An Unlucky Day 2

It’s Day 2 for me in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I headed over to Nook Homes to see how much I owed him; the total is 10,000 bells. He needs that money before he can start building my house.

Tom Nook: So the down payment is nothing more than a paltry 10,000 bells.I then headed over to Nookling Junction. I bought another fortune cookie and ate it. My fortune was the same as yesterday’s, #42. I redeemed them both for two pairs of Varia Suit pants. It’s pretty cool that you can get items like this just using play coins, not bells. Definitely helpful when you’re just starting out and don’t have many bells yet.

Tommy: Ah, congratulations! The prize for Number 42 is great--some Varia Suit pants!So I tried on the Varia Suit pants. Uhhhh these don’t look so good on me…

Me wearing the Varia Suit pants.The worst part? I can’t take them off! There’s no option to take your pants off! At least not that I can find! I’ll have to buy some other pants to replace them with, I guess. Until then, I’ll be walking around with spacewoman legs.

In New Leaf, you take pictures by pressing L and R at the same time. Unfortunately, I tend to take pictures by accident when running or when trying to speed up speech bubbles. I’ll have to get out of that habit of pressing them both unless I’m purposely taking a picture.

Anyway, I decided to shake my first tree. Just my luck… BEES! I tried to escape into a nearby house, but Aurora wasn’t home…

Sign: I'm not at home right now. -AuroraNeedless to say, I got stung. On the bright side, you can pick up the beehive after you’re done getting stung. (It sells for 500 bells).

Ow! Ow ow ow... I got stung by bees!After collecting some peaches, I headed back to the store to buy a shovel and a fishing rod. I also checked to see what that item was in the back of the store. A potty? With…handlebars? Whatever floats your boat, man.

Tommy: Ah, a potty! A fine item, yes?I then went around town, looking for places to use my shovel. I ran into Yuka, who promptly insulted my face.

Yuka: Oh, Jeff, I'm sorry about your face. Although...the bee stings do make you look kind of tough.When I went around banging some rocks, one of the rocks shattered!

What's this...? The rock broke apart and something was inside...?There was a ruby inside! Nice!

The ruby that was inside the fake rock.I wanted to see how much the ruby was worth, so I took it to the Re-Tail store and Reese paid me 2,000 bells for it.

Reese: Ooh, a ruby! I can take that item off your hands for 2,000 bells, if that's OK?As I was leaving, Yuka came into the store. She bought something, and then said she was going to go on the internet to see how much it’s really worth.

Yuka: I'm pretty sure I got a good deal... but I must know exactly HOW good. To the internet!Back outside, I dug up my first pitfall seed. Who should get it? Yuka or Gabi? Decisions, decisions…

Look! I dug up a pitfall seed!I headed over to town hall, where Isabelle informed me of my approval rating: 17%. That’s fine by me, because my approval rating of my villagers is also 17%; Aurora is the only villager I like.

Isabelle: Now, according to a preliminary survey, your current approval rating is 17 percent.I then remembered I had a fishing rod, so I headed south to the ocean. I saw my first fish shadow and…wouldn’t you know it? My first fish is a sea bass.

I caught a sea bass! See? A bass!I caught five fish in all: sea bass, sea horse, horse mackerel, rainbow trout, and a zebra turkeyfish. As I returned up north, I saw a piece of land marked off. “This spot reserved for Tex’s new home.” So it tells you which animal is about to move in. That’s a nice feature.

Sign: This spot reserved for Tex's new home. -Nook's HomesMy last task of the evening was a stop at the museum. I donated my five fish and a fossil I dug up, which turned out to be a Peking man.

Blathers: Oh my! Upon examination, it's most certainly a Peking man!And that about wraps it up for today. Just a note though…there may be times I go back and play the game more after I post my blog entry. If anything eventful happens, I may add an update to the blog or possibly even another blog entry. Probably not tonight though, so check back tomorrow for another update.

I’m Mayor Jeff and I approve this message.

Moving In!

As you probably know, Animal Crossing: New Leaf comes out in America on June 9th, in Europe on June 14th, and in Australia on June 15th. However, Nintendo has graciously provided me with an advance copy of the game so that I can start moving in, and blog about the game! I’ll be updating this blog pretty much every day, so bookmark this page and come back to see what’s going on in my New Leaf town. But enough of that. Let’s get started!

I loaded up the game and found myself on a train, much like how the GameCube game began. Rover sat down and started talking to me and I decided that my town is going to be named Forest once again. I was actually planning on using a different town name this time, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Forest is the name I’ve been using since 2002 and it’s almost a personal trademark of mine. Rover let me choose from four town layouts, and I picked the one I liked best. The train then pulls into Forest and everybody there welcomes me.

Everyone welcomes me at the train station, as I'm moving in to town for the first time. Animal Crossing: New Leaf.The villagers there are Rory, Harry, and…Yuka? Her again? She lived in my main GameCube town for years, before moving to my other GameCube town. I also had her in my City Folk town for a while. Seems that I can never escape her for very long! Isabelle, the dog who first greeted me, tries to tell me that I’m the new mayor!

???: Mayor! We're so happy you're finally here!Yuka just had to go and point out the obvious. It’s because I’m tall, isn’t it?

Yuka: So...you're the new mayor? Hmm. You're a little different from the rest of us.After a short walk to town hall, Isabelle remembered that she can’t fill out the paperwork making me mayor until I have an address. And as of right now, I’m actually homeless. How can I be moving in when I don’t have a home?

Isabelle: Oh no! This is bad!So I had to go to Nook Homes to find a place to live. I chose a spot close to a pond and Re-Tail, and not far from the train tracks and shopping. This is my town map:

The first-day map of Forest on May 2nd, 2013, as I'm just moving in.Tom Nook marked off the area where I’ll be moving in my house, but I had no place to sleep just yet! So Tom put up a tent for me.

Tom Nook: Ta-ta-ta-DA! I'll let you borrow this tent so you have somewhere to sleep!Now that I had a place to live, Isabelle was able to wrap up her paperwork and told me about a ceremony at the event plaza. We headed there and I planted the town sapling and officially became mayor of Forest! Hooray!

On May 2nd, 2013, Jeff became the mayor of Forest.Unfortunately, I noticed Gabi was one of my villagers. She was a starting villager in my City Folk town too, and my friends and I never cared for her. We had to chase her out of town. I hate to say it, but I really don’t care for my starting villagers overall, although Aurora is pretty cool.

With the ceremony completed, I was free to explore. It’s nice not having to work for Tom Nook this time. I took a nice walk on the beach. I looked at the stars and how they shine…

Jeff walking on the beach at night.Then I stopped in the Re-Tail store and saw Timmy there.

Timmy: My name's Timmy. My brother and I run a shop in the shopping district called Nookling Junction.Next, I went up to the museum. The exterior was looking mighty fine tonight.

The outside of the museum.On the inside, Blathers was as wordy as ever.

Blathers: Never mind. Let me start over with, hoo, fewer words.And I noticed the aquarium has seats, so you can sit and relax as the fish swim by. Well, eventually it will have fish in it, but now it’s just a really big bowl of water.

Me sitting in the (empty) aquarium at the museum.I then checked out some stores, including Nookling Junction, where I met the other Nooklet, Tommy.

Tommy: Ooooh! You've already met my older brother, Timmy? I hope you treat us both kindly! Please do!He sells fortune cookies for two play coins. “When you eat it, a lucky ticket comes out.” Wait…it comes out of where?? Oh, out of the cookie.

Tommy: When you eat it, a lucky ticket comes out. Sometimes you win!After this, my 3DS battery was flashing red and the battery was about to die. So I saved and quit my game for the day. Check back tomorrow for more!

UPDATE: I started up the game again later and got an anonymous letter from the person who was really supposed to be the mayor. So it is a mistake. Interesting.

To Jeff, Congrats on your newfound mayorhood! To be honest, I was supposed to become the mayor, but one thing led to another... And now it's all up to you! I'm rooting for you! -Keep it a secret!UPDATE #2: Here’s my “Moving In” video showing some of today’s events.

If you’d like, check out my ACCF blog  and my Animal Crossing GameCube blog also. You can also pre-order New Leaf from Amazon.com.

Note: To browse through the other entries, you can use the calendar in the sidebar, or you can use the “next” and “previous” links at the bottom of each entry. Thanks!

Favorite New Feature?

Today Nintendo put out yet another Animal Crossing: New Leaf Tourism video, this time focusing on the businesses in town.

It shows the T&T Mart (which looks exactly like Nook ‘n’ Go from previous games), the garden shop, the shoe store Kicks, the night club, and Nook’s Homes. The night club is indeed named Club LOL, not Club 101. I hate the name personally.

But of course the shops aren’t the only new additions to New Leaf. As you surely know, you get to be the mayor this time, giving you much more control over your town. The ability to swim is also a welcome addition. What new feature is your favorite? Are you dying to visit the new island? Can’t wait to customize your furniture with patterns? Want to enter the Dream Mansion and visit towns of people who aren’t even online? Or maybe you’re just glad to hear some new hourly music.

Vote in the poll in the right-hand column, and leave a comment if you’d like. Especially if you choose “other,” let us know what your favorite new feature is!

As for me, I think I’d have to say being the mayor has to the be the most significant change. But many of the new features are appealing–even the new types of fruit. Bananas for the win!

The poll is closed now, but here are the final results:

Poll Results: What new feature are you most looking forward to? Being mayor/choosing town law: 34%. Outdoor furniture/town decorations: 16%. Island/Wi-Fi games: 13%.