i really like my double souths but i'm honestly not sure where i'm gonna go with the river layout. like, i have a plan with the exits - i've been toying with the idea of having a boardwalk type shopping / entertainment district, which would likely include 1 or 2 wooden bridges per outlet depending on how close together i can place them. I've also been thinking of having the different beaches be named differently, which is perfect with the double souths imo because there are two main beaches and the bottom beach (chopped in half by the airport), plus the secret beach that i probably wouldn't deal with in that way. honestly i have a lot of ideas, but i kind of really like the beach town aesthetic that i have subconsciously been planning. i feel like most of the ideas i have for my island have stemmed from places i remember well and have good memories with
That sounds so cool and a really good use for the beaches! The beach is honestly my least favourite part of the island, I'm just not a beach person (lol). But I do enjoy the side beaches not being chopped up by the river, not gonna lie, that's the nice part about it. Too bad about the really crappy peninsula location I have which ruins my right beach entirely. But yeah I actually agree that for a beach theme the south exits are actually kinda nice but the river thing is a real hassle.
Having two south-facing river exits is a little tricky to work with for sure! I do wish that both areas on the left and right weren't so narrow but I think it's a nice challenge to see what I can do with a more limited space.
I would definitely have more space if I disconnected the rivers but I also enjoy having bridges aha!
Yep, it's the narrow areas that bother me, sadly. And I loooove the bridges in the game! Honestly I feel that if the island would be just 150% its width I would be fine but like it is, I can't build like I want with my rivers in the way like that. For me it's more about being able to build what I like instead of liking a challenge. Honestly building anything that doesn't look like crap is already a challenge, I have zero great imagination hahaha.
Wow, may I ask what you altered? You seem to have quite a bit of space on the left there, that's really neat and I would love to know if that's what you changed. Our layouts are not that different, aside from the island, as you also have a pond in the upper left, so I am wondering if we started on the same island, basically. The cliffs are also pretty identical.
I have a map that's like yours with the two south ones. I straightened out the river into a box-kind of shape and while the middle is still small, I manage to fit 4 villagers and my shops there with still some room to decorate. I have my other villagers in rows on the outside of it.
Wow, may I ask what you altered? You seem to have quite a bit of space on the left there, that's really neat and I would love to know if that's what you changed. Our layouts are not that different, aside from the island, as you also have a pond in the upper left, so I am wondering if we started on the same island, basically. The cliffs are also pretty identical.
I have a map that's like yours with the two south ones. I straightened out the river into a box-kind of shape and while the middle is still small, I manage to fit 4 villagers and my shops there with still some room to decorate. I have my other villagers in rows on the outside of it.
Yeah if the river gets straightened out it can definitely work. But I prefer natural, non-straight rivers and that's my issue. But I'm so glad that others love their south-exit-maps and don't regret it like I do.
Oh wow, the island was the reason why I resetted so often for that map, I loved (and love) that thing to pieces. And we have our house in the same spot, too (I moved mine just yesterday)! It's really interesting what you did with the map, especially the left side. I wonder if I can do something like that while keeping the island... I'll definitely have to experiment with that. Thank you for confirming!
Yeah if the river gets straightened out it can definitely work. But I prefer natural, non-straight rivers and that's my issue. But I'm so glad that others love their south-exit-maps and don't regret it like I do.
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Oh wow, the island was the reason why I resetted so often for that map, I loved (and love) that thing to pieces. And we have our house in the same spot, too (I moved mine just yesterday)! It's really interesting what you did with the map, especially the left side. I wonder if I can do something like that while keeping the island... I'll definitely have to experiment with that. Thank you for confirming!
My island is the only part of the map I really like and have already decorated, so honestly that's the one thing the lower portion of the map has still going for me and before I mess with that I could just reset. Even if I erase all the river, I'd keep the island. It's just the perfect size!
Also I want my villagers to have really, really huge gardens. I have a layout for each of my dreamie's gardens in mind and they all have ponds and the like. This needs a lot more space than what I have available and the fact that I want the whole island (not the river-island, the whole map) fenced-in (because yeah, not a beach fan, I don't want the beach included in my town) doesn't help as the fences steal even more space.
Honestly I feel like either I can live with whatever I come up with for the river mouths while demolishing the river (gotta bring myself to do that first...) or I'll reset. I wonder if I can take screenshots so well that I can basically recreate the same little island I have here on another map with an east or west river exit. Because my island is awesome. And so is the place where I live, up at the cliffs and I love how Nooks Cranny just fit into that one spot (your Able Sisters seem to be there? Or you might have made a bit more space, hard to tell because of the fat icon). Basically the whole upper layer of my map is great and I'd love to keep that and the island, but the rest is meh at best. I'll really have to test whatever I can think of with the island designer...
My island is the only part of the map I really like and have already decorated, so honestly that's the one thing the lower portion of the map has still going for me and before I mess with that I could just reset. Even if I erase all the river, I'd keep the island. It's just the perfect size!
Also I want my villagers to have really, really huge gardens. I have a layout for each of my dreamie's gardens in mind and they all have ponds and the like. This needs a lot more space than what I have available and the fact that I want the whole island (not the river-island, the whole map) fenced-in (because yeah, not a beach fan, I don't want the beach included in my town) doesn't help as the fences steal even more space.
Honestly I feel like either I can live with whatever I come up with for the river mouths while demolishing the river (gotta bring myself to do that first...) or I'll reset. I wonder if I can take screenshots so well that I can basically recreate the same little island I have here on another map with an east or west river exit. Because my island is awesome. And so is the place where I live, up at the cliffs and I love how Nooks Cranny just fit into that one spot (your Able Sisters seem to be there? Or you might have made a bit more space, hard to tell because of the fat icon). Basically the whole upper layer of my map is great and I'd love to keep that and the island, but the rest is meh at best. I'll really have to test whatever I can think of with the island designer...
Yesss! I love having my house on the cliffs. I moved the cliffs to accommodate ables. So the cliffs kinda hug the buildings if that makes sense?
What if you pushed the cliffs back just on one side of your map? You could fit more room for your villager's yards that way by extending that land.
I have a very similar map to yours, with the center section encircled by the river. I worked around it, which took some doing, but I'm happy at not making drastic changes to my island.
Not to say you shouldn't, but it is possible to keep it as is and still have a functioning layout.
I put a small orchard on the western section and I'm thinking of making a mirror orchard on the eastern side. I just want to wait for my hibiscus bushes to finish growing so I can move them to the beach.
Yesss! I love having my house on the cliffs. I moved the cliffs to accommodate ables. So the cliffs kinda hug the buildings if that makes sense?
What if you pushed the cliffs back just on one side of your map? You could fit more room for your villager's yards that way by extending that land.
I think my main issue is that I want things square without making the river square. Like, the yards and the Zen garden and all I have planned are square-shaped. And the way I planned things, I want to have five villagers living in the "town" in the bottom part and five (and me) on top, so getting rid of more cliffs is a bit difficult. In fact, I planned to add more cliffs to the very left side since they don't reach the beach there.
I took an updated map photo:
The white box is where the museum will move to just for now and all homes from the middle will also get removed so that I can test out everything with the island designer without anything being in the way.
Aside from the homes, I want four things in the middle area as well: A Zen garden, a cherry blossom themed area, a pond area with the pond not connected to a river but a huge waterfall cliff in the middle and the rock garden. The rock garden should be like this (from this reddit thread):
Just with two spaces between rocks so that I can hit them right after another without having to pick things up in between. And since only three rocks can spawn per grid area on the map, I can't just put it anywhere and I don't want to put it in the center of the map because rocks are just not pretty enough lol. But on the sides, I don't have enough space because of the river and the grid limitations. It's all a mess, honestly. :/ But thank you for reading all my rambling, I appreciate all your input and ideas a lot!
I have a very similar map to yours, with the center section encircled by the river. I worked around it, which took some doing, but I'm happy at not making drastic changes to my island.
Not to say you shouldn't, but it is possible to keep it as is and still have a functioning layout.
I put a small orchard on the western section and I'm thinking of making a mirror orchard on the eastern side. I just want to wait for my hibiscus bushes to finish growing so I can move them to the beach.
I wish I could keep my map as it is because I resetted for it so much! I just can't figure out how to make the things I want happen within its limitations. I honestly love how my map looks aside from the peninsula location and the "skinny" side parts, but I just seem unable to work with it.
Yeah if the river gets straightened out it can definitely work. But I prefer natural, non-straight rivers and that's my issue. But I'm so glad that others love their south-exit-maps and don't regret it like I do.
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Oh wow, the island was the reason why I resetted so often for that map, I loved (and love) that thing to pieces. And we have our house in the same spot, too (I moved mine just yesterday)! It's really interesting what you did with the map, especially the left side. I wonder if I can do something like that while keeping the island... I'll definitely have to experiment with that. Thank you for confirming!
personally I feel like a straight river looks okay and not too terribly unnatural. I make curve the corners a bit. You could maybe make it straighter but not 100% so?
personally I feel like a straight river looks okay and not too terribly unnatural. I make curve the corners a bit. You could maybe make it straighter but not 100% so?
Yeah I guess I will really have to play around with the island designer. I mean everything is just theory for now, I don't even have the tool yet.
But honestly if I could have anything I wanted and change the river exits, my map would look like this (so that you can see what I would do if I had the map space). I just whipped that up in island map designer and even with all the freedom in the world I didn't find a way to fit a south river in there, go figure. The "sand" areas in the middle of the map are supposed to be my rock garden and a zen garden, lol. Also oops I forgot one bridge to the right of the shops, too bad. XD
I resetted my map with two south river outlets because they honestly suck. You can really only push it to perfect symmetry, so it's good that your residential services is perfectly in the middle. Lilyacre's map is a perfect example of how to use this map, but there are more possibilites!
This map was recently posted to Reddit and I think it looks amazing! You can really work well with such a map if you have a design in mind.
Howdy! I love your island lay out, and I’m debating on using it on my island. I wanted to make sure it was okay with you though. I’ll credit you obviously. If not I totally get it.
Howdy! I love your island lay out, and I’m debating on using it on my island. I wanted to make sure it was okay with you though. I’ll credit you obviously. If not I totally get it.
Hey! This was posted to Reddit, so you'd have ask the original creator for that. You can find them here, they also posted a somewhat step by step creation of their island:
I will get my island designer in probably 3-4 days and am already despairing when trying online planning my island. I have this island: View attachment 247504
(old image, there's more villagers and I moved my house and the museum away by now)
Basically, I find myself having not enough space in the middle for my plans and the land between beach and river on the sides is so narrow that I'm not doing anything with it. Which means that despite me resetting for 40 hours to get exactly that map, I'll need to cover up the river.
But what do I do with the river exits? I've visited a few islands by now and found that just letting the river exits "sit" there without a river looks just as bad to me as making a small pond to "feed" them does. So I would love to hear how you guys dealt with your (south-)river exits if you don't have a huge, connecting river anymore. Images would also be appreciated. Of couse I thought about cliffs/waterfalls but got worried that I wouldn't be able to see what's behind the cliffs if I just put some directly in front of the beach.
I struggled with it too... so I just turned one of the river exits into a water feature yesterday to give me more land to work with. I currently have only 1 river lol but I may make more lakes and ponds, or smaller streams.
I've got this map (except my Redd beach is on the left) mainly because I wanted two south exits. My brain won't let me do anything but symmetry, so I ran both rivers straight up into waterfalls. On the outside of both rivers are my fruit orchards with stalls and a little cafe area.
But I'm so glad that others love their south-exit-maps and don't regret it like I do.
