Upgrades Complete

The Nooklings’ shop has upgraded and reopened today! It went from being called Nook’s Cranny to… well… it’s still Nook’s Cranny.

The new Nook's Cranny.

Why isn’t it Nook ‘n’ Go now?? It doesn’t even have the longer hours of Nook ‘n’ Go; it’s still only open until 10 p.m. 🙁 It is bigger, though. The Nooklings now sell three larger furniture items, which sit back on a stage, basically. Two smaller items are up front. It seems like a lot of wasted space on the left side of the store.

The inside of the upgraded Nook's Cranny.
Note the interesting set of stairs on the right…

In the cabinet, I saw that the Nooklings now sell timers. I bought one for potential online use; fish and bug-catching competitions are something we haven’t really done yet.

At the museum, the art exhibit has opened up! It’s big and empty, except for my serene painting. 😛

The art wing of the museum in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Up at Able Sisters, Sable gave me more patterned fabric to use on customized furniture. But I didn’t have any customizable furniture in my pockets, so I didn’t get to see the new patterns yet.

To my surprise, Redd was up on the mountain today! He invited me into his ship (help!) to take a look at some other items he had for sale. He had three paintings and one statue for sale, but he only allows me to buy one.

The inside of Crazy Redd's ship in ACNH.

He also had a couple of furniture items for sale, but I was there for the art. I pretty much ruled out the scary painting being real, because it had a goofy-looking face. But of the others, I had no idea. I ended up buying the flowery painting, but I won’t know if it’s real or not until I get it in the mail tomorrow.

I found a lost item (a book) on the cliff, and Midge said it might belong to Shari. Sure enough, it was Shari’s book. She gave me a worker’s jacket to thank me for returning it.

When I visited Agent S, she was talking about some of my visitors from last night. She knew that they were jumping around with the vaulting pole! These villagers know too much! 😛

Agent S: I heard they were using the vaulting pole to jump over all the rivers. I like to scream when I do that.

K.K. was playing outside of town hall, so I asked him for a sad song. He played K.K. Western for me and Louie. However, halfway through the performance, Shari snuck up behind K.K. to watch too.

K.K. Slider performs for Louie, Jeff, and Shari.

I was relieved to see that the empty plot was still available. So I decided to purchase a Nook Miles Ticket and take a trip to a mystery island. Bea the dog was there.

Bea: Wow, I thought I'd be the only one on this tour! I'm Bea. You're Jeff?

I like Bea, but I didn’t invite her to move in. At least I didn’t pitfall her! 😛

When I returned to Forest, I started tearing down the finish line structure of my obstacle course. I’m going to rebuild it as far south as I can, and put a few new obstacles in between.

I definitely want a pond that racers will have to vault across. Forcing everyone to switch tools a couple times could make the races less predictable once someone gets out to a lead. If I can, I may also put in a lengthier pillar-jumping section as well. I don’t have a lot of space to work with, but I have some ideas in mind. 🙂

A couple minor notes about today:

  • I attended both completion ceremonies for Nook’s Cranny and the museum art gallery.
  • My fossil donations completed two dinosaurs, the megacerops and the iguanodon.

Have a great day, and I’ll see you next time! 🙂

Double Construction

Even though Blathers didn’t mention it yesterday, the museum was indeed closed for construction today. Ditto for the Nooklings’ shop, although that one I already knew about. At any rate, it will be nice to have both buildings expanded and reopened tomorrow.

Nook's Cranny and the museum, both closed for renovation.

Tia surprised me by saying that days like today were just made for break dancing! Hey, if Nintendo can program villagers to do aerobics and yoga, why not break dancing? I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a break dancing teapot elephant? Now that would be funny to see!

Tia: Oh banana... Days like today are just made for break dancing!

The campground was moved to its new location, and I found a camper inside: Cranston the ostrich. He’s okay, I guess, but I did not invite him into town. I typically only invite a camper (or mystery island animal) into my town if it’s someone I really, strongly like. It may be a risky move (especially with the possibility of getting someone’s reject after Friday Night Forest), but I’ll take the risk.

Cranston: It's a buncha fun camping on this island. The air smells good, like food. I wanna bite it, sweatband!

At Able Sisters, Sable told me she had a gift for me! It was some patterned fabric. I can now use her patterns when I customize furniture. Thanks, Sable!

Some patterned fabric from Sable.

While I was there, I also bought a paintball mask. I thought it looked like the helmet that the Doom guy wears. 😛

I bought another Nook Miles Ticket, and Deli the monkey was at the mystery island. I’m generally not a fan of the monkeys in this game, other than Champ and Porter. I’ll admit Deli isn’t as ugly as most monkeys, but I still was not interested in adopting him. But he did fall for me. 😛

Deli falls into a pitfall in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Shortly after 10:00, I opened my gate for Friday Night Forest. Timo, Jesse, Patrick, Ryan, and Ros joined in…and then we all disconnected. So I opened again. This time, Vinnie, Jesse, Marlie, Timo, and Ros joined…and then again, we disconnected.

Fortunately, the third time was the charm. Patrick, Timo, Jesse, James, Marlie, Vinnie, and Geoff came to visit. The bad news is that it was already 10:35 by the time town filled up. The good news is that we didn’t have any further disconnections the rest of the night. A little lag, sure, but no disconnections.

After we beat up the raccoon figurine for Nook’s Cranny being closed, we headed over to my obstacle course for a tournament. In the first round, Patrick defeated a very laggy Jesse, Vinnie beat Geoff, Timo beat James, and I beat Marlie. Maybe it’s a bit unfair for me to compete, but we would’ve had an odd number of people if I sat out. Still, it was actually my first time racing on my own course, and I enjoyed it! 😛 And Marlie was a good sport about it. 🙂

In the semifinals, Timo beat Vinnie and I beat Patrick. That meant Timo and I would be competing in the finals! It was a close match, but Timo beat me! Congrats, Timo!

Timo and Jeff compete in an obstacle course race.

Patrick suggested that we should take a picture, so I thought near the finish line of the obstacle course would be a good place.

Friday Night Forest visitors pose for a picture on the obstacle course.

We went to my house next, and I was disappointed to learn that the colorful wheel suffered from the same problem it had in New Leaf: Everyone sees a different number.

Everyone sees different numbers on the colorful wheel.

We had some net fights, some emotion spamming, and then we went over to my western rocky beach. I put my cherry-blossom petal stuff here, and I wanted everyone to see it. Except Vinnie looked like he was going to get sick in my cherry-blossom pond stone!

Vinnie: I don't feel so good.

We later made our way back around to my (lower) pond, where we vaulted across the water. (I later dug holes for the others to fall into).

Animal Crossing players pole vault across a pond.

Around 12:20 a.m., I ended the session for the night. Thanks to everyone who came, and to those who tried to come as well! Even though I didn’t really have anything planned other than the obstacle course tournament, I still had a good time! I hope you all did too! 🙂

See you tomorrow with another entry!

Leif and Redd

One day after Earth Day, New Horizons starts celebrating the Animal Crossing equivalent, Nature Day. Special Nook Miles+ activities will be available (such as planting shrubs for Nook Miles). Leif has a stand set up at the plaza, and he sells shrubs and flower seeds. He also offers to buy weeds at a better price than the Nooklings.

Leif: Heya, heya! And welcome. What should I call you, friend?
So Marcel moves out and another clown shows up.

The Nature Day celebration continues through May 4th. That’s interesting that even minor holidays seem to be stretched out to nearly two weeks in New Horizons. But at least this one doesn’t seem obtrusive like that awful Bunny Day event with eggs everywhere you look.

I went to check out my private, northern beach, and Crazy Redd’s ship was there!

Redd's ship in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to enter the ship. But I spotted Redd elsewhere in town, on the western beach. And he had a serene painting with him!

Redd: And speakin' of instinct, I just had this feeling...so I bought a serene painting with me!

He initially offered to sell it for 498,000 bells, but that was a ploy to make his real price of 4,980 bells sound like he’s giving me a deep discount. For being his “cousin,” you know. I bought the painting at the dangerous cousin discount price, and quickly took it over to Blathers at the museum. It is apparently real, and Blathers informed me that it will allow him to add an art exhibit to the museum. 🙂

Blathers: Your generosity would enable us to add an art exhibit to our beloved museum.

He said he needed to prepare for construction, but I’m not sure how long that will take. I tried exiting and re-entering the museum just in case it was an immediate thing, but no such luck. 😂 He didn’t mention the museum being closed tomorrow or anything, so hopefully it’ll be done tomorrow.

That’s not the only news in town, though. Nook’s Cranny is going to be expanding!

Timmy: We're expanding the shop again!

Nook’s Cranny will be closed tomorrow, so I won’t be able to sell anything. Even the drop-off box will be unavailable. But the Nooklings will be back on Saturday, bigger and better than ever.

At town hall, Tom Nook gave me a DIY recipe for hedges. While I was there, I decided to move my campsite. I moved it north of Tia’s house, so that I’ll have more room to expand my obstacle course at some point.

With all that stuff going on today, I didn’t even realize (until now) that Marcel did not send me a goodbye letter! Villagers always sent goodbye letters in previous games. So Nintendo apparently made a curious change to villager etiquette.

I bought a baseball uniform at Able Sisters, and I (later) noticed that it is represented with a dress icon! It is certainly not a dress, though. As great as New Horizons is, there sure seems to be a number of odd, head-scratching decisions Nintendo made with this game.

A baseball uniform appears as a dress in my pockets.

Since Marcel’s plot is now vacant, I decided to take a trip to mystery island to possibly find a new villager. But my plans quickly changed when I saw Violet the purple gorilla there. I had no interest in asking her to move in.

Violet: Well, we may only be here a short time, but I do hope we get to know each better.
After this, we never spoke again.

The island was filled with bamboo, so I chopped it all down. I’ve had a number of bamboo-related DIY recipes, and now I’ll be able to make some of them.

When I returned to Forest, I spotted Wisp up on the cliff. I began searching for his spirits, and I actually found one of them by my private beach. When I caught it, the camera shifted to angle you can’t normally see…and it showed me that I still had a few weeds on my backside. Uhh, the backside of my mountain, that is.

I caught a Wisp spirit piece! Whew... One more to go!

Midge taught me the “pleased emotion,” and I eventually found all of Wisp’s spirits. When I returned to Wisp, he gave me a mobile.

Friday Night Forest will be held tomorrow at the usual time (10 pm Eastern/7 pm Pacific). We can do an obstacle course tournament, but that’s really all I have planned this time. So I probably won’t keep my gate open as long as usual.

Have a good day, and I’ll be back late tomorrow night with another entry!