Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still the hot ticket in town that gamers are buzzing about. It is the first console entry in the series in a very long time, it is charming in every way possible, and it offers a casual experience like no other game. In many ways, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a must-have for every Switch owner, because it provides a means of gameplay that is truly unique and helps to calm the mind and soul.
But despite that, Animal Crossing: New Horizons still has a lot happening that many casual players may be unaware of. To make things easier for you, I have decided to compile a list of tips and tricks to make your Animal Crossing: New Horizons experience easier! Some things may seem unclear, so let me help you get the ball rolling.
Collect Every Fruit
In Animal Crossing games, fruit is a big deal. Islands uniquely start off with one type of fruit, but there are many more to pick from trees. There are:
- Apples
- Cherries
- Coconuts
- Oranges
- Pears
- Peaches
All of those fruits can be received a couple different ways, but the easiest is by connecting with friends online that have different fruits on their islands. Coconuts are an easy one to get if you buy a Nook Miles Ticket and visit one of the random Mystery Islands, as they tend to frequently be available on the beaches. If you are lucky, you can even get different fruits on these islands as well.
Fruits Give You Super Powers
New to Animal Crossing: New Horizons is gaining super powers when eating fruits. For each fruit you eat, your character gains uncanny strength that causes them to do abnormal things.
Eating a piece of fruit gives you a temporary boost in strength, and you can store up to ten power strikes at one time by eating ten pieces of fruit. You can then use the power trikes to cut down or uproot trees in one swing, or you can break a boulder with one hit of a shovel. But beware, destroying rocks or trees this way will not drop any materials, which loses out on the chance to gather precious resources.
Rock Tricks
Getting resources from rocks is quite important for crafting things in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but getting the full amount of resources from each rock can be a bit tricky, as each each hit with the shovel pushes you back a little bit. This can possibly cause you to miss one or two resources from a given rock, which can be a bit frustrating.
Thankfully, there is a fun trick to help. You can dig a couple holes behind you or place a couple items on the ground to prevent you from getting pushed back to far, allowing you to harvest the full 8 items from one rock.
Learning Recipes for DIY
New to New Horizons are DIY recipes and crafting. This has been a godsend to fans of the series, as this allows us to casually make our own furniture or tools without needing to buy from the store.
DIY recipes are regularly available through various means. They can be received from NPCs like Tom Nook and from your fellow villagers. They can also be found inside bottles on the beach or in presents floating in the sky. Since there are hundreds and hundreds of recipes, it would be wise to collect and learn as much as you can whenever you can.
Filling Out Your Museum
At the beginning of the game, you want to give Tom Nook 5 fish and 5 insects as soon as you can. This will unlock the museum, and that is when things get really fun.
One of my favorite in Animal Crossing is the museum. Filling it out completely takes a lot of time, and it daily gives you something to do. The museum collects one of every type of fish, bug, and fossil so they can display them in the museum for all of the villagers to enjoy. Finding all of them and donating to the museum adds so much value to your island and its attractions, so try to fill it out!
Interacting with Visitors
Some visitors regularly come to your village to offer all kinds of random service. There is a guy that is infatuated with bugs and will pay top dollar for them, and there is a fishing aficionado that challenges you to catch certain types of fish.
But there are so many more! Interacting with them usually rewards you with special items, so definitely take advantage of their visitation. This is even more important to consider when special events happen around certain holidays, like the recent Bunny Day celebration for Easter. Just make sure you spend time with your visitors and get the most out of their time there!
Nook Miles
Nook Miles are another new addition in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and they basically serve as an alternate currency. The nice thing about Nook Miles is that you can earn them fairly easy by just doing regular activities like harvesting rocks and trees, talking to villagers, and selling things.
After you buy your house, you will be a part of the Nook Miles+ program which gives you even more daily tasks to earn more Nook Miles. It is simply a fun incentive that offers a lot of great rewards, like the aforementioned Nook Miles Ticket that allows you a trip to one of the Mystery Islands.
Level Up Your Tools ASAP
The next three are things you need to purchase as soon as you can. When you earn enough Nook Miles, upgrading your DIY recipes to learn the Pretty Good Tools recipes is essential.
For 3000 Nook Miles, you will learn how to craft better versions of all of your tools, and they will last a lot longer.
Upgrade Your Inventory ASAP
When you first start the game, you may think your pockets are shockingly shallow, and that is because they are.
There are two different updates for your inventory. The first one is called Pocket Organization Guide, and it costs 5000 Nook Miles, which is a hefty price, albeit necessary. The second one is the Ultimate Pocket Stuffing Guide, and this one costs a whopping 8000 Nook Miles.
But believe me, they are absolutely needed, and you will be much happier after buying them.
Purchase the Tool Ring ASAP
It is simply listed as “Tool Ring: It’s Essential”.
It’s only 800 Nook Miles, and it is absolutely essential. Just do it!
Don’t Run Everywhere
When it comes to moving around your island, running seems like the best and fastest method, so that is what we all do. Unfortunately, doing so will result in scaring off fish and bugs, which can be devastating, especially when the potential fish or bug is a rare one that only spawns every so often.
Pay Off Your Loans
This may be second nature for Animal Crossing veterans, but pay off your loans as frequently as you can. You cannot get your house until you pay off the initial loan, and you cannot expand your house until… well, you pay off your loan.
Many rookie players tend to procrastinate doing this in favor of other things, but in the process, they prevent themselves from experiencing even more by neglecting these loan payments.
Inviting New Residents to Your Island
One of the best things about Animal Crossing are the villagers. They are so wildly different and full of life, it will truly blow your mind just how expressive they can be with such little voices.
Inviting villagers to your island is essential in raising the status of the island and giving you more opportunity to receive fun and unique items. You can easily invite a couple residents early in the game from mystery islands, but after the Resident Center is established, you will be able to invite new villagers from amiibo and amiibo cards as well. Amiibo is a fun way to get animal types and personalities that you prefer, making your island even more uniquely yours.
Beautifying Your Island
Another way to improve the status of your island is by decorating it. In New Horizons, you are now able to place many indoor items outside, which can really help beautify your island.
Crafting things like walls, fences, streetlights, and benches among many other things will really help make your island look like a proper village and a place where people want to live.
Turnips
Buying and selling turnips is the best way to make a ton of money really quickly. Once a week on Sunday, Daisy Mae visits your island to sell her famous turnips at a fairly cheap price, but this comes with a bit of a caveat.
These turnips will spoil after 7 days, so you need to sell them before the next time Daisy Mae shows up. If you buy one turnip for 106 bells and sell it to Nook’s Cranny some time in the week for 220 bells, you can more than double your money. Buying large bulks will return you even more money, so learning this trade can help a lot in regards to paying loans and buying certain infrastructure.
Time Travel
Last but not least is maybe the most controversial trick, but it is something veterans have been doing since the series began. If you change the Switch’s internal clock and reopen the game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons will correlate with that new time.
You can easily travel to every season in an hour with this trick, which can help you collect seasonal exclusive bugs and fish much earlier than you should be.
Some players see this as a bit unethical, as you can collect holiday exclusive items and material way before you should be able to, but ultimately, it is still a game and for your own personal enjoyment. If you want to travel to December right now, why not? If you would rather play the game naturally, that is cool, too. Just know that time travel is available for those seeking it! And it is really easy to do. I mean really easy.
There are some tips and tricks to get you moving in Animal Crossing: New Horizons! Do you have any other tips you would like to share? Let us know in the comments below!
Thank you so much for visiting us here at SwitchWatch.co.uk. Don’t forget to check out our YouTube channel as well when you have a chance! Happy gaming, everyone.
What's Your Reaction?
