Feeling very overwhelmed by island design and terraforming

DaftPunk

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Hi everyone!

So I am not at all new to Animal Crossing. I am a long time player, going back to Wild World and I also have hundreds upon hundreds of hours in New Leaf. I am incredibly late to the party on playing New Horizons, I got myself a secondhand Isabelle Aloha Switch Lite (of which I feel very lucky for, hah) and the game off Ebay a few weeks ago. We'll be coming up to 3 weeks of gameplay on Sunday. I almost have all of my dreamies living in the town, I have a few more Amiibo move ins to do (Marshal moves in on Saturday, then I have to move in Fang, Pashmina and Shino). However, I unlocked terraforming a few days ago aaaaand I just find myself completely and utterly overwhelmed by the whole process. I have no idea where to even begin designing my island and instead of feeling inspired, I just feel a bit over my head.

I've looked at countless dream addresses for inspiration but it hasn't helped much. I'm trying to work around the natural layout of my town and not change things too heavily, but then I see some designs that are just gorgeous but I feel like if I try to flatten or take out my natural cliffs, I'll become even more overwhelmed and discouraged.

All I know right now is I want some foresty areas, a lot of magical and fairycore/whimsigoth vibes, glowing moss, vines, etc. I really want an organised neighbourhood for my villagers, but I don't know where to place it. I want to place my own house further back and I want to put the museum in an elevated area. I know I want an amusement park too, I cleared out an area of trees today and placed the items down to try and get an idea but then felt like it was too close to my cliffs and looked bad. People keep saying to start with small sections and projects, but I'm honestly not even sure where to start at all!

Thank you so much if you actually read all of this, I guess I'm just looking for any advice and suggestions :( Animal Crossing has always been a comfort series of mine but for some reason I just feel so lost when it comes to making my island look nice compared to previous entries.

Here is my natural layout with only a few tiny tiny tweaks I've done to practice using the tools:

2025052219334600-02CB906EA538A35643C1E1484C4B947D.jpg


Thank you again to anyone who offers advice and/or ideas :')
 
Yeah the new terraforming mechanic opens up a lot of creativity but also brings that overwhelming sensation along with it at the same time. That's completely understandable.

But like you mentioned others have said, starting with some smaller things helps. Maybe even a specific section of your island.
Once you get one thing done, you'll be able to move on to the next thing. Then you'll eventually have a few things done. And that part of the island will be "complete." But can also make minor changes later obviously.

Then once you start getting a few sections and/or projects on your island done you'll start to see your vision come to fruition. It is really satisfying to see the potential of your ideas come true. It just takes time and persistence.
 
As said above, as proactive the idea of terraforming is, it's very easily to feel overwhlemed with how much you can do; which doesn't help if some people were never into terraforming in the first place.
It sounds like you plan not to change much of the cliffs, rivers, and that's a really nice thing! Some people also do that, and it really does help make it less stressful.
I actually really adore your lil river at the top, the way it curves and is so tiny, its adorable!

I know you've went through dream addresses, but maybe watching island tours, or even watching videos of people making lil areas on their island. Sometimes seeing someone place their items or have ideas in your general ideas as well, can help the inspiration! And sometimes it is just good enough to experiement, see if you like it or not, and change what you do for each area.
I sometimes find it easier, to walk around your island and try and see, or imagine would this area be good for foresty areas, or a neighbourhood, would this be bigger enough for an amusement park?

I usually try and get enough items for an area, and see how much space that leaves me afterwards. Or moving your home, and keep checking to see if it looks good here or there. And it's totally understandable, if after a bit, you may think you placed it in the wrong place, and over time your idea might look better over there.

And don't forget that making an island, takes time. My main island is about four years old, and is no way finished. To help, I've made lil areas, when feeling inspired, an focused on cataloging so I had more access to more items for the island.
One thing I did do, was move flowers onto my beaches, so they won't grow too much when you're trying to place items or move trees.
 
Thank you both for your very thoughtful and helpful answers! Right now, I'm putting my "major" buildings on the beach (shops and museum) to see what space I have for my neighbourhood as I might just shift things around the area it's currently in to make it neater and more roomy for yards. Areas like the amusement park are still very much being debated!

Still, you've both been very sweet, I will definitely have to play around with things!
 
As said above - terraforming can be overwhelming at times. I think the only thing I can add is to maybe think about the transition from one area to another, and whether you want that to be a gradual transition or a more abrupt transition, or if you want the island to all have the same theme so it's not really a big change from one area to another.

Example - if you like glowing moss, do you want it included everywhere in your island decorations (can help tie different areas together), or do you want it just in certain areas (then gradually adding more can help make a nice transition).

One you get an idea of how you want your island to feel, terraforming is less overwhelming. Good luck with your decorating! And I like your island name.
 
As others have said it can get overwhelming with so many options on how to decorate. I didn’t terraform much until I had a better idea of what I wanted. As far as making new cliffs I found using the game paths really helpful. I would decide what shape I wanted the cliff then use the patterns as a guide to how it would look before I tried to make the cliff. I wanted a crescent moon cliff for my second island so I placed the patterns down then could look at the map to see what it looked like before I tried to build it.

This picture is from my first crescent island .
IMG_5346.jpeg


Here are some neighborhood ideas I used when planning my main island.
IMG_7898.jpeg
 
As said above - terraforming can be overwhelming at times. I think the only thing I can add is to maybe think about the transition from one area to another, and whether you want that to be a gradual transition or a more abrupt transition, or if you want the island to all have the same theme so it's not really a big change from one area to another.

Example - if you like glowing moss, do you want it included everywhere in your island decorations (can help tie different areas together), or do you want it just in certain areas (then gradually adding more can help make a nice transition).

One you get an idea of how you want your island to feel, terraforming is less overwhelming. Good luck with your decorating! And I like your island name.

Thank you so much for this!

And thank you! the island name will definitely play a role in some of my decoration, I want stars to be involved!
As others have said it can get overwhelming with so many options on how to decorate. I didn’t terraform much until I had a better idea of what I wanted. As far as making new cliffs I found using the game paths really helpful. I would decide what shape I wanted the cliff then use the patterns as a guide to how it would look before I tried to make the cliff. I wanted a crescent moon cliff for my second island so I placed the patterns down then could look at the map to see what it looked like before I tried to build it.

This picture is from my first crescent island .
View attachment 622158

Here are some neighborhood ideas I used when planning my main island.
View attachment 622159

Love the moon you made on your island map, that's so cool!

And thank you for the house layout ideas!
 
Love the moon you made on your island map, that's so cool!

And thank you for the house layout ideas!
Thanks so much , I had fun making it. I recreated it a bit bigger when I restarted that island.

You’re welcome , it really helped me when deciding where to place the houses. Hope you have fun with your island.
 
Try focusing on small sections of the island first rstger than doing multiple sectiond at once. And try only adding a frw bit of furniture or small paths to keep it simple at first. And you could try watching YouTube videos of various island tours to get inspiration.

And once you get a few small sections of the island done it'll help get you started and help you decide what direction to take your island.

Best of luck with your island! :)
 
I haven’t done much terraforming aside from leveling out a section of land to create an orchard. I’m trying to figure out how to create a two level waterfall that looks good and not janky and weird looking.
 
My advice is: Don’t look too much at others islands & also take small steps

I find that when I look too much into others it gives me the feeling I want that, and like you say I do all the work only to loose steam or end up regretting my decision. Try to enjoy your island as your island, inspiration is fine but I can find with social media sometimes even if I look at others it can impact the way I play the game and I don’t like that

When you do want to decorate don’t overdo it, don’t time travel to skip past once a day roadblocks, don’t make it a race. Take your time and enjoy the process, and make sure you are taking “breaks” to enjoy other aspects of the game as well ( daily tasks, fishing, bug catching, ect )
 
Rather than "designing" the entire island, start by creating a story or atmosphere for a small area. You mentioned magic, a magical forest, glowing moss... and that's a great direction!
 
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