Jeff's New Horizons Blog

Yesterday, I finished fixing up the Frogger-style road part of my frog race. Now, no matter which spot you start from, you’ll need to squeeze through at least three tight spots between “cars.” That will keep everyone from breezing right through this section.

Up on the cliff, I spotted my first lily-of-the-valley (previously known as Jacob’s ladder)! That’s the sign of a perfect (5-star) island, so it’s nice to finally see one! 🙂

Lopez asked me for a new catchphrase, and I was trying to think of something new that I haven’t used before. So I (eventually) told him to say “so I lied.”

Today, Rizzo was sick with a cold. I got some medicine out of my storage for him, because I want him to get well soon. And I’m not kidding, either. I want him to be healthy and outside so I can pitfall him again! 😉 He gave me a security uniform in return. That would be fun to wear the next time I put him in jail. 😛

Saharah was in town again (why can’t Gulliver or Redd show up this often?). I bought the mysterious wallpaper and carpet from her, and they turned out to be a ramshackle wall and lobby flooring. Installing the wallpaper resulted in a notice that any items overlapping the windows were sent to storage. I wish it would have warned me ahead of time and not just done it automatically. 😕

Tia wanted to trade for my gar, but she refused to tell me what she would give me in return until I agreed to the trade! I like Tia a lot, so I went along with her offer…but it did not work out in my favor.

I spent some time grinding for Nook Miles, even though I don’t need Nook Miles. I just wanted to reach the 300k milestone. And I did. 😛

A few other quick notes about today:

• I found a new gold rose budding (my 2nd one overall, but 1st since I got my gold watering can).
• Tia wanted to move out, but I stopped her.
• I caught my first piranha and donated it to the museum.

Here is my latest New Horizons episode, covering events up through Friday.

Since I’ve now achieved five-star status and my video series is (essentially) caught up after being nearly a month behind, I think it’s time to get serious about a town tour video.

But I do want to make at least one more significant addition before recording the tour…something that I won’t show in the blog (just so that even the blog readers will have something new to see in the tour video). The only problem is that I don’t know what that addition will be! 😂 I do have one possibility in mind, but I’m not sure if I’ll go with that or something else. I’m going to think about it.

FYI, I am planning on having Friday Night Forest this week. We can all swim together!

Shortly after starting up the game today, I attended the completion ceremony for my 5th incline. It’s now much easier to climb up Eagle Mountain.

I then spoke with Flick at the plaza to begin the first Bug-Off! The Bug-Off seems to work much like the fishing tournament; we have three minutes to catch as many insects as we can.

On two separate occasions in my first game, I caught bugs that Louie was trying to get. 😂 Sorry, big guy. 😛

I caught a total of 9 bugs in my first attempt, which earned me 11 points. I sold my bugs to Flick, and I played four more rounds. My subsequent scores were 14, 12, 11, and 8. I seemed to be doing worse each round, so I stopped there.

I redeemed my points for the following items at 10 points each: a ladybug rug, butterflies wall, spider doorplate, toy centipede (ughhh), and a bug aloha shirt. The spider doorplate was my favorite of the bunch. It has a spider on a web, and it says “Welcome.” It would be great for Halloween, but I went ahead and put it on my door now.

Overall, I enjoyed my first Bug-Off. The time limit thing seems to work better with bugs than it did for fishing. With fishing, there’s so much randomness because it can take a fish 20+ seconds to take the bait and it’s very annoying. Bugs can be caught quickly and easily, assuming you can find them.

Note: My net broke after my 1st and 4th rounds. I know some people think the fact that tools break in New Horizons is realistic, but I disagree. Occasionally, sure, but two bug nets breaking in the first 12 minutes of a bug-catching tournament? No, that’s not realistic. And these were regular nets, not flimsy nets. 🤷

At Able Sisters, I bought a space suit and a bunny hood. I am now Astro Bunny!

When Astro Bunny I shook a tree, a surveillance camera fell out! I wonder who put that up there! I know Agent S is a spy (oops, was that a secret?), but I didn’t think she’d be spying on the residents of Forest!

Louie’s lights were on tonight, indicating he was home. But I was unable to enter his house. This is a glitch I’ve encountered at least two times before. I hope this gets fixed in next week’s update.

The black roses in front of my house have been spreading like wildfire, and I’ve been growing so many that I didn’t know what to do with them all. So I finally decided that I will line more of the paths near my house (leading up to town hall, for example) with black roses, replacing the red hyacinths I previously had there. There are still plenty of red hyacinths elsewhere in town, after all.

Since I achieved perfect (5-star) island status yesterday, I was expecting to see some lily of the valleys (aka Jacob’s ladders) in town today…but I did not. Unless they appear as buds first and I just didn’t realize what they were. Actually that seems plausible (if not likely), due to the way flowers work in this game. If any of them bloom tomorrow, I’ll be sure to mention it in the next entry.

I hope you all had a successful Bug-Off (or at least those of you in the northern hemisphere), and an enjoyable Day 100 (or whichever day you may be on). See you next time! 🙂

Ryan sent me a frog model in the mail, to use as decoration for my frog race course. Thanks, Ryan.

Because the Bug-Off will be held tomorrow, K.K. Slider had his performance moved up to today. K.K. deserves better than this! 😛 But I joined Apple and Shari for a performance of K.K. Parade.

Even though I like the taller characters in New Horizons and New Leaf, I have to admit that the frog suits looked better on the smaller characters in older games.

I cleaned up the frog suits and frog caps lying on my beach and put them into storage. I also put out another throwback container on my race course. When I was done, I went to town hall to ask Isabelle about my island evaluation. To my surprise, Forest is now a five-star island!!

For my reward, Isabelle gave me a golden watering can……recipe.

Imagine going on a TV game show, and winning the ultimate prize: blueprints so you can make your own dream house. 😛 Still, I went home and made my first golden watering can.

I then watered a bunch of my black roses with it. It’ll be interesting to see if some gold roses sprout up.

I decided to put in another incline in the northwest part of town. It will connect the beach there with the cliff that leads up to the campsite. It’s also near the other incline that goes up to Eagle Mountain, so getting around that area will be a lot more convenient as of tomorrow.

Without even trying, I had a good day of fishing. I caught a hammerhead shark, an arapaima, a coelacanth, and a great white shark. Of course, with my house now fully paid off, I’m entering the phase of the game where bells aren’t as important. But it’s still satisfying to catch those huge fish anyway. 🙂

I’ll be back for the Bug-Off tomorrow, so I’ll see you then!