: it's going to involve diverting a river there by a lot, so I decided to map part of that out with some Zen Fences today.

I'm going to completely change the cliffs in the west of that part of the island around, might end up fully moving them. The cliffs on the other side of that river, on the north side of of my island, are going to get completely flattened, so the bamboo area is going to possibly hold the only cliffs on the island. Not sure about that, but we'll see. The plan is to have at least two or three levels going on in the new cliffs here on the west side of the island, with a pond on top where the waterfall that I want is going to come from. The bottom of the multi-tiered waterfall is going to fall into a river, which is going to lead to sea. All of that is going to be fenced off, but the beach nearby is going to be fully accessible: no fences placed blocking the sand off. I'm also using inclines to make the pond at the top fully accessible, because I love the combination of function and fashion. Why choose between pretty and practical, right?

I kind of called it a day after that: I did a few more Nook Mile missions, but they were starting to get repetitive. They kind of do that after a good few of them in a day, so I usually just kind of stop playing once that repetitive-ness happens. I'm kind of waiting on two villagers to be moving in anyways, so I'll pick things up tomorrow again. With all of the talking I do about the geography of my island, I think that it's about time that I dedicate a post at the beginning to an island map. I try to be as descriptive as possible when I talk about my terraforming plans, but I think it's just more convenient for people to have something visual to reference once I start about that subject again. And it's going to be fun to sort of have a geographical history of the island going on. Not to mention having cool before and after shots of the island! I guess I'm going to have some screenshotting to do next time I boot up my Switch. Good thing I reserved a grand total of 5 posts here: I had a feeling I was going to need them.

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 28th​

Well, a new villager moved in today, so I had some welcoming to do! Spike is the newest resident of Crayola, so it was time to say hello and start doing my rounds on the other villagers. Sorry, I kind of forgot to take screenshots: his choice to place leopard-print flooring was THAT much of a shock to me!

O'Hare is moving in tomorrow, so he's a nice look into how the moving in queue works: I'm going to need to know that for my dream villager hunt. I usually only talk to Phoebe and Rhonda besides the newbies on the island for cycling reasons: I don't want to have to go through a lot of trouble once I kick most of these suckers out to eventually make room for my dream team. After gifting my two besties here for extra friendship credit, it was time to do my dailies: those usually consist of fossil hunting, finding the bell rock, find the bell tree digging spot, and knocking out the daily double Mile Nook Mile missions.

And during these daily missions, I noticed Mabel on the plaza! I didn't really have any Bells on me at the moment, but I decided to talk to her anyways, just to see what she had in stock. That would later turn out to be nothing interesting, but the thing is... She had some good news for me.

I finally got to place the Able Sisters shop today! This means I can start sharing my designs pretty soon. I had better get that design thread started... I placed it near Nook's Cranny, so there's a bit of a shopping district feel going on near the plaza. It's the first big goal I can cross off my to-do list for my island, and a major milestone for me.

Also, I did some more reading on the money tree mechanics in this game: guess I'm maximizing profits with the amounts I'm burying now, because the profitability of these money trees cap out at 10k IGB buried. And that was what I've been burying up until now. Well, good to know I was on the right track. Hustle smarter, not harder, right?

Biff had a thought bubble today: a treasure hunt! My first one, actually: I had a full 3 minutes, though, so not like it was a challenge.

I won a new variant of the Knit Hat I already had in black. I know that's technically the more difficult one since the more easier hunts give you a full 6 minutes, but frankly speaking... I usually play more hardcore games, so I'm more used to time limits of 30 seconds for WAY more difficult tasks! This was frankly a cakewalk for hardcore gamer standards: I usually have to do at least 3 or 4 dry runs for most of the time limits in other games I play. So by comparison, this was so easy: Had never done it before, yet I finished the treasure hunt in like half a minute or so. Especially since the spot that Biff buried it turned out to be a short walk to the left from the plaza. I was legit ready to start combing the island at top speed, but after like 10 or 20 seconds or so? There it was. Either I just got extremely lucky that I didn't need to climb any cliffs or vault over any rivers, or this is just not as much of a challenge for someone used to worse.

I'm actually really bad with time limits in general to begin with: I tend to stress the moment one comes on-screen. Maybe that's because I'm autistic and I know that the time limit is more programmed to fit a neurotypical person's information processing speed, but a countdown on-screen just freaks me out enough to impact my performance in-game. So I'm lowkey kind of proud that I managed to win this, even when I'm not exactly at peak performance.

He also taught me a Reaction today before he started this treasure hunt: Sneezing!

Er, Biff, that's not exactly an appropriate one during these times... At least have the common decency to sneeze into your elbow, man! Also, a balloon dropped a particularly goth gift for me: a skull door decoration. Glad to see my Addams Family mansion ideas are supported by the balloons

After that, I decided to get the island population up to tis maximum of 10, so I cashed in a Nook Mile Ticket.

Tiansheng? Score! He's not a dream villager of mine, and I don't really feel one way or another about him. But I hear he's pretty popular. His design kind of reminds me of how the Monkey King from Journey to the West is often pictured in artistic representations of the character, only a really simplified version of it. I'd bet my bottom Bell that Tiansheng is based off of that. So this is your intro to classic Chinese literature, I guess? I dunno, I just like generally learning about different cultures then my own. It started with wanting to fully get most references in anime, and the ball sort of started rolling there. Also, you pick up a thing or two about different cultures when living in a relatively big city. Somehow, it just interests me how all of us are human and live on the same planet, but we can still have such vastly different daily habits. I just like to see what makes people tick out of sheer curiosity of WHY they do what they do. People can just be so interesting.

After inviting Tiansheng to come live on Crayola, I was kind of curious if my work on the island's aesthetics yesterday paid off. So after emptying my inventory back out, I moseyed over to the Resident Services.

2 stars? Yay! Only one more, and I'm golden. So you bet I took notes (not literally this time): Isabelle talked about placing scenery items, So it was time to at least set part of my furniture plans for Crayola in motion!
To start off: I had plans for the bamboo forest that involved 2 DIY items. The idea is to have sort of a natural onsen sort of feel, so I made an Outdoor Bath and a Stone Tablet: I'd imagine the onsen rules being carved into that tablet.

Also, good news: some fully grown bamboo produced shoots for the first time today!

I've planted all 3 of them, of course: how else is this little bamboo nursery going to be a mighty forest one day, right? Next up was my idea for the archipelago area of the island: that is going to be a bit of a beach lounge involving Mermaid furniture. I already had two Shell Partitions ready for it, so I just plopped one down.

Isabelle's other point of feedback was placing more stuff like fencing, and Rex's front yard wasn't fully done yet. So she didn't need to tell me twice: I set to finishing the fencing around it.

I mean, couldn't exactly keep this unsightly gap... I've also decided to give Biff a temporary front yard: him and the Campsite are going to basically swap places, but this was for rating's sake.

After that, Isabelle kept going on about more flowers and plants on the island during multiple evaluations: I had spirited some flowers away from the Mystery Island, and I had already planted those when she said that a few times on the island evaluations. Woman, how many flowers do you want!? Anyhow, that's definitely going to take me a while. So I decided to work on some designs, and call it a day. The Gibson Girl Dress got a bit of a final glowup on its first colour today. I think it's going to be fun to have some themed photo's alongside a front, back and side look of a design. So I went over to Photopia for some test shots.

I had set up the environment in advance, but I put the final touches on it today. I'm a big fan of the sepia filter for that theme shot: there's 100% going to be a shot like this in the final design thread. I mean, tell me that doesn't look like a glamour shot from the 1800's! I am going to change my hairstyle for the real screenshots, though: I saw one that sort of makes this dress look fully Victorian. I'm not actively going to be posing in the design turnarounds unless it helps highlight a particular design element, though. And after this, my play session was definitely done, as I had been working on a new design as well today.

Well, the big plans for Crayola are finally starting to come to fruition. My ABD is at around 275k IGB for island development, and I have around 25k NM to spend on that as well. Well, that budget is still growing, and most of the plans are made. Now all that's left to do is go get me that 3rd star!

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed!

 

[MelanieScribbles]

January 29th​

Well, today's gaming session wasn't actually that long, so short post today. The Able Sisters was still under construction today...

...and I've heard that I might want to finally get myself an online subscription for my Switch if I want to be able to share my designs. I really don't want to break on that front here, since I still think it isn't right that we even have to pay for such a basic feature. I mean, the PS4 and the Xbox S and X series all just have that built in once you buy the console. But I might have to give in to Nintendo's absolute BS here.

But online woes aside, a short play session didn't mean that I had nothing to do! The first thing on my agenda was to welcome O'Hare to the island.

Not sure what that ocean theme is about: since he moved from a Mystery Island to mine, the guy must really like tropical vibes... After that, it was time for the dailies: I have never found all of the daily fossils this quick! 3 were in the area around the plaza, and I only had like 3 seconds to walk after vaulting across the river for the 4th one. 2 of them were actually right next to eachother!

Hmm, were these dinosaurs a couple or something? For the rest, I've planted another money tree. Speaking of: the first actually produced Bells today! I hear that they only do that once, but today's island evaluation clearly said 'more trees and shrubs'. So I didn't bother to cut it down yet. Every little bit helps when it comes to that island rating, right?

After that, I did some Nook Mile missions, and went back to my character's house to empty out my inventory. I was about to leave for Nook's Cranny to sell some of the items I didn't want to keep, when Rhonda dropped by!

...Yeah, can't just leave a dream villager hanging, right? Rex also dropped by later today once I got back from another round of missions: look at me being Miss Popular over here

I've legit won 3 higher or lower games today: I guess I am like Rain Man on these things! Well, guess this is a good opportunity to help some noobs out here, and give some insight into how I haven't lost any of these yet.

Rhonda's example game here was really won due to dumb luck: 5 and 6 are challenging starting cards to get. In terms of the odds of the card being either higher or lower, they're kind of in the middle of the possible new cards that a villager could possibly draw. The odds of it drawn being lower in this example are 5 in 10, and 4 in 10 that it's higher. Pretty even odds, right? It's easy to know which option to pick if they draw something like an 8 or a 2. But 5 and 6 makes the game really pure guesswork and luck. Congratulations, Rhonda, you really gave me a challenge. I would expect no less from a dreamie of mine, though!

Rex here is a good example of what I mean when I talk about an easy choice. His new card was super easy to guess: since villagers only seemed to draw numbered cards in a basic card deck. And ruling out the card he already drew, the odds of the new card being lower are like 2 in 10. But the odds of it being higher are a whopping 6 in 10! Easy call on which option to pick, right?

Same with Biff here: the odds of the new card being higher are like 2 in 10, while the odds of it being lower is 7 in 10. Open-and-shut case, right? It's pretty rare for the first card to be either 5 or 65, though: this is really the first time that ever happened for me. So you should be good on most of these higher or lower games. There you go, you can now win about every game. Now you go get you some free items! And by that, I probably mean free Bells, as I often end up selling whatever I win to the Nooklings... But hey, a new catalog entry is a new catalog entry, right?

Speaking of items: Phoebe had a donation to the 'make Crayola pretty' cause: I have no use for a Tape Deck, but I appreciate her sentiments.

For the rest, not much happened. I'm kind of holding off on working on new custom designs until the Able Sisters is finished: with that whole online business, I'm not sure if I'm going for a full-on year subscription or not. That seems like the cheapest option per month for now, but I want to crunch the numbers as to what's both going to fit my usage of the console and my wallet right. Not like I can't afford it, I just don't want to end up spending more on it then I absolutely have to if I'm forced to anyways. This wouldn't be the only monthly expense I'd have when it comes to gaming alone, so I really want to sign up for something that'll fit my usage. I'm not wasting money on something that I won't actively use, after all: I'm not exactly stingy, I just like getting my money's worth out of something. The price has to fit the quality.

Sorry for the short post today, I'll probably have more to talk about tomorrow: up on the agenda are the Able Sisters' grand opening, and Tiansheng moving in. And for the rest: I'm still on my way to 3 stars on the island evaluations. Because despite planting a lot of trees, bushes and flowers? I'm still stuck at 2 for now. Here's hoping that I'll get that 3rd star soon!

Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoyed!