Jeff's New Horizons Blog

The Happy Home Academy sent me a letter today, informing me that my house scored 37,391 points. That’s “Rank S,” and they sent me a HHA pennant for topping 10,000 points.

Mabel was back at the plaza today, but not to sell anything. She informed me that she and her sister have decided to open a proper store here on the island!

She gave me the tailors construction kit, and I picked out a spot for it. I put it across the river from town hall, to the north. It’s near where I planted bamboo before.

Rizzo has officially moved into town. He mentioned that he wasn’t in Lemongrass any more. That is Marlie’s town, so he apparently hitched a ride when she came to visit for Friday Night Forest. 😛 I might want to reconsider hosting when I have an open plot in the future. 😀

I found another lost item, and it belonged to the first person I asked out it: Louie. He thanked me and gave me some drinking-straw glasses

When I visited Midge, I saw that she was wearing glasses! Regular glasses, not the drinking-straw variety. 😛 She walked up to her chair, sat down, got out a book, and started reading! It was really cute!

Keaton taught me a new reaction today, resignation. Keaten said it’s for times when I can’t even. (Ugh.)

At town hall, I spoke with Isabelle and changed my town tune. I used one I’ve used in other games before, it’s Faraway Promise from Xenogears.

Isabelle suggested another house plot, so I bought another kit from Tom Nook. I placed it in the southwest part of town, just a bit north of the campsite.

Merka, who some of you may remember from my New Leaf Blog, came to visit me in New Horizons for the first time. She brought me a mage’s hat.

I showed her my town, and we hung out for a while.

She also invited me to check out her town, Clarity. I like her town layout, especially how the cliff extends halfway down the left side of the map.

We had a good time, and hopefully we can hang out again sometime.

One other note for today is that I finally organized my pockets. 😛 I previously wanted to straighten it up a bit, but there was no “grab” option, and the shoulder buttons didn’t grab things like they did on GameCube. But I learned that you have to hold down the A button to grab them, and then you can move them.

I guess that’s more intuitive if you’re playing in handheld mode, since it’s better suited to a touch screen. I still think a button press would be better (and quicker) for docked users, but at least there is a way to do it. My pockets were a jumbled mess for quite a while. 😀

Here’s my latest video, showing events from Days 8-9.

Have a great day! See you tomorrow!

During the daily announcements, Isabelle sent out the DIY recipe for an outdoor picnic set. It’s a cherry blossom petal recipe. 🙂

TZ sent me a nice letter with Villager’s poster (which I put on my wall), and Patrick sent me 10 more pitfall seeds. Thanks, guys! 🙂

Three stools were set out in the town hall plaza. Louie and Marcel were using two of them, and they were both drinking some coffee as they sat next to each other.

Midge was also nearby, and she was staring intently into a flower. It looked like she had a magnifying glass or something, but she just seemed entranced by that flower.

As you can see in that picture, Mabel also had her stand set up today. I bought several items from her.

Up on the mountain, I saw Keaton fishing off the waterfall. 🙂

I was surprised when I got back to the sumo ring and found that the pitfalls from last night were still in the ground, and the prize money was still there as well. Apparently the game didn’t auto-save after we finished the matches.

Back by my house, Louie taught me a new reaction: Encouraging. I’m glad to learn a new one, but I’m at the point where I have more reactions than I can fit on my wheel, so I have to pick and choose the eight I want to keep available at all times. Unfortunately, it’s not like New Leaf where you can quickly choose from all of your emotions. You have to swap out for any that aren’t currently on your wheel.

I finally used my star fragments to craft a star wand. However, I apparently can’t use it yet because I haven’t registered any outfits. I guess I’ll have to speak with Celeste again the next time she comes to town.

I acquired several more Bunny Day recipes and crafted them, but I’m really starting to grow tired of this. There are just too many items to keep up with, particularly those egg shell outfits that are all very similar.

I happened to check out the new house plot, and I was not happy when I saw that Rizzo is moving in soon! Rizzo is the ugly mouse with the purple scarf that ties under his nose, so it look like he has purple sideburns and mustache. Ugh.

See you tomorrow!

At the museum today, Blathers informed me that the stegosaurus is now complete. I believe this is the first dinosaur I’ve completed so far.

Today’s bottle message contained a recipe for a mountain standee. But since these bottle messages seem to be showing up every day, I may stop mentioning them in the blog, unless they contain something particularly interesting. And someday, we’re going to have all the recipes and we’re just going to hate bottle messages. 😛

Keaton the eagle has officially moved in, so I welcomed him to the island.

While up on the mountain (and yes, I know it’s a cliff, but I enjoy calling it a mountain :P), I found a lost item! I didn’t realize these had carried over from New Leaf; or at least, it’s a feature I hadn’t even thought about.

I asked Shari about it, and she said it wasn’t hers. But she suggested that I ask Louie about it. So I did, and sure enough, it was his. I don’t know if that was just a coincidence or if Shari knew. But regardless, Louie gave me a clothesline pole for returning the item.

When I shot down a blue balloon present, I found a recipe for a cherry-blossom pond stone. It was my first cherry blossom recipe; I built one and put it outside of my house.

Louie was drinking on the bench outside of town hall. So I sat next to him and took a picture. 😛

As for my town progress, Tom Nook informed me that Isabelle will now start keeping track of the island’s reputation. Forest only has one star (out of five) so far, and Isabelle said we need more residents. So Tom Nook sold (yes, sold) me a housing kit so that another villager could move in. I placed it on ground level, but north near the cliffs.

I redeemed some Nook Miles for a fountain, but it was just a recipe. And for some odd reason, I need a drinking fountain (along with 20 stones and 8 iron nuggets) in order to craft it. I’ll have to work on that another day.

Around 10 p.m., I opened my gate for Friday Night Forest. Ben, Patrick, Benji, Ros, T Zelda, Jesse, and Marlie came over for a visit. After an impromptu ocarina concert, we fell into holes from a new bench configuration. When I did this with eight spaces in a row, people on the far ends couldn’t see the other end. So this way, everyone should be able to see everyone else, and hopefully, get a good picture.

I set up four stools in my house, because I want to test out merging. Everyone basically tries to fall in the center, and then goes back to their stools. The object is to get two or more people merged in the center. This worked in City Folk, but unfortunately, I was unable to reproduce it in New Horizons.

Back outside, someone started shaking a tree and a branch fell. Then another, and another, and another. Tons of branches kept falling, and I didn’t realize you could get that many from one tree! That will be helpful when I need to craft more pitfall seeds!

Speaking of pitfall seeds, they came in handy when I decided to have a sumo tournament. Some of the players were placing bets on who they thought would win. 😛 In the first round, TZ beat Patrick, Jesse beat Ben, Ros beat Marlie, and Benji beat me. 😛

Before starting the 2nd round, TZ and I did a non-tournament match between City Folk veterans. 😛 To my surprise, I actually won my first sumo match in New Horizons. TZ left after that.

In the semifinals, Benji beat Jesse. Jorge arrived, so he took TZ’s place in the othersemifinal, beating Ros. In the finals, Frogboy (Jorge) slaughtered the Butcher (Benji). 😛 Congrats, Jorge! And good game, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the sumo tournament! 🙂

After the game, I started to dig up the leftover pitfalls, and Jorge tried to pick up his prize winnings (mostly money bags). However, we began experiencing some major lag. I was spinning my shovel, Jorge was semi-hunched over and unable to pick up his bags, and others were frozen or repeatedly squatting.

But the lag got worse…much worse. When I went into Keaton’s house, the view stayed on the outside of the house. For literally a full minute, I could see Ros trying to enter Keaton’s house. Then, the screen went black…and stayed that way for over six minutes! Then, the loading icon showed up for another minute. And then I was finally in Keaton’s house…over 8 minutes after I entered his door!

Jesse left quietly and returned, which kind of reset us all back to the airport. However, the lag was still a problem. Look how far Shari was from me when she acknowledged that I spoke to her. 😀

We tried vaulting across the river repeatedly, and we often ran into invisible objects. Perhaps the game still thought someone was there, who had already crossed? I don’t know, but it was rather weird.

Ben left, and soon, we all got disconnected. I reopened, and I was joined by Benji, Ros, Jesse, Marlie, Patrick, Maria, and Red. I didn’t notice any lag this time. At Ros’ suggestion, we took a photo on the beach. It looked really nice with the cherry blossom trees in the background.

Ros left, and Valentine joined in. Since we were able to move freely between rooms now, we played a few rounds of museum tag. But around 12:30 a.m., I ended the session. Thanks to all who came tonight, it was fun! 🙂

Earlier in the day, I posted a video about pitfall sumo. It shows what you need, how to set it up, how to play, and it shows a few battles that I recorded yesterday. Check it out if you’re looking for a good online game to play in New Horizons.

Have a great weekend, everyone! See you next time! 🙂