EDIT: FIXED THE BROKEN IMAGES OOPS LOL
Hey all! Can you believe New Horizons has been out for just a little over 3 years now? I can't, but with the anniversary having passed, I figure now's a better time than ever to really hunker down and finish my island. No more half-decorated houses or sad, abandoned terraforming projects. We're going for 100% completion - or, as close as we can get to it, anyway.
Between March 20, 2020 and now, the vision I've had for Sorarkhe has seen innumerable changes. It's gone from stereotypical English village (lots a castle items, cottages, canals and rolling hills of pastureland), to East Asian countryside-inspired (cracked asphalt roads, corrugated tin sheet roofs, rice paddies). One commonality between them all, however, was an emphasis on rurality. Maybe I was unconsciously seeking an antidote to the claustrophobia I think a lot of us were feeling in 2020. Maybe I'm just way too into farm sims. Either way, in the end, I decided not to limit myself to any one geographical region, rather, to go with something more general - as long as it honoured that desire for wide, open space. Maybe with a bit of an alpine touch. Think Breath of the Wild's quaint Hateno Village, dotted with windmills and houses with wide, gently sloped roofs, all nestled at the foot of snow-capped mountains. I want Sorarkhe to exude the same warm, idyllic pastoralism as Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.
entry 1: airport, resident services, and lots of 'bridges'
The position of my Resident Services has caused me no small amount of grief. It's an awkward 8 steps north and 4 steps east from the airport - too close and off-centered for any grand builds. I've agonized over what to do with this space longer than any other part of my island. It's gone from a mini marketplace, to a shipment center, to a patch of dirt overlooking some fields.
Eventually, I settled on something of a compromise between the shipment area and the fields, with wooden boxes and barrels overlooking a small sea of flowers. Some variations:
Both sides are flanked by tall items. I'm not sure how I feel about the narrow, straight-ahead kind of focus this produces - I'll probably tweak this area by removing some of these items and open up the space a little.
I decided to keep the front of the plaza simple, framed with trees and fields that open up to the beach. Wheat field item, my beloved.
To the west lays the southern river mouth, which I've also played around with a lot. One past build that I particularly like is this railroad, leading into a tunnel carved out of these overgrown cliffs:
The final build: a small, simple path to the beach, leading up to a bridge with a wide view.
The first picture of this post was taken around 5am, and the one above around 6am. The difference an hour makes! Sunrise is my favourite time of day in New Horizons, the atmospheric effects are just gorgeous.
Across the bridge is a simple grassy plateau, which connects to this 'bridge'. Fence item, my beloved.
This pseudo-aqueduct/bridge-esque structure is nestled into the cliffside. Is it a water filtration system? A stormwater reserve? Is it there to just look pretty?! Who knows.
Originally, this sunken area was completely filled with water. I decided to downsize to a pond in order to incorporate more greenery into the view.
And the west side, with another 'bridge' and some small 'filler'/rest areas:
The colour scheme of these builds is informed by the colour of the 'damaged' variant of the castle items. It does looks pretty monotonous, though, so I'll be adding more pops of colour (orange and white, maybe?) at a later date. It's just that, when I try to build with both form and colour in mind, at the same time, my brain gets frazzled lol.
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