Hey all, first post here in years haha. I originally played through New Horizons as quickly as possible when it came out, and subsequently got bored. So, I was brainstorming some rules recently for myself to follow for a new island and also stumbled upon the "hard mode" rules that came out a couple of months ago. I combined some of those rules with my own and came up with these. My goal in creating these rules was to force myself to take it slow and not rush through everything the game had to offer. It also allows me to play every in-game during the days I'm able to hop on since I'm pretty busy with other things in life and not feel bad about time traveling. Let me know what you think of them! Here are the rules:
Time, Date, and Time Traveling
Daily Tasks
General Rules
Economy
Villagers
Time, Date, and Time Traveling
- You may start your island with any date you like.
- Time does not need to match real-time.
- You must fully “play” each in-game day, or at least fully complete your daily tasks.
- Regardless of how many days pass in real life without playing, set your time to the next consecutive day in-game.
- For example, if the last day I played in-game was on January 1st, and a few days go by without me playing, I must set the clock to January 2nd and play through that day the next time I play.
- Following the previous rule, you may time travel a day forward for each real-life day that has passed since last played.
- Using the previous example, if 3 real-life days go by without me playing, I set the clock to January 2nd and play through that day. I may then set the clock forward to January 3rd, then 4th, etc, to match the number of real-life days that went by. You must still fully “play” each of those days. So if 30 real-life days go by since you start your island, the in-game date may not exceed those 30 days.
- You may set the time of day forward whenever you want. However, you may not change time to go back except when you initially set up the start of a new in-game day. Remember that a new in-game day starts at 5AM. You may initially start a new day at any time you want.
- Absolutely no time-traveling backward or skipping days.
Daily Tasks
- Talk to each villager at least once.
- Daily stretching once available.
- Complete any NPC quests - Gulliver, Label, etc.
- Get your fortune once available.
- Get a coffee once available.
- Change at least 2 pieces of your outfit once able to.
- Send at least 1 villager a letter.
General Rules
- Cannot use more than 1 Nook Miles Ticket per in-game day.
- Only store things in your inventory and house storage. No storing things in rooms or around the island.
- Must donate the first of each donatable item received before selling duplicates.
- Nook Miles objectives supersede any economy rules.
- No freebies, no treasure islands, no nookazon. If you buy or sell with another player, it needs to be a fair trade.
Economy
- No stalk market. Turnips may be used to consume or for bugs.
- Anything sold to Timmy and Tommy must be sold in the dropbox.
- May only sell bugs to Flick.
- May only sell fish to CJ.
- Only sell native fruit and fruit found on Mystery Islands.
- May only use 4 3x3 crop patches for selling.
- May only plant 1000 bells for money trees.
Villagers
- Let initial starting villagers choose house plot locations.
- Always talk to a thinking or pinging villager.
- If a villager wants to move, you must let them.
- No villager hunting, no receiving villagers in boxes, no amiibo cards.
