The 10 most helpful things I've learned from my "life" in New Leaf. (Warning LONG)
It's been six months since I first started playing New Leaf.
Here are lessons that I've learned, and I've learned from other long term players & their posts about mistakes/simple things they missed.
I'm quite happy with how my town has shaped up in the hundreds of hours that I have spent a large chunk of my free time on.
It's gone through many changes, and in the process of actually demolishing PWP, as my original intention was to line the river that divides the town with Lanterns (Zen Streetlights)--I discovered you can't actually do that, you can only have 30 PWP. <<Pro Tip!
1
The 30 PWP limit
So that's one thing I wish I looked up earlier--I planned my town & theme--but spent a lot of time & money on Lanterns when I should have spent it on the other PWP needed to create my theme.
Knowing about the 30 PWP limit would have helped a lot.
So I'm hoping for some other PWP to be suggested so that my dream of creating one of the frequently visited theme towns can come true.
Just today Muffy (uchi) suggested the bus stop--I've been waiting on this for a long time, as it looks like the whimsical cat bus stop from "My Neighbour Totoro"
I still need roughly 4-5 more PWP suggestions depending on space to create an artistic dream-like town. That still means destroying roughly 5 Lanterns...next update will be at night, so visit the dream suite every week or so if you want to see the Lanterns at night before they are pulled down.
2
Bridges
You cannot get the Zen or Fairytale bridge suggestions while you already have three bridges. Meaning you'll have to destroy one of the cobblestone bridges you put up earlier in the game when you want to give each section of town a sort of section or theme introduced via bridge power.
3
Towns can get static & gridlocked if you get all your dreamies too soon.
It's easy to get attached to villagers. So it's a good idea to let them come & go when they ask early on in the game while you are still building your town.
That way you can experience many villager friendships without a second cartridge.
I wasn't into "dreamies" for the first couple of months so luckily I avoided this trap & met a lot of people.
I then worked out my dreamies from my main town & cycle town. I also met cool villagers in trips from the Dream suite.
I almost feel into the trap over the last three months as I planned the moves Muffy, Tangy & Marina. However Colton & Chief randomly moved into my town...slowing down the process.
I'm glad these villagers I wasn't interested in came to my town, as they let me get to know Lobo who became one of my favourite people in town.
By the time I got to know many villagers it was six months into the game & experiencing "New Leaf" exhaustion, and I'm ready to finish theming my town & get my last villager. (hopefully Stitches for my lazy)
It's a good time for this as I hope to play a lot less after completing that goal.
My point being if I "finished" my villager collection too early, a lot of the joys of the game (meeting new & unexpected friends) would have been lost.
4
Good Maps
Chose a map where retail is close to the dock. I love my map, and in some ways I'm glad there isn't a shop near the pretty ocean.
However when I was making money on the island, I sure did wish I had Re-Tail near the dock. This would have made selling the items in the basket a lot easier.
5
Make your paths before planting flowers & trees.
Common sense...but still something I missed.
On the plus side if you have to cut down trees for development, you can sometimes cut you losses by discovering a mushroom stump. (stump with a pattern on top that attracts the growth of some crazy looking mushrooms, mushrooms with the power to make you grow like Alice in wonderland.)
Note: I later learned there is a silver axe you can get from the Island that creates mushroom stumps on the third swing. (I still don't have said axe)
6
Katrina/ Dr. Shrunk/ Redd visits/ Unorderables
It's important to remember to visit these characters whenever they are in town. Otherwise one day your Museum will be filled with everything but art & you'll have to trade endlessly as you try to complete your collection.
*This is fine if you like trading (I would if the times lined up) but if like me you have a different schedule to most people/ work shifts...meeting with people online will be difficult & frustrating.
You'll need to spotpass people instead & finish your catalog mostly via the HHA showcase. However this won't help your Museum collection, as art is unorderable.
Which reminds me of my point about...not chucking out Gyroids & regretting that later when you realize you cannot buy them again.
The same goes for Katrina. You need 20 visits to unlock her shop on main street. So never skip a visit.
Luckily the one bullet I did dodge was missing out on Dr. Shrunk. I liked his horrible jokes so much it was easier to remember to keep going. I just wish I remembered with my secondary character, as now when I trade with people all I can do is get mad or sneeze...
7
Be careful with time travel
So everyone thinks they know the dangers... Until they TT "just" two days...and lose Flurry....and feel the sadness until it's eventually filled with the arrival of an equally sweet villager...Marina.
If you have villagers you love, unless you just stopped someone from moving..there is no such thing as "just two days" when it comes to TTing!
Newcomers have been warned! (and no you can't get them back until you've had 16 villagers cycle in & out of your town...yes...16)
8
Villager Homes & Re Tail
A few weeks into the game it will occur to you that you DON'T want to try & get all the cool furniture off your villagers.
I am so grateful Phoebe didn't fall for my devious attempts to wave beds in front of her & hope to get her gorgeous bed.
You will notice that it's a LOT of hard work to try & make a nice house for your villager friends. It is much easier to buy furniture on TBT forums for yourself, than it is to ever replace the item in their home.
(Like the entire month I spent with THE MOUTH OF TRUTH haunting Keaton's house because I used to sell villagers whatever they asked to buy....I'm sorry Keaton, I'll pay for the therapy you'll need after that. )
9
Theme & house creation
If you want to create a theme town, chose a theme & get cataloging pronto. Don't turn down items if you can afford them.
If you can collect as many items as possible you'll be able to theme your house more easily with a full catalog.
This will also make the theme challenges easier. (Unlike me who took an "embarrassing" amount of time to complete the Harmonious challenge as half way through I ran out of items)
At first it was fun, but them it got tedious having my house stuck in a static style forever as I waited (& still wait) for the final touches.
I've finally cracked the million points..but boy am I sick of Harmonious items for now... the house looks great, but the back & upstairs room are still lacking "something"
I'm very proud of the rooms to the left & right.
Now I have a fuller catalog I'm thinking of having a crack at a second challenge, but I think I'm getting a little "New Leaf Fatigue"
so I'll only have the patience to re-do all the homes into a dream theme, and hopefully with all three homes completed & themed up, as well as matching PWP I'll attract more dream visits.
It would be a wonderful day when Lantern actually gets over 100 visits...but so far only 16...
As a perfectionist it's far from where I'd like it to be, but I'm still quite proud of how it's coming along. It's due for another update, but good so far.
10
Become a turnip trader to make big bells , not a cycle town owner if you can help it. (21-28 mill needed to fully expand all homes for a theme town)
Or
Cycle towns: "The dream solution/ most stressful thing ever...depending on your timezone."
So if your budget allows you could pick up a copy of New Leaf either second hand, or when on sale in the Nintendo shop.
You could then look up effective rapid cycle methods (involving time travelling by 5 days..but there are already tutorials about cycle towns out there that teach you about Re-Tail, and gemstones & TT methods etc)
This would give you access to any villager for your main town, and also help you make lots of bells if you don't mind selling villagers to people in the forum.
However, just because you can figure out how to rapid cycle, doesn't mean you can run a successful villager cycling thread.
I learning this the hard way in the forum with Carousel Town.
I put up pictures, humourous descriptions (well at least I thought it was funny, and I got some compliments) of the villagers being auctioned & countless hours trying to work out how to make graphics for the thread & other ways to make it actually...stop failing.
I couldn't get an artist for the thread or more importantly ABILITY/AVAILABILITY TO BE ONLINE AT CONSISTENT/INCONVENIENT TIMES TO TRADE WITH PEOPLE OF FROM ALL (*A.K.A. American) TIMEZONES.
This meant that no matter how many replies the thread got (not many, so even if i were there, I didn't have many customers waiting) if I wasn't there the villager didn't trade itself, and also there are many established cycle town threads, so mine was just clutter in the forum.
Some people make lots of bells, some people like me feel EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED and it turns the game from fun into work.
Especially if people argue about prices etc....it can be very challenging. I went through a period of being mildly unpleasant because of the frustration I felt at spending nearly a whole day typing up & arranging a sale only to have price complaints or no one coming (and also feeling guilty making people buy dreamies at a decent price because I'm a giver at heart)...but spending millions in another thread...
Then there will be the inevitable "how original is she/he" "oh that's just a low tier/unpopular one" type of things that will frustrate you if you can relate to me & this post.
I tackled the issue incorrectly, by adding copious thread rules, hoping to nip issues in the bud. It just made it worse, and I have to accept I'm not good at running chops/cycle towns.
A better way to make big bells would be to slow cycle without the pressure, or turnip trade. EDIT AFTER SOME HELPFUL COMMENTS: I forgot to mention that one of the ways I solved the bell shortage issue I was having while theming my town was the TBT--IGB trading on this very forum. Extremely useful & this is what I ended up doing for most of my bells, as well as selling 3 top tier villagers, most of my bells came from TBT exchange. There is also a badge for turnip trading, so if you want all the badges you know there isn't a badge for cycle town owning (although there should be)
* There's always going to be that person who is going to give a lecture about bug hunting on the Island, and yes I spent hours doing that, but often can't TT to 7pm/be around at that time.
It also won't get you all the bells needed if your goal is to create a fully expanded & finished with PWP project theme town that people would actually want to visit (e.g. Aika town, Moonlite, Cherish, Goblin), as opposed to bells required for normal town living (which isn't much at all- just shake some fruit trees. )
The biggest thing I learnt from running the cycle town was that I did cut down on a some stress by making clear prices & times for trade, therefore asking people to trade in my time, instead of me being awake all over the place!
The other thing was you have to utilize the power of copy & paste, as people often won't read the info in the OP, making your life hard.
The "little" details that make the difference
Make sure to do requests for your villagers, and don't ever be too busy making bells, cycling or decorating your mansion that you forget your little friends.
When you want all the fancy photos, you'll see the friendship would have gotten you those for free.
That is something I can happily say I didn't miss or get "wrong" (as you can see there was lots I did get "wrong"!) I have all 3 badges for both letter writing & requests.
I have gotten the photos of all my original villagers naturally (not buying) & only have my newer villagers left.
I look forward to the day where I can put Lobo's picture front & center in my home!
As Lobo says:
It's been six months since I first started playing New Leaf.
Here are lessons that I've learned, and I've learned from other long term players & their posts about mistakes/simple things they missed.
I'm quite happy with how my town has shaped up in the hundreds of hours that I have spent a large chunk of my free time on.
It's gone through many changes, and in the process of actually demolishing PWP, as my original intention was to line the river that divides the town with Lanterns (Zen Streetlights)--I discovered you can't actually do that, you can only have 30 PWP. <<Pro Tip!
1
The 30 PWP limit
So that's one thing I wish I looked up earlier--I planned my town & theme--but spent a lot of time & money on Lanterns when I should have spent it on the other PWP needed to create my theme.
Knowing about the 30 PWP limit would have helped a lot.
So I'm hoping for some other PWP to be suggested so that my dream of creating one of the frequently visited theme towns can come true.
Just today Muffy (uchi) suggested the bus stop--I've been waiting on this for a long time, as it looks like the whimsical cat bus stop from "My Neighbour Totoro"
I still need roughly 4-5 more PWP suggestions depending on space to create an artistic dream-like town. That still means destroying roughly 5 Lanterns...next update will be at night, so visit the dream suite every week or so if you want to see the Lanterns at night before they are pulled down.
2
Bridges
You cannot get the Zen or Fairytale bridge suggestions while you already have three bridges. Meaning you'll have to destroy one of the cobblestone bridges you put up earlier in the game when you want to give each section of town a sort of section or theme introduced via bridge power.
3
Towns can get static & gridlocked if you get all your dreamies too soon.
It's easy to get attached to villagers. So it's a good idea to let them come & go when they ask early on in the game while you are still building your town.
That way you can experience many villager friendships without a second cartridge.
I wasn't into "dreamies" for the first couple of months so luckily I avoided this trap & met a lot of people.
I then worked out my dreamies from my main town & cycle town. I also met cool villagers in trips from the Dream suite.
I almost feel into the trap over the last three months as I planned the moves Muffy, Tangy & Marina. However Colton & Chief randomly moved into my town...slowing down the process.
I'm glad these villagers I wasn't interested in came to my town, as they let me get to know Lobo who became one of my favourite people in town.
By the time I got to know many villagers it was six months into the game & experiencing "New Leaf" exhaustion, and I'm ready to finish theming my town & get my last villager. (hopefully Stitches for my lazy)
It's a good time for this as I hope to play a lot less after completing that goal.
My point being if I "finished" my villager collection too early, a lot of the joys of the game (meeting new & unexpected friends) would have been lost.
4
Good Maps
Chose a map where retail is close to the dock. I love my map, and in some ways I'm glad there isn't a shop near the pretty ocean.
However when I was making money on the island, I sure did wish I had Re-Tail near the dock. This would have made selling the items in the basket a lot easier.
5
Make your paths before planting flowers & trees.
Common sense...but still something I missed.
On the plus side if you have to cut down trees for development, you can sometimes cut you losses by discovering a mushroom stump. (stump with a pattern on top that attracts the growth of some crazy looking mushrooms, mushrooms with the power to make you grow like Alice in wonderland.)
Note: I later learned there is a silver axe you can get from the Island that creates mushroom stumps on the third swing. (I still don't have said axe)
6
Katrina/ Dr. Shrunk/ Redd visits/ Unorderables
It's important to remember to visit these characters whenever they are in town. Otherwise one day your Museum will be filled with everything but art & you'll have to trade endlessly as you try to complete your collection.
*This is fine if you like trading (I would if the times lined up) but if like me you have a different schedule to most people/ work shifts...meeting with people online will be difficult & frustrating.
You'll need to spotpass people instead & finish your catalog mostly via the HHA showcase. However this won't help your Museum collection, as art is unorderable.
Which reminds me of my point about...not chucking out Gyroids & regretting that later when you realize you cannot buy them again.
The same goes for Katrina. You need 20 visits to unlock her shop on main street. So never skip a visit.
Luckily the one bullet I did dodge was missing out on Dr. Shrunk. I liked his horrible jokes so much it was easier to remember to keep going. I just wish I remembered with my secondary character, as now when I trade with people all I can do is get mad or sneeze...
7
Be careful with time travel
So everyone thinks they know the dangers... Until they TT "just" two days...and lose Flurry....and feel the sadness until it's eventually filled with the arrival of an equally sweet villager...Marina.
If you have villagers you love, unless you just stopped someone from moving..there is no such thing as "just two days" when it comes to TTing!
Newcomers have been warned! (and no you can't get them back until you've had 16 villagers cycle in & out of your town...yes...16)
8
Villager Homes & Re Tail
A few weeks into the game it will occur to you that you DON'T want to try & get all the cool furniture off your villagers.
I am so grateful Phoebe didn't fall for my devious attempts to wave beds in front of her & hope to get her gorgeous bed.
You will notice that it's a LOT of hard work to try & make a nice house for your villager friends. It is much easier to buy furniture on TBT forums for yourself, than it is to ever replace the item in their home.
(Like the entire month I spent with THE MOUTH OF TRUTH haunting Keaton's house because I used to sell villagers whatever they asked to buy....I'm sorry Keaton, I'll pay for the therapy you'll need after that.
)9
Theme & house creation
If you want to create a theme town, chose a theme & get cataloging pronto. Don't turn down items if you can afford them.
If you can collect as many items as possible you'll be able to theme your house more easily with a full catalog.
This will also make the theme challenges easier. (Unlike me who took an "embarrassing" amount of time to complete the Harmonious challenge as half way through I ran out of items)
At first it was fun, but them it got tedious having my house stuck in a static style forever as I waited (& still wait) for the final touches.
I've finally cracked the million points..but boy am I sick of Harmonious items for now... the house looks great, but the back & upstairs room are still lacking "something"
I'm very proud of the rooms to the left & right.
Now I have a fuller catalog I'm thinking of having a crack at a second challenge, but I think I'm getting a little "New Leaf Fatigue"
so I'll only have the patience to re-do all the homes into a dream theme, and hopefully with all three homes completed & themed up, as well as matching PWP I'll attract more dream visits.
It would be a wonderful day when Lantern actually gets over 100 visits...but so far only 16...
As a perfectionist it's far from where I'd like it to be, but I'm still quite proud of how it's coming along. It's due for another update, but good so far.
10
Become a turnip trader to make big bells , not a cycle town owner if you can help it. (21-28 mill needed to fully expand all homes for a theme town)
Or
Cycle towns: "The dream solution/ most stressful thing ever...depending on your timezone."
So if your budget allows you could pick up a copy of New Leaf either second hand, or when on sale in the Nintendo shop.
You could then look up effective rapid cycle methods (involving time travelling by 5 days..but there are already tutorials about cycle towns out there that teach you about Re-Tail, and gemstones & TT methods etc)
This would give you access to any villager for your main town, and also help you make lots of bells if you don't mind selling villagers to people in the forum.
However, just because you can figure out how to rapid cycle, doesn't mean you can run a successful villager cycling thread.
I learning this the hard way in the forum with Carousel Town.
I put up pictures, humourous descriptions (well at least I thought it was funny, and I got some compliments) of the villagers being auctioned & countless hours trying to work out how to make graphics for the thread & other ways to make it actually...stop failing.
I couldn't get an artist for the thread or more importantly ABILITY/AVAILABILITY TO BE ONLINE AT CONSISTENT/INCONVENIENT TIMES TO TRADE WITH PEOPLE OF FROM ALL (*A.K.A. American) TIMEZONES.
This meant that no matter how many replies the thread got (not many, so even if i were there, I didn't have many customers waiting) if I wasn't there the villager didn't trade itself, and also there are many established cycle town threads, so mine was just clutter in the forum.
Some people make lots of bells, some people like me feel EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED and it turns the game from fun into work.
Especially if people argue about prices etc....it can be very challenging. I went through a period of being mildly unpleasant because of the frustration I felt at spending nearly a whole day typing up & arranging a sale only to have price complaints or no one coming (and also feeling guilty making people buy dreamies at a decent price because I'm a giver at heart)...but spending millions in another thread...
Then there will be the inevitable "how original is she/he" "oh that's just a low tier/unpopular one" type of things that will frustrate you if you can relate to me & this post.
I tackled the issue incorrectly, by adding copious thread rules, hoping to nip issues in the bud. It just made it worse, and I have to accept I'm not good at running chops/cycle towns.
A better way to make big bells would be to slow cycle without the pressure, or turnip trade. EDIT AFTER SOME HELPFUL COMMENTS: I forgot to mention that one of the ways I solved the bell shortage issue I was having while theming my town was the TBT--IGB trading on this very forum. Extremely useful & this is what I ended up doing for most of my bells, as well as selling 3 top tier villagers, most of my bells came from TBT exchange. There is also a badge for turnip trading, so if you want all the badges you know there isn't a badge for cycle town owning (although there should be)
* There's always going to be that person who is going to give a lecture about bug hunting on the Island, and yes I spent hours doing that, but often can't TT to 7pm/be around at that time.
It also won't get you all the bells needed if your goal is to create a fully expanded & finished with PWP project theme town that people would actually want to visit (e.g. Aika town, Moonlite, Cherish, Goblin), as opposed to bells required for normal town living (which isn't much at all- just shake some fruit trees. )
The biggest thing I learnt from running the cycle town was that I did cut down on a some stress by making clear prices & times for trade, therefore asking people to trade in my time, instead of me being awake all over the place!
The other thing was you have to utilize the power of copy & paste, as people often won't read the info in the OP, making your life hard.
The "little" details that make the difference
Make sure to do requests for your villagers, and don't ever be too busy making bells, cycling or decorating your mansion that you forget your little friends.
When you want all the fancy photos, you'll see the friendship would have gotten you those for free.
That is something I can happily say I didn't miss or get "wrong" (as you can see there was lots I did get "wrong"!) I have all 3 badges for both letter writing & requests.
I have gotten the photos of all my original villagers naturally (not buying) & only have my newer villagers left.
I look forward to the day where I can put Lobo's picture front & center in my home!
As Lobo says:
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