How do you like to approach the game?

[michealsmells]

I'm starting to really get anxious about what I want to do in my town. I mean, I have my plan, yes, but this plan involves a lot of flowers and I'm starting to get a bit impatient. I was thinking about buying some but I want to play the game legitimately! Heck, I even told my brother and my parents that I'd love a new copy of ACNL for Christmas or anytime (but I don't need it. I mean, I already have so many duplicates of Pokemon games I think they're gonna eventually cut me off. Plus I'm in my mid-teens now. I gotta start worrying about fending for myself)

I dunno, this is more of a ramble than anything. I probably won't buy much more for this town. I'd rather get my stuff through legitimate means (doesn't mean I won't sell things. bell collecting is BO-RING! ). Maybe if one day I really do get a second copy, I'll theme it from the get-go. Have a 100% plan in mind for what kind of town I want to make. It'll probably be something related to holidays in general. I've always liked that.

OKAY! Besides my ramblings, how do you like to approach Animal Crossing? Do you like to play it with little to no time travel, making everything yourself? Do you time travel often to try and find the perfect villagers? Do you buy and sell often or very little? I just hope I'm not alone cause I feel like I haven't seen many ultra-casual people on here. ( I mean it is the forums what did I expect? )

 

[Ably.Saucey]

I try not to tt in my main town, I tt like a lunatic in my satellite towns, I collect my villagers through my cycling towns because I became Attached and moved them in to my main town.
I mostly buy. T-T most people don't want anything I have, but I give a lot of stuff away.
Lol, there's very few casual people here, there's a large facet who haven't played in a long time or haven't played at all, but most of us are very into it.

 

[michealsmells]

I try not to tt in my main town, I tt like a lunatic in my satellite towns, I collect my villagers through my cycling towns because I became Attached and moved them in to my main town.
I mostly buy. T-T most people don't want anything I have, but I give a lot of stuff away.
Lol, there's very few casual people here, there's a large facet who haven't played in a long time or haven't played at all, but most of us are very into it.

I've been getting really into it recently, that's why I entered the forums to begin with! I just wanna make sure I'm not the only one who's pretty casual. I just love seeing the prices people offer for villagers and what people do with their towns.

 

[katysu]

I started playing animal crossing in 2006 while I was looking after my elderly father - that was a 24/7 job and meant I snatched time to play the game as & when I could. It was important to me as I needed the relaxation, time out from a lot of worry.
So virtually from the beginning I froze time ingame, so I could play every ingame day at the times when I could.

Life moves on and I could if I stretched it play this game in real time, but freezing time frees me up, the game is a total relaxation for me, no stress no 'I have to play, otherwise I might lose a villager' or whatever.
Its a game, not something to stress over.

What to do with your town - well I let that develop over time, see what ideas come to me.
If you want a lot of flowers quickly then bring them back off tours on the island.
The gardening & butterfly tours will get you the violets and lilies (I made one town with purple & white violets, & hence got blue violets appearing) - got a path that sort of matched in...... another town I used only black, orange, purple, red roses - looks really very rich, ..... lots you can do with flowers, especially if you match in the path colours and the native fruit you have.

 

[Rose]

I buy from the forums and time travel because the game simply isn't what it used to be anymore. Still good, but different.

I've played and fully developed plenty of towns without touching the clock, but New Leaf likely doesn't have much more time ahead of it until it's replaced by the next Animal Crossing game. I didn't time travel at all for a long time after it came out, simply because I wanted to have the full, untampered experience, though I've had it a dozen times now. A little time travel is how I keep myself interested in the game at all.

Honestly, I'd lose motivation in a town that takes months upon months to develop because I've earned all that already and another run feels like overkill, you know? After 'traditionallty' unlocking everything so many times, that excitement is now useless monotony.

So if I don't have to wait, why wait? It doesn't ruin the fun of the game for me, personally, as the instant gratification holds my attention whereas I don't have it in me to wait days to complete tiny, repetitive chores. I like marathons of landscaping and long sessions of late-night play, and to be frank, a '100% legitimate' playstyle simply isn't supportive of that if you don't play with the clock a little.

That's just me, though. Sorry for the ramble!

 

[toonafeesh]

I don't think I TT'd much in my first town. I even had the night owl ordinance (forgot what it's called) because I wanted to farm the island at night and sell at Retail on the same day. I'd stay up til 2am watering flowers and eventually my RL friends figured that this game consumed my soul

I started TTing a bit more later on until I messed up and lost my first and only dreamie at that time stopped playing for a while but I would pick it up every now and then and TT'd often (usually within the same day) for shops.

Now I TT like mad after I reset my town. Bought a second copy recently and told myself that I'd play 'legitimately'. One week later I have all the shop upgrades. Not literally a week later, but you can guess what happened 8')

 

[toonafeesh]

double post

 

[ravenblue]

I play with no time travel or buying/trading. The times I've time traveled have been few and far between because I have messed up a town by time traveling to the point that I reset. I think it's fun to go slow and since I'm building the town for myself and not as a showcase for everyone else to see, it doesn't matter how slow I take it. I think it's fun to watch it develop and unfold over time and not rush through it. If I don't feel like grinding for money by fishing and bug catching, I don't. If I don't have time to visit my town one day, I don't stress over it, I just pick it up when I do have time. I've taken several breaks from the game over the years and always come back to my town and picked up where I left off.

Like katysu mentioned, the island tours are a good way to bring back lots of flowers at one time for free. If you have Beautiful Town ordinance, the flowers will multiply like crazy and soon you'll be wondering how to get rid of some of them. I know this from my own towns lol.

 

[5cm/s]

i like to have general plans and ideas for my towns and i always want to implement them asap, but i'm not a tt-er and i don't ever get salty or annoyed at the game. so often on these forums i see people tearing themselves apart bc a pwp can't be placed where they want it, or a villager spontaneously moved in/out- and i get it, i totally do. it's a setback and it's not fun- but i guess my philosophy while playing is that "good things come to those who wait," and i enjoy the day-by-day realistic trial and error of my games even when bad things happen :')

i do like to plan meticulously tho- where everything will go, what i'm going to do w certain areas, exact spots where i want to put houses/pwps- but i try not to take the game too seriously and keep my plans fluid

 

[stitchmaker]

For my 1st town I played without time traveling and bought items from my own town.
My main focus was the villagers and making sure they were happy. Along the way I made hybrids and added pathways.
I've been playing since the release and still change things in my houses and outside.

Got one dress and Happy Birthday song from another player. Bought other countries items to complete my catalog.

Once a year was over I did do some time traveling in my other towns. It wasn't for unlocking things. It was for setting the town in different season. With more than 2 copies playing on the same day is too much.

 

[Lars]

i bought like 80 percent of everything that is in my town...
i don't feel bad about it either.
it was all stuff that i needed, may it be trees, flower, or even villagers...
you shouldn't feel bad to receive a little ( or al lot ) of other players.

because that's why we're here, to help each other ( or at least i am )
there is no shame in buying what you need.

i don't time travel ( anymore ) used to do it some times, but i messed more up than it did good, so... yeah..

when i started playing, did you expect that i knew what i was doing ?
no, i really didn't
i watched Chuggaconroy's ( hope that is spelled right... ) let's play of animal crossing new leaf.
and because of it i wanted the game, and have played it ever since.
like Chugga, i too, wanted to start off with Biskit in my town, and i kept starting anew till i had him in my town.
at first, i just did what Chugga did in his dairy routine.
and after a week or so, i did my own stuff, started to develop my own tastes, in housing, in villagers, gardening, and so on..
i started doing my own version of ''my routine'' and i started to make my own town, look more like my own ( if that makes cense )

anyway, i started by placing flower in such a way that i had natural paths, so i don't trample them.
i soon started with just some bush starts forming the outline of my paths.
when i could get the QR codes, i downloaded 1 path design that had vertical bricks and 1 with horizontal bricks.
and made my paths with these ( from and to all the villagers i had back then, and to re-tail and other places of significance )

i have made a few myself, that fit in quite well with the ones i downloaded.
and now that my town is basically done, i have my paths, i have my flowers protected my a line of bushes, and my trees with all the different fruits standing tall in my town.
i used different flowers and bushes so not 1 color get overused ( well at least not in mt opinion )
i used all but ( maybe 3 ) bush starts, and a hefty chunk of all the flowers.

and no.. i never though my town would look this good. ( i sounds like i'm stroking my own ego here but i'm not )
everyone that walked through my town absolutely loved it
and i'm quite happy with what it looks like

so don't feel embarrassed or anything to buy stuff from people, or what not.
you'll get there, and trust me, when you do find your path to your inspiration, everybody will love your town as well

Dream address: 6F00-007A-2686
Note: just ignore the house behind town hall ( i used that for plot resetting )
ignore Rodney the hamster ( i hate him )
and the reason there are so many ''path'' tiles in the flower beds, is so no villagers tries to move there.

enjoy, and i hope this helps

 

[Nunnafinga]

I take a very casual approach to the game.I always remember that it is a game and games are played for fun and entertainment.I only time travel when I miss an event or when I adopt out a villager to someone here on the boards.When I start a town I rarely have a theme in mind.I usually come up with something after the town reaches a certain point of development.I always plot reset so that my villagers live fairly close together.They interact more when they live near each other.I don't do much trading with other people except occasionally for a villager.I like having multiple towns so I can have the villagers I want and I can trade items between my towns.It's a game and it's meant to be fun.When it stops being fun then I will stop playing.

 

[Jill]

I try not to TT, I modded my town once and gave myself Fauna and it felt... wrong? I try to approach it in a really relaxed way. Unless it's paying off the house (I JUST PAID OFF THE LAST UPGRADE) or catching those dang beatles, I'm really chill. I'm starting to get a tiny obsessive streak of going to the Happy Homes Showcase and buyinng stuff I want. Like, I picked the fairytale theme. I know what themes each of my rooms is going to have.

Front- Harvest
Back- Princess (My room)
Right- Garden
Left- Rococo (I don't generally like it, but the dark Sleek stuff isn't in my theme, so I needed something else dark)
Upstairs- Regal
Down- Mermaid

I go to the Showcase and buy up stuff, and then I go catch beatles to replenish what I spend. I'm also getting really into drawing my villagers and my mayor, so I'm approaching it with a "I want to draw you, but you how" sort of thing too.

But anway... I don't believe in TT in Haven, because since I hacked my town (I put my cafe where I wanted it on a really neat patch of land that's not possible otherwise), I felt guilty. So, I gotta play legit otherwise I take all the fun from myself.