Did you have plans for your town before Horizons was released? Did those plans change when you finally got to play?

[annex]

I thought about what I would name my town months before I got it. After seeing the commercial, I had lots of plans.

my plans were....
My house would be a cabin in the forest. It would be placed in the upper left of town.
the middle upper part would be my camp site.
The right upper part would be a haunted forest with a witch living there.
I would have a fifties diner outside, and a retro gas station.
the town would be fifties themed.
I would have a drive in theatre.
a big farm with a farm house.
There would be a Chuck wagon cafe, and I would use the covered wagon, tall cactus and tumble weed.

What it became.....
My house is in the upper left corner, but it's a cottage in the forest. Not a cabin.
The middle area is a campsite.
The upper right was a haunted forest with a witch, but I changed it to a fishing area with a bait and tackle shop. My witch has been moved and now she's just a normal person that runs the hotel.
I do have a fifties diner, but got rid of the gas staion. It's now a tropical coffee shop.
My town is not really fifties themed.
No drive in theatre.
I have my big farm, but no farm house.
I have a bbq, but we didn't get the covered wagon, etc, like I hoped we would.

What about you? Did you have special plans? Did you end up doing them when you finally got to play?

 

[LambdaDelta]

I brainstormed my town name and that was about it

 

[a potato]

I named my town Glimwood after Glimwood Tangle in SWSH, so I had wanted to include some sort of magical mushroom forest. Not necessarily the whole town, just a small section. I didn’t really like how it had turned out, so I tore it down for a while. I’m trying to reinstate the forest in smaller section, though. I like how it’s turning out.

 

[Kattea]

My buildings remain in the same general area as when I started, but I'm beginning to terraform more heavily so I've had to shift them around a bit.

 

[Licorice]

I planned my villagers out mostly. My villagers were all scanned in via amiibo cards. I bought them as soon as another animal crossing was announced, like before the game even had an official title. I wanted to be super prepared. All of my villagers have not changed except I switched Tabby out for Maggie recently. Other than that everyone else is who I originally wanted. As for my island, I knew I wanted cherries as my native fruit and circle grass. Well different grass types don’t exist but I did get my cherries at least. My map was mostly whatever. I’m not huge on decorating the island tbh. When the maps were released I wanted the two south river ends and I got those. Still really love my map.

 

[The Loyal Rat]

I planned 9 of my villagers out via Amiibo, Chrissy and Francine were already planned out as soon as I heard about New Horizons, as Chrissy is my fav and she needs her big sis Francine with her, plus those two are just really cute I think. Then later a few weeks before it came out, I bought bootleg amiibo scans of my other dreamies so I could move them in. The pandemic slowed the delivery times a lot, I remembered getting them after the game came out, but before I got the tent.

I reset my island multiple times until I got a blue airport, apple trees as native, and a river mouth that was south east and the other in the mid west. It only took like an hour of resets haha, not much time when considering how many factors I had put into wanting. All worth it to enjoy my own town!

 

[xhyloh]

i had absolutely no idea what to do with my island when the game first came out! new horizons gives the player more control than ever before and i don't think any of us were really used to it when it came out.

 

[Pyoopi]

I planned my island name like weeks before the launch. When I chose my map, I made rough ideas how I wanted my island to be structured before I unlocked terraforming. A lot has changed significantly because I got sizing off a little bit or didn't realize how ramps/stairs don't center well for certain areas.

It all worked out in the end though.

 

[Matt0106]

Honestly not really! I was pretty much open to anything. I guess the one thing would be to give my island the dedication none of my towns got, and it worked out so far. Almost a year in and I've put in a lot of work into my island, with no regrets so far

 

[Nodokana]

I planned out my island name and I knew that I wanted to make it have various themes.

 

[John Wick]

I had everything planned.

Every single item and feature I needed from NL to theme my island and home, was left out, so it's in limbo.

Always will be.

My heart sank each time I learned of yet another missing item or feature I wouldn't be able to use.

Now I've given up hope of ever doing any part of what I had planned.

 

[The Loyal Rat]

I had everything planned.

Every single item and feature I needed from NL to theme my island and home, was left out, so it's in limbo.

Always will be.

My heart sank each time I learned of yet another missing item or feature I wouldn't be able to use.

Now I've given up hope of ever doing any part of what I had planned.

I totally get you on that one, man. I keep hoping that they will add the cut furniture back into the game, but it’s been a year and still nothing.

 

[Xara]

i didn’t have many plans but i definitely had a few aha. prior to the game’s release, i had plans to name my island “apricity”, have 3 characters in total, have specific villagers, have pink, orange and purple tulips lining my paths and have a carnival area - my dreamie list has been tweaked a bit but it’s still more or less the same whereas my island name is “axolotl”, i’m planning on having 2 characters rather than 3, i no longer have much interest in a carnival area and i’m using multiple different breeds and colours of flowers to line my paths. :’^)

 

[Bluebellie]

I planned out my island a whole year in advanced.

I planned out my Island name and all my character names. I knew I wanted them all to start with an M. This stayed the same.
Initially I had planned for 8 characters. I had all their names figured out and possible house plans. So far, I only have room for 3. I’m making room for a fourth, and will have a fifth that lives in the residential services with No house ( I realize now that 8 houses is too much).

I knew I wanted to have two of my new leaf characters come back. I had to alter them slightly though and modify their houses a lot ( a lot of the house decorations I used in new leaf are not in new horizon).


I planned on making my island filled with purple violets and lots of dead trees. Theres no violets now or dead trees, so that part is different. I still try and throw in purple hyacinths here and there but it’s not the same.

I knew I wanted a pumpkin patch. At first I couldn’t do it, but then the update came along. I was super happy about that.
I also knew I wanted to have some sort of cemetery in the game. I did it.

I also wanted two south river mouths. I got them. It seemed like a bad idea the first couple of months of the game, but now I’m ok with them.

I also had ideas of villagers I wanted and bought all their amiibos ahead of time. Mainly I got all the amiibos for villagers that were black and white coloring.

That’s pretty much my plans before starting the game, everything else I would just handle when it came.

 

[Moritz]

I knew my island was to be called Spring because that's what I always call my towns or their equivalent in games.

Beyond that I was just going to wing it.
Can say I succeeded in my plan and a year later I'm still winging it

 

[JemAC]

I didn't actually have many plans for my island, I'd been really excited about the game for ages but I'm not always a great planner so thought I'd decide what I wanted for my island once I'd got hold of it. I started playing the game a few days after release so for the first couple of days it was out before I had it I looked at a lot of the island maps online so I had a general idea of what I was looking for (wanted a close to central resident services and I didn't want 2 south facing rivers). Also knew I wanted apples as my native fruit as that had been my original WW fruit and I was 100% certain that I wanted Fauna on my island, everything else though with my island just came together as I started playing it

 

[Reptile]

Okay so the 50s idea really slaps lol. My past two islands were forest themed because I'm just so in love with northern forest-y countries. That was always the original plan and I simply went with it when I got the game. I was also kinda overwhelmed with the design options so I wanted something that feels intuitive... Then I realized that building a natural forest is really not intuitive lol.
The names were also always more nordic/forest-y.
What also was pretty important to me was the native fruit, even tho I never really planted fruit trees. It was all about that passport aesthetic, you knoooow lol
Now that I wanna restart again, I kinda wanna do a more modern theme since there's also a lot of modern items in game that previously I was afraid to use in fear of disturbing my forest theme lol. Also it leaves me more options for villagers because that also felt so limited by my theme. I've never had that problem in previous games and I'm just tired of not "being able" to take in, for example Kabuki. So now my theme is gonna be "animal crossing new leaf" lololol

 

[Rosch]

I only had an initial concept and theme, but not the island layout.

I originally planned a jock-only island, that's why I named my island "Flexmont". But then I learned that villagers had sub-personalities, so I expanded my villager choices to include those with fitness hobbies. But later on, I wanted Punchy so bad so I thought I'd make an exception. Then I continued inviting villagers I liked regardless of personality. So I ended up discarding my concept and have varied villagers.

 

[Jam86]

i planned to have a simple layout like:
- all my shops in one place
- that pink stone path
- all my villager's houses lined up with their own garden
- my house right at the back on the highest cliff

my island did look like that at first but my sister said it was bad so i redid the entire thing and now i have:
- dirt paths
- all houses scattered around
- the shops are still close but not lined up
- my house is on the 1st layer by the beach

i change my mind a lot though and everything is completely different to what i originally planned including my island layout, character style, character and island name, villagers etc

 

[Shellzilla_515]

The only thing I planned for my island was the name for it before New Horizons was released. Other than that, I didn't have any plans and just worked with what I had.