Here’s another update about my Animal Crossing New Horizons island, Neptune! I’m still playing every day and this post covers the next weeks, from unlocking the island designer tool to achieving a perfect 5 star rating.
The island designer lets you customise your island in ways we only dreamed of. As well as adding paths to the ground, you can change the shape of the rivers, add or remove ponds and even build or knock down cliffs. It’s hard to know where to start, and a bit tricky to get the hang of, but I made a mini island to start things off.
I was also pleased with the first version of my walled garden, which took a bit of river and cliff editing to figure out. Starting with small areas was definitely the way to go and helped me decide on a bigger theme for my island.
While I enjoy seeing all the amazing things people have done with their islands, I decided I wanted to keep mine quite natural. I have a tendency towards symmetry so I have worked hard against that not to have any straight rivers or square cliffs.
I also created a few custom patterns to do things like this picnic blanket on the beach, though sadly no villagers ever want to have a picnic with me.
I wasn’t sure I would ever manage a 5 star town as everyone’s looked so cluttered to me but I really wanted that golden watering can! I started taking things a bit more seriously and laid down paths, made gardens for my villagers and moved some buildings and features to better spots. I love my space garden even more now!
And then one day I found a lily of the valley which means you have a perfect town. I was so surprised as I’d been stuck on 4 stars and ‘needs more decoration’ for SO LONG.
Do you want to know how I got over the line? This is a little embarrassing but I sat down and drew a rough map of my island grid and then went round and added dots for all the items I’d placed. For a 5 star rating you need to have placed multiple items (both bought and DIYs) in every grid square, apart from the tiny beach ones.
This helped me figure out which areas were lacking (mainly the beaches) and I was able to come up with some cute displays.
I feel quite proud of my island now as it still feels like a nice place to live, and not a crazy theme park. Which is fine of course, and I love seeing over the top islands. I just don’t want to play on one every day. There’s still plenty room for more development too so I won’t get bored of the game for a while.
My house has grown too and now has 6 rooms.
I especially like my bedroom/craft room, which I would be quite happy to live in.
Things have changed quite a bit since I took these screenshots and I’m working on an island tour so you can see everything. Here’s a comparison of the map from May (top) to July (bottom). A few villager changes too!
If you want to see more of what’s going on in Neptune, you can follow me on Twitter @marcelineACNH, and don’t forget to download my cute custom clothing designs.
