How do you develop your towns in old Animal Crossing games?

[Lethalia]

In the previous installments, you were just a villager like everyone else, with no responsibilities as Mayor or Resident Representative. I just bought a copy of City Folk on eBay last night, and I was about to boot up my GameCube again and start a new town. The goal in New Leaf & New Horizons involves a lot of decorating and planning, building PWPs and stuff like that. Since the old games don't have those features, what were your goals with your towns?

 

[sunchild]

i played wild world and city folk when i was so young that honestly i don't really remember what my goals were lol, it all kinda seems like a blur. also back then i was more of a "casual" ac player and didn't really play like i do now. i think back then my only goals were to finish the museum (which i never did) and pay of all my loans and finish decorating my house (which i also never did lol).

 

[Hobowire]

To get out of debt. The GC one was there only other I played. I think there are speed runs on how quickly you pay it off in the GC version.

 

[Believe]

I didn't play back then tbh so I don't have a nostalgic lens, but I believe they were significantly more about community and developing a bond with your villagers. They've taken a lot of focus away from that in the more recent iterations and made it more goal based (Im going to count island/town designing as a goal) to make it more digestible to a wider audience and make it easier for people to rack up play hours to feel satisfied with their purchase

 

[xxcodexx]

write 2 billion letters to villagers. everyday. with gifts. LOL

in new leaf the villagers moving in and out, would mess up your entire towns design. thankfully theyve fixed that

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Hoard everything and put it in one of your many, many dressers in the basement.

 

[Licorice]

In the gamecube game I planted tons of flowers and put up signs with pictures I liked lmao

In city folk and ww I always just had a plain path lined with flowers.

 

[Fye]

In WW and CF my main goals were completing the museum, collecting gyroids, and breeding hybrids (I didn't use guides or google game stuff in general back then so it took quite a bit of trial and error). That, and trying to get the villagers I hated to move out I was never the type to hit villagers with nets or anything like that but I definitely remember digging holes around a few villagers' houses to make them mad hoping that they'd leave soon. And the ones I liked I would spoil rotten with gifts

 

[Pyoopi]

I barely remember WW and CF.

For the GameCube version, I was interested in custom designs and having my villagers wear them. I was really into writing letters and giving them gifts.

 

[Xara]

with wild world, i was so young that i didn’t really have any goals and quite honestly wasn’t sure what was going on half the time lmao. with new leaf, i was still fairly young and i never really planned anything out beyond what villagers i wanted so my towns all looked almost barren and disorganized by the time i stopped playing - but i guess two of the main goals i had were to complete the museum and have a large catalog, which i did c’:

 

[kiwikenobi]

I didn't play Wild World or City Folk, but I did play Animal Crossing on Gamecube. It came out when I was just starting high school, and it blew my teenage mind to have total freedom to do whatever I wanted to. Other games gave you clear goals and very obvious conditions when you were succeeding or failing. To play a game where I could do anything I wanted was such a novelty to me that I just kind of marveled at the freedom for months. Could pay off my debt... or not. Could decorate my house... or not. Could catch fish and bugs and plant trees and make money and friends... or not. Only had to do what I wanted to. I wound up doing just about everything it was possible to do in the end. Caught all the bugs and fish, collected just about every item, took part in every holiday. But I did it because I chose to do it, not because the game told me to. And that was amazing enough to me as a teenager that it kept me coming back almost every day for over a year.

The lack of town development didn't even occur to me because I was so overwhelmed with choices as it was. ^o^;>

 

[WynterFrost]

I was young when I started playing so I was just vibing really. I remember trying to grow all the hybrid flowers and writing to my villagers everyday to get their pictures and that was about it

 

[Alessio]

In Wild World, just upgrading my house, completing the museum, impatiently waiting for events to attend (especially Acorn Festival, Bright Nights, New Year's Eve and the snowmen season) and checking for Pascal, Gulliver, Wendell or Gracie to show up.
And of course speaking to villagers was really entertaining.

 

[Faux]

My goals are the same now as they were before:
Make a community for myself. Make it the best community that I can.

That's about it, lol.
It involves more things now than it used to, but it's ultimately stillthe same.