Anyone else dislike their island?

[Twisterheart]

When I unlocked terraforming, I made the mistake to destroy everything on my island. I thought I knew what I wanted, but as time went on I struggled to design something I actually liked. Months later, I’m still stuck. Every time I think of something, it never comes out how I’d hoped. It’s either too inconvenient to navigate, not enough space, or I just don’t like how it looks. It’s really frustrating to say the least lol. I don’t want to start over though.

Anyone else been in this position?

 

[Honesta]

Yes, my first terraform was... alright, but not what I was hoping for. So I messed around with the "Happy Island Designer" and wound up designing something I love and am super excited to see how it looks when I finish! So far, I'm loving it! Not the expenses so much, but to be fair, I haven't been taking advantage of ways to make bells for a while. XD

 

[buginski]

That's why I restarted a couple weeks ago, I'm bad at terraforming and bit more than I could chew. As time went on and I wasn't making progress, I found myself wishing I never terraformed at all. It was sad letting my original island go because of all the memories I had on it, but for me, it was for the best.

Other people will say this too, but try just working on a little bit at a time. Maybe start at your entrance and work your way back, or work on areas that you have concrete ideas for.

 

[Mezzanine]

Deleted

 

[Lanstar]

For people having trouble terraforming, here's some ideas:

-Try seeking dream addresses that match a theme you're trying to work with. For instance, it you wish for a naturalistic and unified feel, you can check out my dream of Everbloom in my signature for inspiration.

-Take a screenshot of your island map, and draw on top of it on layer using a painting program. Draw the cliffs, the waterways, the spots to put the buildings, and any other attractions. Don't fear being messy here.

-Use Harv's island to experiment with furniture and decorating. Nothing is permanent there, so it's a great place to test out ideas.

-An interesting idea: Decorate around the permanent features first. The beach sands and rocks aren't terraformable, so maybe use those areas as a start for simple decorating.

 

[skarmoury]

Maybe start at your entrance and work your way back, or work on areas that you have concrete ideas for.

Totally agree with this! That's what I did on my island, I went in a clockwise direction of decorating my island and did it bit by bit. Of course, I was really bad when I started terraforming, but eventually if you just go along and decorate you'll get the swing of it too. Most of my island looks way different from my first terraform, I guess you could say what I did before was a waste but I really dont think so since I got to build up more experience as time went by.

If it helps, you can also take inspiration from other islands! I made a instagram mainly to look at terraform and design ideas, it helped me a whole lot in figuring out the direction I wanted to go. My island is nowhere near done since I plan to revamp another huge chunk of my island, but it's all the more reason to work hard to achieve something I love. (But breaks are important too since burnout is so common!)

 

[MatchaMoonlight]

I kinda go back and forth. Sometimes I like my island, but I feel like I could have done better knowing what I now know about the game. That being said, I'm too lazy to restart, so I'll probably try to live with what I don't like about my island.

 

[Pyoopi]

Well, I didn't flatten my island, however my first area I terraformed wasn't the most pleasing. I even tried adding to it and it wasn't doing much. I left it alone for quite awhile like 5 months, lol.

So from experience just working on art for long hours, fussing and obsessing with one area does no good. I would equate terraforming as the same. Sometimes you can't problem solve in a day.

You're also working on a blank canvas essentially and you need to see the full picture. The only way is to look at your map. Screenshots is key.

This is a bit old as I have an updated map after #4. I was stuck on map #2 till the end of August. It was a mixture of frustration and procrastination.

On map #2 I focused elsewhere, like the skull cliff and the grid downtown area. Meanwhile, I pull my screenshot of my map into Photoshop or Illustrator and doodled what I want.

Sometimes it takes awhile.

 

[Khaelis]

I've terraformed my island like four times already. On my fourth round now, liking it so far.

 

[Dunquixote]

I have been wondering whether I should’ve flattened mine; I’ve been making do of what I have and made adjustments when needed. What I’m having mixed feelings about is how much room my designs have taken up on my island and how much more I might want to decorate depending on what kind of furniture we’ll eventually be getting. I honestly wish I could put a lot more designs on my island like how I’ve seen some islands (like @dizzy bone; i just love how many ideas she has going there and how each idea flows so nicely into the next idea/area).

Overall, I think I am happy with my island so far; am just worried about running out of room and there are a few areas that definitely need to be adjusted.

 

[John Wick]

I loathe mine at certain times, and other times I love it.

 

[Nosfurratu]

It’s so so so hard to start from scratch when you’ve already made so much progress and put so much time and effort into the last island. It almost made me give up the game in total but I pushed through and it worked out for the best! Hopefully the same will happen to you! Small areas at a time, don’t overwhelm yourself. Have fun!

 

[niko@kamogawa]

Somehow I feel like hating your own island also means that you're hating yourself. That thought never crossed my mind. I am not a perfectionist and I know my limits.

 

[Braixen]

You'll find a layout you eventually like, I promise! It's really just trial and error... and a lot of it.
I used to hate my island and every time I'd update it, it just didn't feel right. Then I redid it... over and over again... and eventually found something I was happy with, I like to think of it as a continuous process, cause even now I still make tweaks here and there

 

[meggiewes]

I used to when I was trying to make it match up with this perfect little image in my head. Then I realized I was trying to force it to be something that I didn't actually enjoy playing on as much as I thought because it had a lot of areas hidden behind cliffs.

So, I changed it to be something that looks more organic to how my island is shaped and I fell back in love. Now it is down to just figuring out where I want everything. My main goal is learning how to eliminate "dead space" which includes areas I can't see to do anything with, so I don't play on. It has caused me to make some changes which means I have a lot of "this house needs to go one space to the right" moments, but I'm feeling more satisfied with my island every day I play!

 

[Corrie]

I didn't flatten my island but I am stuck on what to do with mine. I have no idea why people are so creative lol

 

[Jassiii]

I didn't flatten my island and start from essentially a clean slate on my first island but I ended up being stuck on what to do. Unfortunately (or fortunately, seeing as It got me back into playing it again every day) I did end up restarting my island-- ended up having a friend hold things I wanted to keep (igb, nmts, star frags, extra diys, etc) so I wasn't coming completely from the bottom.

As some people mentioned above, start with small things like your entrance and then go from there is all I can offer outside of "honestly, just restart". I couldn't figure it out but I'm hoping that you're able too

 

[kayleee]

I started the game on release day and was really disliking my map a couple weeks ago, especially since my resident services is so close to my airport (only 6 spaces away) and I didn't really have anything decorated in a way that I loved -- I was debating about restarting, but I didn't really want to because I have almost all the DIYs, a lot of my museum is complete and I'd paid off all my loans/etc. I started redoing my entrance and moved on to various small areas from there and now I'm loving it and have absolutely no desire to restart.

For the record I never completely flattened my island once I got terraforming, the general location of most rivers and cliffs are in the same place they were on my original map so I can't speak to starting completely from scratch on a blank island. However, personally I think it definitely feels a lot more manageable to work on small areas at a time so if your island is completely flattened just start with one thing, like an enterance or shopping area. Knowing myself I got a lot of anxiety thinking about redoing my whole island (lol stupid but it's true) so focusing only on small areas at a time has really helped and I've re-done a lot already.

 

[nightglow]

I rebuilt my island multiple times before I was happy with it. I still have some negative feelings about my current island right now but I am much happier with it. I feel like you just have to have practice and spend time browsing the dream address islands for inspiration and ideas. Sometime next year I can see myself redoing my island again. I've always wanted a "main street" but I feel like I can't get it right so, this time I ended up spreading my buildings out for now.