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

[Baroque]

Nada. I wasn't sure about what the limitations or re-designing our islands were so, in my head, I only thought I'd have to find good places to place furniture outside. Terraforming was a whole other pair o' gloves XD

In hindsight, I do wish I picked a different location for the town hall...

 

[Holla]

I did a ton of planning as I had a themed island in mind way back when they had just teased a new game which was before we really knew anything at all about the game. We just knew it was Animal Crossing on Switch and would release in 2019 (later delayed to 2020 of course).

I had my 5 playable villagers planned out, island name, tune etc. I had some ideas for house interiors but kept it vague since we didn’t know what all the furniture items would be. All of my plans have gone pretty much according to plan and I’ve only added on to them since. I didn’t yet know we would have a ton of freedom with outdoor decorating so those plans came later on. I had a few ideas for animal villagers but left them pretty lose as I prefer to finalize my villagers as I play through the game instead of just picking 10 from a list and sticking to it.

 

[Fye]

I wanted an animal themed island and was torn between cat island or fox island (but with wolf villagers since there aren't exactly fox ones) until the game came out and I went with fox. And then my first campsite smug villager was Lopez and I decided I wanted a deer island instead since I never had deer villagers in previous games. So I reset 2 weeks in and made Nara island, which is now actually 50% deer and the other 50% is other species I like. Didn't quite go as I planned but I love how it turned out!

 

[oranje]

Originally I wanted to have a more tropical-themed island, but I wasn't feeling super inspired with that, so I went instead with a more East Coast/British inspired Nautical themed town and now I'm happy with my island project.

 

[tajikey]

I knew what I wanted to name it (ExIsle), and I knew I needed symmetry (two south exits), but other than that, nope, no clue what direction I wanted to take my island.

 

[wolfie1]

At first, I didn't have any expectations or plans about what my island should look like, as I didn't know the extent of these new landscaping tools that were going to be introduced with these games. Once I was aware of their limitations, though, I knew my house had to be up on a hill overlooking the whole island and I had to have like a waterfall corridor leading up to it. The rest I pretty much winged it as I came up with ideas. I also knew I had to have some sort of residential area so I wouldn't have to run around chasing after neighbors. I still have to, though, because they spawn wherever they want, but still lol.

 

[Paperboy012305]

When I first got the game I had the idea of making my island turn into an elegant garden park.

Now it just looks like no man's land except there are men. What I mean is, barely any trees, lot's of flowers. You could say I'm living in a floral tundra to say. I had some ideas on what to make, but I demolished them. I do want to go back to my original idea that I had from the beginning, but didn't work because it made the map look ugly, but that won't stop me from giving it a shot.

 

[Flicky]

I had so many ideas for a medieval island! I was excited to create it.

But as it turns out, there's not many outdoorsy medieval items in the game. So I just went with a 'whatever' style island with no theme at all. I still hold out hope that maybe they'll release new items so I can change things up, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[annex]

When I first got the game I had the idea of making my island turn into an elegant garden park.

Now it just looks like no man's land except there are men. What I mean is, barely any trees, lot's of flowers. You could say I'm living in a floral tundra to say. I had some ideas on what to make, but I demolished them. I do want to go back to my original idea that I had from the beginning, but didn't work because it made the map look ugly, but that won't stop me from giving it a shot.

I would love to see it when it's done.

 

[Midoriya]

Nope, I didn’t have any special plans. I’ve gone into every Animal Crossing game since the GameCube without any plans about how I’m going to play. I’ve just generally gone with the flow and things always fell into place. Now my island is pretty much complete in NH and I’ve never reset in an AC game before.

 

[juneau]

My plans changed so much during the course of me seeing the game promo, getting the game and even while playing the game - redid my initial island pathing and stuff a few times before I was happy with the layout.

I switched between wanting to do a few different themes - I believe at one point I was very set on a city island feel, then I wanted to do a tropical island, before settling on cottagecore after seeing all the resources and pretty paths people have made for it.

I think the other one of my biggest deciding factor between city and cottagecore was actually my NMT lamp posts, lol. If I went with a city theme, I would have wanted to use either the green or black lamp posts, but mine are white, and I don't want to have to buy them from people every time I needed lamp posts, so I just decided to pick a theme that worked with what I'm able to get by myself.

 

[Halloqueen]

I sorta kinda planned but barely. My initial concept for the island was to make it island-themed and I had 10 residents planned out. After a while, though, I changed my mind and decided to base my island around a theme of world history and various cultures and make it a sort of celebration of diversity and a place where the world comes together. The resident list entirely changed except for Diva, who only stuck around because none of the other Sisterly villagers really worked (though I'm currently wrestling with whether to replace her with Paula) with the theme.

I also planned to have all of the businesses up in the front of the island and then have all of the resident housing all on the third, highest tier of land on the back of the island. I managed to stick to the plan of having all of the businesses up front and all the housing in the back, but the housing is currently split between the second and third tiers because that's how things just sort of developed during the early days. I'm very much considering finally dedicating the effort to terraforming and moving the houses around so they'll all be on the third tier like in the initial plan though, so maybe someday it'll become a reality.

 

[Sharksheep]

Other than my island name, I didn't have any plans. I didn't remember much from Wild World or New Leaf other than it being fun.

 

[moonlights]

I didn't plan anything, and I still don't haha, I kinda just go along with whatever comes to mind whenever I terraform/design. When I first started playing I wasn't particularly concerned with designing an intricate, well-structured island, I was just excited to play.

 

[JellyBeans]

I actually went in with absolutely zero plans. for someone who was so excited to get started, I really put in zero forethought or planning, which is perhaps unlike me since in NL I always went into towns with specific plans and ideas. I didn't even have a name sorted out and had to desperately scramble at a random island name generator last minute to get started. The only thing I knew I wanted was no double south rivers, and resident services more or less in line with/close to the airport. other than that I just dove in and I've been figuring it out from there!

 

[Frida644]

I was so excited when the game was released!
I planned my island a month ago hahaha
At first I wanted a Japanese themed island with a lot of cherry blossom, pagodas and bamboo! My Pinterest board was overflowing! But time passed by and then I really got interested in the Celeste items because I really enjoy the way it shines in the dark! After a lot of Pinterest research Fairycore got my attention. I know a lot of people did a fairycore island and I was so sad because everyone got so pretty islands and I’m not that creative.
After a short break I realized I should do what I want and not compare my work with others!
So now I do my own Starry/faircore island with a lot of pink xD

 

[annex]

I was so excited when the game was released!
I planned my island a month ago hahaha
At first I wanted a Japanese themed island with a lot of cherry blossom, pagodas and bamboo! My Pinterest board was overflowing! But time passed by and then I really got interested in the Celeste items because I really enjoy the way it shines in the dark! After a lot of Pinterest research Fairycore got my attention. I know a lot of people did a fairycore island and I was so sad because everyone got so pretty islands and I’m not that creative.
After a short break I realized I should do what I want and not compare my work with others!
So now I do my own Starry/faircore island with a lot of pink xD

I love fairycore and pink. You're right about not comparing your town with others. We should just have fun, and decorate how we like.

 

[deana]

The only thing I knew I wanted was red brick paths. As soon as I saw red brick paths were available I knew I had to have them. I wanted to use QR code red brick in NL but I didn't like how it looks weird around the town hall where the underlying grey rocks always shows through a little. So my entire island plan was just
RED 👁 BRICK PATHS 👁

So yeah I used a fair bit of red brick, something about it just feels very warm and homey to me. I didn't make that my whole island with the same path though I have some different areas with different paths and colour schemes.

 

[~Kilza~]

I had zero plans for my island in New Horizons going into it, lol. Literally didn't think of anything (not even my island name), I was just like "oh I'll get New Horizons on release day and just see how things go". I feel like it worked out.

 

[HoennMaster]

I knew I wanted to have my house on my own island, but other than that nothing really planned. I reset my game until I got a map where it already had a river island, but ended up not likely having one setup already. Much easier to make my own.

As for the theme, I just had a very loose them or "natural", but I've since changed it to an even more lose "colorful"