Eligible Penrith [ hard mode island ] ♡

[LoserMom]

[ hard mode island ]

I've been wanting to get back into animal crossing for such a long time but I just couldn't find the motivation to pick the game back up. The new island journal event was making me start to consider playing the game again but it still wasn't enough.. but then.. the other day I stumbled upon a new "challenge" that a youtuber came up with to play animal crossing in hard mode. I find that I always get bored of animal crossing so quick because I already have everything at my fingertips through cataloging, trading, etc.. but with this new challenge I think it will make the game a lot more fun and rewarding for me. The first step in the challenge is to obviously start a new island. You have the choice to re-roll for new maps once if you don't like what is first given to you but I went with one of my first options.

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The next step in your new island journey is to come up with your island name except you don't have full control over your name because your island name needs to come from a random name generator.. (how many times do you think I can say the word "name" in a sentence?) I went with the name I liked most from the first generated list which ended up being Penrith!

After landing at the island and getting acquainted with my new surroundings, it was time to find a spot for my tent! There was a cute area in the south-east corner of the map with a little pond that I thought was the perfect place.. I, then, checked on my new neighbors Bill and Flo to see if they were having any trouble finding their places to call home. Another part of the challenge is that you can't let one of your starters move out until you receive their photo so I think I'm going to choose Bill for that task.. Once we were all happy with our choices it was time to start the grind to get our museum open!

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Within a couple of hours we had gathered enough fish and bugs for Blather's to decide that he wanted to set up a museum on our new island! Bill was even out fishing to help too. We were starting to get a nice stock-pile of creatures to donate to the museum once it becomes open. Leftover bugs can only be sold to Flick and leftover fish can only be sold to CJ so my island will probably be stuck looking like a messy aquarium outside for a while..

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All throughout the time that I was out fishing, catching bugs, and gathering materials I had been racking up some nook miles. I was able to earn enough to pay off my first loan to Tom Nook! I'll be out of my tent and in a nice, new house by tomorrow! After running around all day it was time for some much needed rest! I climbed into my tent to enjoy my last (and only) night of sleeping in a tent before I'd have a brand new place to call home!

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Spoiler: hard mode rules/info for anyone interested

 

[LoserMom]

Started the morning off with some community bonding over our daily stretching!

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After stretching, I went inside Resident Services to see if they had any tasks for me to do for the day. Timmy asked if I'd help gather materials so that a new shop could be built! I immediately started crafting some new tools because all of my old tools were worn out from the day before. Bill heard that materials were being gathered for a new shop so he decided to chip in and donate some iron nuggets for the cause. While I was hitting rocks for stone and iron I ended up finding my first money rock on Penrith!

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A series of unfortunate events...

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While out gathering materials and doing my daily chores, I had ended up collecting enough fossils and combined those with the fish and creatures that I caught the day before so that we could open a real museum! I was also able to collect enough wood and, with the help of Bill, I was able to gather enough iron for the process to start of getting a shop built!

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Another successful day complete on Penrith!

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[LoserMom]

My weekends are usually pretty busy so I only have enough time to do the regular dailies. I did get to accomplish a couple of things though such as setting up Penrith's first bridge, putting down the first 3 villager plots (and getting the furniture required for them), Nook's Cranny was built, and the museum was built!

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My first plot ended up auto-filling with Bob and then I bought 2 nook miles tickets to see who I'd find to fill the other 2 plots. I ended up getting so lucky with these first few villagers! The first island had Stella and she was just too cute to pass up. When I arrived at the second I thought for sure that I would be disappointed because I already had 2 good villagers but it ended up having Rosie! So I invited her to move to Penrith as well.

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Over the course of these past few days I've been building up nook miles and was finally able to purchase new hairstyles and colors so I changed up my look a little. Also used some "makeup" to add some eyebrows and freckles. A part of this challenge is making your own designs so I put together this simple, cute sweater after getting some inspiration from other's designs. I haven't been able to purchase any new shoes or hats yet though so I'm stuck with what I started with for those items. I'm terrible at making my own designs though so I may give in at some point and use other people's designs but I'll make sure that they're at least made by other people that are playing hard mode!

Penrith's resident services is under construction at the moment so it can upgrade so we'll finally have that tomorrow! I can't wait for that so I can start working towards unlocking terraforming. In the meantime I really need to start working on designing some paths to put around the island. I'll definitely be taking a peak at a lot of tutorials for this because I'm so bad at all types of art and creativity!​

 

[LoserMom]

These updates are probably going to start becoming much shorter now that I've finished the first week on Penrith since a lot of the tedious work is done during those first few days. Resident Services has now, finally, upgraded into an actual building! Woo. Which also means that Isabelle is now here and will start doing the morning announcements for the island. When I went inside and checked the ABD I realized that I had made enough money (mostly from diving for sea creatures) to pay off another home loan! Thank goodness because I could really use some extra storage. There's a lot of restrictions on what you can sell/who you can sell to during this hard mode challenge so when I checked my Nook Stop I had never been so happy to see a garbage can for sale! I desperately need one of those to get rid of some of the junk I've been saving that I have no use for. Tom Nook asked me if I could find a spot for a campsite on the island so I did that for him as well!

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The rest of my day was mainly spent on starting the creation of some paths. I made an attempt to create The Path™ and a wooden plank path. If you don't look at them too closely then they don't look too bad. I don't love them though so I'm not sure if I'll keep them/try to work on them some more OR just give in and use someone else's paths. Maybe they'll start looking better once they're surrounded by decorations and other things for people to put more focus on..

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[LoserMom]

Penrith's campsite is officially up! We should be getting some campers soon and should hopefully be able to start working towards our island rating. I'm eager to unlock terraforming and start working on some new things around the island. I'm still trying to decide if I just want to use the paths that you unlock in the game, use the custom path I made, or use another hard mode player's paths.. Decisions decisions..

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Yesterday I took some time to create a new flag. It was heavily inspired by some flags I was looking at on Pinterest. I definitely don't plan on this being the permanent flag for Penrith but I just wanted to get something put up for the time being. After completing that I went to work on my first home as a Paradise Planner! I spotted Maple out on the beach and I had to decorate a vacation home for her. I loved the way her little cabin turned out and she was pleased with it as well!

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After all that work it was time to relax and fish for some things that I hadn't caught/donated yet. I ran around my beaches for a while digging up manila clams so I could craft a bit of fish bait. I mainly stuck to fishing off the pier and was able to catch a tuna and blue marlin! I quit fishing after that because there was too much outside noise around me so I kept messing up my catches and was just wasting bait at that point..

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To end the night I had a nice, unexpected, visit from Celeste! It was her first visit to Penrith and she gave me the DIY recipe for a star wand. Sadly, I didn't end up seeing any shooting stars so I won't be able to make that wand anytime soon..

 

[LoserMom]

Instead of keeping track of the days at the top of my posts I'm going to change it up and have it display which journal entry I'm on because it seems like the better option. Anyways - over the weekend Mabel stopped by and offered to set up a clothing store on the island so we got that set up and it opened for the first time yesterday!

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Penrith also had it's first campsite villager over the weekend, Raymond. I'm actually not a big fan of Raymond but one of the hard mode rules is that you have to have campsite villagers move onto your island sooo he's now a resident of Penrith! I also went to a couple of nook miles islands to see who I could find to fill a couple of plots. Maple was on one of the first few islands (I forgot to take a picture though, sadly!). I wasn't planning on bringing any normal villagers back to the island but I felt like I had to bring her since I had just decorated a vacation home for her a few days before. After inviting her I was on the hunt for a snooty or cranky villager and on my 3rd island I had found Whitney and thought she would be another great addition to Penrith!

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Here's just a couple other random images from the weekend. I did some temporary decorating at my island entrance for the time being until I unlock terraforming. I made that path myself thanks to April Honey's tutorials on youtube. Those are a lifesaver for this challenge! I had a couple visitors over the weekend including Saharah and Gullivarrr! I also found a lost book one morning and knew I had to take a picture to post on here since that's the collectible I'm working towards getting with this island journal event! And I, of course, had to include the image of Stella and Bill sitting under the same tree together because they're such cuties! Anyways, see you guys soon~

 

[LoserMom]

Today was a pretty slow, uneventful day on Penrith. Mainly just did my regular tasks that I do every day like morning stretches, hitting rocks, diving for sea creatures, etc.. I've almost made enough money to pay off my next loan! Hopefully I'll be able to do that in the next couple of days.

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I put a new plot of land down for my 9th villager and decided to go on a small hunt for a cranky villager since that's the only personality type that Penrith is missing. Sadly, none of the 10 islands that I visited had a cranky villager so I'll have to let the plot auto-fill and hope for the best. These were some of the cuties (and not so cuties..) that I had to pass up. I also got lucky on one of the tickets and found my first bamboo island!

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I ended the day with some work! I made a simple actress greenroom for Gigi! I definitely could've done a better job but I was tired by this point and kind of rushed it. Woops.. Sorry, Gigi!

 

[LoserMom]

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I ran around the island and planted a ton of new flowers so when I woke up this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that Penrith has now reached 3 stars!! Woohoo! K.K. Slider should be making a visit tomorrow morning! I also checked the ABD to see how much money I had accumulated from all of my diving for sea creatures and I had made enough to pay off my home loan! You could definitely say it was a successful morning. I can't wait to have more storage in my house!

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All of the crops that I had planted near my entrance have finished growing so the farm looks so much better! Once I have more storage in my house I'll start actually picking the crops so I can start stockpiling them for when I unlock recipes to make some extra money. I also had my first blue hyacinth grow! One step closer to purple. There wasn't much excitement around Penrith after the first few things in the morning. I caught Bob reading a book on the floor in his house, built a bike garage for Walker, and gave Bill some medicine because he wasn't feeling too good.. I had to make sure he was feeling better for the K.K. Slider performance that's going to happen in the morning!

 

[LoserMom]

Look who finally made their first appearance on Penrith!! The one and only K.K. Slider! All of the residents of Penrith were elated to see his first performance on the island. Now that he's visited, pretty soon I plan to start working on some terraforming projects around the island. I'll probably start near my entrance because I always feel like that's one of the first things that should be worked on since that's the first thing people see when they visit your island.

Kapp'n has also officially taken over his spot at the pier! I didn't have enough time to play yesterday so I, unfortunately, haven't been able to have him take me to a mystery island..yet! You're only allowed to visit one mystery island a day in hard mode so I might add that to my daily list of things to do.

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I went to do a little work as a paradise planner but instead of decorating a home, I was asked to decorate a local school! I think it came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I do wish I had more decorations to hang on the wall but I'm still pretty happy with it!

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I ended my short play time with some group stretching! That's usually how I start my day but since I knew I wasn't going to have a whole lot of time to play I decided to push it off to do other more important things first. But I, of course, still made time for this great bonding time with my residents!

 

[LoserMom]

This morning when I went to get some fossils assessed Blathers ended up telling me that he had the idea of opening up a cafe in the museum! I had Kapp'n take me on my first mystery island tour and found Brewster! I also was able to dig up my first gyroid fragment. I took it back to the island and buried it so hopefully I get a cute gyroid from it!

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The other day I received a letter from Harvey telling me to visit him so I finally had the time to do that today. He told me about the new plaza he wanted to open and I made a small donation towards opening up Katrina's spot because one of the daily things you're supposed to do during hard mode is getting your fortune read by Katrina so I want to make sure that's the first thing I unlock in the plaza.

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When I went to work I was surprised to see Leif on the island getting ready to do a lecture in the school that I had just designed the day before. I sat in for his class and it was great! I ended up being able to use some of the info while decorating an island home for Flora by putting some cute pink hybrid flowers outside of her house.

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Finally, my 9th plot that I had placed quite a few days ago filled! I had been needing a cranky villager and it auto-filled with Grizzly! He's not my favorite cranky villager but I'm not too mad about it! Now that this is my last entry for the journal event I do plan on continuing to post updates on here but they will be much more spaced out and will probably only happen when I make some major changes to the island or something more noteworthy happens. I had a lot of fun with this event though and it helped get me back into the game and I think it will make me continue playing the game more than I ever have before! ♡