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

[Cyku]

Well, I haven't really known Animal Crossing before New Horizons, and it was about 2 months after the release date when I bought it so I didn't really know what I'm getting myself into and how it's going to work, sooo I planned nothing xD In the end I didn't even think about the airport color, river mouths etc.
However, after my first reset, I was into an aesthetic, symmetric island but I burned out a bit while trying to do it, now I'm playing on my third island, not planning a lot except having fun and my own pace and I think that's what I need I'm a bit into cottage-core mixed with something around Japanese, zen themes though!

 

[dizzy bone]

The only thing I planned out map-wise before the release was my island name, cherries, orange airport, and the RC close to my airport. I didn't care what villagers would move in but I did plan on scanning Dizzy in as my 10th villager. I wasn't sure what kind of items I'd be working with so I didn't determine a theme for my island in advance. I just wanted to play the island naturally and go with the flow. At first I went with a survival/horror theme because I was working with a lot of log furniture, spiky fences, and a bunch of snapping turtles and the godzilla statue lol. After a few months I finally started planning out ways to undo bits and pieces of my original terraforming and make a more cohesive theme. I'm really glad I played the game this way, because even with the same old island and villagers I always feel like I have something new to do or fix without having the need to tear down my whole island. Working around my original island is also a fun challenge for me.

I also planned to play 100 days completely naturally with no time travel. I don't remember if I actually achieved this, but this is one of the first AC games where I probably spent more time playing naturally than playing with TT so that's already a personal feat in itself hahaha.

 

[CrankyCupcake]

Nope.

Even though several island names occurred to me, I didn't decide until I actually had the game and I was being asked to type the name in.

As for the island, villagers, layout matters and such, no planning was involved. I just went with the flow. I like playing dangerously.

 

[Bluelady]

Nope, there wasn’t a lot of planning before the game’s launch. I had to wing it for the most part.

Before New Horizons was released, I was sharing a Switch with my niece. As a result, we shared an island for some time. She has now inherited that island. Several times, I tried having conversations with her over what to name our island and what theme it would be. However, like a typical kid, her answers were always “I don’t know” or “it’s too early to decide.”

Eventually, I sat her tush down long enough to use a random town name generator and we liked the name, Pelatria. Afterwards, school closure and quarantine happened so I decided to build her a playground on our island.

 

[princess.looking.for.frog]

My name wasnt planned even though i was trying to, nothing clicked. Then i named my island Woodlårk after my imaginary town i created in a head canon story. Long story short i named it on the spot on the naming screen, though i knew the name before. I will probably do a small town inside the forest, surrounded by jungle, lakes, wild villagers (lol) and campsites.

Originally I thought of making a city like centre, which fades out into a forest, with cottagecore everything else. Though after seeing practically almost every island is cottagecore, i wanted something different. I branched off to junglecore but have only completed the entry. So sloww progress but i hope i get there.

 

[crispmaples]

I mostly had plans for my villagers. I tried to avoid spoilers before release, but I also wanted to know if the game was worth it for me. I didn't have much faith back then, because with new details coming in, I felt a little disappointed at the time. I had named my first island Snapdragon because of a tumblr post I had seen only a couple short months before release. Everything else I had done with that island came with inspiration from seeing what other people did with theirs and what I liked.

 

[Klauser_Bateson]

Not sure if this counts, but the only thing I had planned was I was going to attempt to grow the more complex hybrids (purple pansies, blue roses, etc.) on my own instead of buying them from other people like I did in New Leaf.

I was able to grow purple pansies and green mums on my own before I gave up.

 

[daffodilcrossing]

I don’t think I had anything planned originally for my island. I ended up restarting it last June after I flattened it then got overwhelmed. I am now on my third theme for this island and I think this could be my final theme. I feel like I’ve planned out better this time, which just works for me. I know some people just go with the flow which is crazy and I have no idea how they did that lol

 

[Moritz]

Not sure if this counts, but the only thing I had planned was I was going to attempt to grow the more complex hybrids (purple pansies, blue roses, etc.) on my own instead of buying them from other people like I did in New Leaf.

I was able to grow purple pansies and green mums on my own before I gave up.

I did blue roses on my own.
Green mums just sort of showed up one day by accident. Sometimes rain can be a good thing.
Still need the purple flowers. Next time leif has them I'll start breeding... maybe