With Animal Crossing: New Horizons' cherry blossom season about to come to an end, many players are currently working hard to collect all of the cherry blossom recipes before they become temporarily unavailable. One of the best ways to do that is to pop single-color balloons, and the trick outlined in this guide gives players access to one such balloon every five minutes.
Before detailing this Animal Crossing: New Horizons balloon spawn trick, there are two important things to know. The first is that balloons have a chance to spawn every five minutes naturally (when the clock reads xx:x4 or xx:x9), but they will not appear consistently without utilizing this trick. The second is that balloons in ACNH spawn over the ocean on one side of the island from 5am to 6pm and over the ocean on the other side of the island from 6pm to 5am.
With these things established, the ACNH balloon spawn trick begins with identifying which side of the island balloons are currently spawning on. To do this, players should simply find a balloon and confirm the direction it is moving in. If the balloon is moving from left to right then they are spawning on the left side of the island, and if it is moving from right to left then they are spawning on the right side of the island.
Once a player has confirmed where the balloons are spawning from, they should then look at their clocks. As previously mentioned, balloons can spawn when the time is xx:x4 or xx:x9, and fans that want to use this balloon spawn trick should be walking into Nook's Cranny a couple minutes before those times (when the clock is at xx:x2 or xx:x4). As examples, to get a balloon to spawn at 12:14 players should enter Nook's Cranny around 12:12, and for one at 12:39 they should enter at 12:37.
Once the player is inside Nook's Cranny, they should begin a dialogue to purchase an item and then exit out of that dialogue (no purchase is necessary). From there, the player must exit Nook's Cranny before the clock is at xx:x2 or xx:x4 and head to the beach where the balloons are spawning. Then it is as simple as walking up and down that beach until the balloon is located, which should occur around xx:x5 or xx:x0 on the clock, and repeating this process once it has been popped with a slingshot.
To note, some players report needing to restart Animal Crossing: New Horizons to get this balloon spawn trick working. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that this trick does not guarantee cherry blossom recipes, but it does mean that players will have increased chances at them before the cherry blossom petals in ACNH disappear.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
Source: Twitter