Welcome to another YvoCaro Plays!
As always, these blurbs are mostly about the video games I’m currently playing. Unedited thoughts that spring up in my mind, sometimes game related. Or a random train of thoughts starting with the game and ending somewhere completely different! This time it’s very much game related, as I’ve gone back to playing Animal Crossing New Horizons.
If you like these bits of gaming thoughts you can find the previous ones here
Knee-Deep in Weeds and Flowers
Remember how I tend to say that I like to go where the gaming mood takes me? Ever since the Animal Crossing Direct on October 15 I was itching to go back to island life. The free update and the DLC (details about the free update and the DLC here) will add so much gameplay, that I had better get ready. No time then to redesign my island, better to do it now!
Back when New Horizons was released I had just landed a new job in real life that cost me a lot of time. Where fellow gamers, and the rest of the world that was in lockdown due to Covid, were happily puttering away unlocking terra-forming in no time, I was super busy doing work-stuff. And with other games being released to be reviewed and a constant battle to find free time, I always lagged behind.
Due to that false start, Hanalei has always been a bit wild. I did put in paths and such, but I never made huge infrastructural changes, only some puttering around with my house. When I went back after the Direct after months of absence, there was even one part of the island that had never seen anything but weeds. (Love how they change appearance and color during the seasons, by the way!) And another thing that grew like weed, although much more colorful: the flowers. Hanalei is simply overrun by it, I guess a Hawaiian name brings on bountiful tropical climates!
Time for Action at Hanalei
For a week now I have been looking at YouTube videos for inspiration. And was blown away by some of the beauties I’ve seen. Really, where do people come up with that kind of inspiration? I saw so many thing I want to incorporate that it was almost too much. I do pride myself on some creativity, but it feels like my creative bones have left my body. So many impressions, and so many ideas swirling around in my brain. Ideas that can’t come to life without making some radical changes.
I have a ravine in mind, with lush greenery to the side of my land bridge. The Museum looming on the highest plateau at the end. I want to use the stone platforms that jut out of the island. My own house needs some work done, inside and out. And I think I want to bring big changes to the Town Hall area. I’ve not yet made up my mind if I want a residential area for the animals. Will they be pleased living close together? Or do you think they are happy being spaced out, not getting on each others nerves? Lots of plans, I do hope it will all come together!
And you know what these changes mean? I will have to pay Nook the Crook loads of money. Bridges that I had paid for in the past have to be demolished (which costs bells) and new bridges have to be laid in (costing even more money). My daughter suggested that I put all the villagers houses on the beaches to obtain a sort of clean sheet to work on. A good suggestion, but that’ll cost buckets of money moving them to the beach and back to a new location. Again!
Forking out my hard earned bells is a challenge, but the fact that Nook can’t handle two things at a time is another thing interfering with this creative process taking the island by storm! This will take a week to even get him off his lazy behind and get everything I want done!
Convincing the Animals of my Vision
I’m not sure, but some of the animals may even have lodged complaints with Isabel. Where they were happily puttering away amidst the flowers and lovely vistas without much interference, they now have to deal with constant hacking and breaking. The animals have been woken up at the break of dawn to the sound of axes and tree trunks crashing down.
The island seems bare to them, and I’m sure they are not convinced things will turn out for the better. Their well trodden pathways are gone, and they find themselves without bridges to cross the river. Pancetti’s house is almost entirely isolated now, though I couldn’t bear to block her entrance entirely, she still has a small passage to the Town Square. Rolf had enough, he even turned tail and left! Fine by me, if he can’t have faith in the vision I have, than there’s no place for him at Hanalei!
On a more serious note, keeping my fingers crossed that my plans work out…if not I’ll have a tropical island that looks like a hurricane has hit!
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