The newest rendition of Animal Crossing for Switch, New Horizons, is perhaps the most expansive and lavish entry in the series yet. For the first time, you manipulate the environment and craft amidst an entire remote island at your disposal, which you can seamlessly show off to friends.
But with this whole new world open to you and increased versatility in the gameplay, it can be tough to hone in on what to do and how to be most productive. But fear not, villager!
With this list, we'll go over 10 actions, tips, and tactics you'll want to practice in order to get your island flourishing swiftly and effectively. So without further ado, here are 10 things you can do to be productive in NH.
10 Hunt For Big Fish And Insects
A big component in Animal Crossing games has always been gathering fish, insects, and other creatures that you can pawn or add to the museum, and NH is no different. In fact, since you'll be on a remote island with little civilization, the area will have quite a bit of wildlife crawling and swimming about. You'll want to take advantage of this money-making pursuit.
Be sure to look out for larger insects, particularly at night, as this is when you're likely to find more rare varieties. When fishing, you generally want to search along the ocean coastlines rather than rivers, and look out for larger silhouettes. These can be sold to Timmy at pretty high prices more often than not.
9 Build A Workstation Near Your House
Running to and from your home and Resident Services/Nook's shop may be fine in the short term. Yet, if you've happened to set camp a fair distance away from him, these little commutes can add up over time and become a burden. Thus, it behooves you to focus on getting that DIY recipe for the DIY workbench.
The Simple Workbench only requires 5 hardwood and a single iron nugget, which can be collected pretty quickly by bashing a few trees and rocks with your axe. Place this workbench in or near your tent/house, and you can save quite a bit of time and hassle in the long run.
8 Speed Things Up With These Button Pushes
This is a simple action on your part, but it's one that may have eluded some.
You may find yourself growing a bit impatient with the abundance of text as you chat it up with Nook, as well as other villagers. You can cut some of this time down merely by holding down the "B" button, which will make the scrolling text speed by more swiftly.
On top of this, you'll likely be crafting a great deal in this game, so you might be curious as to how you can make this banging away at the workbench go a bit quicker. In this scenario, just tap the "A" button rapidly and you'll be able to craft at a speedier pace.
7 Collect Tons And Tons Of Wood For Crafting
Much like Minecraft, wood is a foundational building block in NH. Thus, you'll want to stock up on this with regularity, and it's usually better to tackle this in fewer, longer stints in order to collect more for later.
You can stockpile this without taking up space in your inventory by going to your house and pressing the right direction button to store items.
Build 2 or 3 Flimsy Axes at once, and get to tree-chopping and shaking, as well as scouring for branches. Wood and branches, along with stone and iron nuggets, are the building blocks for most of the craftable items, at least in the early parts of the game.
6 Maximize Your DIY Recipe Findings
Since so much of NH revolves around crafting, notching DIY recipes is a key aspect of the game. These can be obtained in a number of ways. First of all, you'll want to walk around and talk to the villagers, as they'll sometimes come upon a recipe or be seen working on something, at which point they'll toss you a recipe for their creation. Talking To Tom, Timmy, and Tommy may also trigger new recipes at certain points of the game.
You can also scour the coastline for messages in a bottle. These are harder to find, but there will be at least one at your disposal every day. Reading the message will trigger a new DIY item that can be crafted.
5 Take The Mystery Island Tour
As your island is on the small side, you might find that you've cleaned it out of most of the valuable resources and goods for the day. Gaining access to items like the vault pole will allow you to extend your search further, but there's still only so much you can do here. So what do you do?
Well, one fun, fruitful option is to gather 2,000 Nook Miles, which can be used to take a trip to a lavish "Mystery Island." Not only will you have a whole new island full of resources and Bells at your disposal, but you'll likely find new creatures, fruit, and fossils foreign to your home island.
You'll want to shoot for Tarantula Island, in particular, as this is brimming with valuable goods. Be sure to pack the right tools and have fun!
4 Maximize Rock Mining
Getting resources from rocks can be a particularly painstaking process as they don't yield a ton of resources and could break. As we've touched on, you can eventually expand to new areas of your island, and fly to other islands, which you'll want to take advantage of as rocks aren't as abundant as trees.
Another thing to keep in mind, though, is that bashing these rocks after eating fruit will cause it to shatter without giving you resources. Thus, you'll want to be sure to hit these on an empty stomach, as this will maximize the valuables you'll get from them.
3 Plant Money Trees
Just like in real life, cash is a central focal point, and much of this is going to be invested in your ever-expanding home. There are a number of ways to be resourceful and swift in getting money, or "Bells," but one great, simple way is to plant money trees.
You can achieve this by planting a designated amount of Bells in a bag in a glowing region you've dug up. And it typically serves you better to plant more than 1,000, and closer to 10,000, as this will bring more returns when the tree grows in a few days.
This can only be done once per day, and these trees only come with limited amounts of grown Bells, but you can continue doing this each day, so take advantage!
2 Stay Updated With Nook Miles
Along with Bells, there's a new in-game currency called "Nook Miles." You'll want to stay abreast of these, which you can do by responding to phone prompts and flipping through each card, which lays out what you need to do.
Also, once you've unlocked Nook Miles +, you should prioritize this too. The initial five missions of Nook Miles + will grant you bonus Miles. As we've mentioned, these are used to access vital Mystery Islands, but can also be put towards cosmetic flair for your avatar and furnishings for your house, and can be converted into Bells.
1 Exploit The System With Time Travel
This all sounds nice, but let's say you want to go a bit further. Suppose you'd like to take something of a shortcut and bypass the internet game's clock to "jump ahead." Well, you can pull this off rather simply, assuming you're fine with a little exploitation that's not quite designed for the game.
Simply go to your Switch system settings and select "System," and flip "Synchronize Clock via Internet" to "Off" if it's not already. From there, you can change the date and time to fast-forward NH time to your liking.
This enables you to crank out resources, new unlocks, money trees, etc more rapidly, and will allow you to hone in on timed events in-game. But be careful, as certain tasks going undone for too long can have negative consequences on your island.