i'm honestly overwhelmed with how much customization there is

[aeroyAEIOU]

i can't DECIDE A TOWN THEME!!!! there's so many different things i wanna do. i had another town before my current, but reset after doing a huge terraforming project i ended up hating.. currently working on roads and paths but i can't decide on anything. i'm honestly feeling kinda hopeless about it all. what do you guys do to help you actually like your town?

 

[Shyria]

Uhhh I don't know if I'm the best to speak but here are some things I'd recommend:

- Go slow! If find it very helping to remind myself often that it's ok to not have everything finalized in a week or two. The longer it takes, the longer the game will be challenging and fun and wholesome! So I try to focus on small bits at a time. I worked a bit on my commercial area, now it's not complete yet but I'm happy with what it looks like, and I'll get back to it to make it better gradually. So I moved on to my rural neighborhood area, and same goes with that one, I'm working on it with what I have on hand, and I'll make it better or change it up later on.

- Figure out what you like and do not like, and what you want and do not want: sometimes I get lost watching amazing things on the internet, and wish I could do the same, and try and tear down all I have to make it that way, only to realize as pretty as I think it looks it's not what I wanted for my town.
So it's good to try and define what you think is pretty, and what you actually want in your town. And the other way around as well!

- Spend some time just enjoying your town.
I personally find that sometimes I look at so many beautiful things that my town just feel really underworked and plain and boring. But then I take a stroll around, play a day without touching it design wise, and it reminds me what I enjoy about it! Just walking around in MY town, chatting up my villagers... It feels great but sometimes we're so focused on the work we want to do or the end goal we want to achieve that it kind of spoil the whole experience...

Here's my two cents!
In the end, the most important thing is that you enjoy spending time on your island! And it's ok if at first it doesn't look exactly like what you want, you'll get there, and as long as you have fun doing so it doesn't matter how long it takes or how many times you change your mind on it!

 

[EtchaSketch]

I'm in the exact same boat. I have NO idea what i want, but that's totally okay c:

 

[seularin]

i'm basically lost. ; ^ ; one day, i woke up and said, "hey. a winter wonderland sounds cool." then the next i decide to go for a more nature-themed island; but then i see all these cute tropical islands and ergh

 

[meggiewes]

I just plain gave up on having a theme and I played it like I first started playing New Leaf. No goal in mind. Just living my day to the best of my ability and doing whatever I like, whenever I like. 100% happier with my decision.

 

[aeroyAEIOU]

I just plain gave up on having a theme and I played it like I first started playing New Leaf. No goal in mind. Just living my day to the best of my ability and doing whatever I like, whenever I like. 100% happier with my decision.

i have a new leaf save that i basically do like this.. like i have paths and a little bit of a theme (west side of village is more of a forest/nature, east is more city-like with streets n stuff), but it's very lax and nothing extremely planned. maybe i should try doing that in my current island

 

[meggiewes]

i have a new leaf save that i basically do like this.. like i have paths and a little bit of a theme (west side of village is more of a forest/nature, east is more city-like with streets n stuff), but it's very lax and nothing extremely planned. maybe i should try doing that in my current island

And the best part, is that if you decide to organize and decorate in a certain way after a while then you can totally still do that! I find that it takes the pressure off.

 

[LuchaSloth]

It is a lot to take in...

But, I think this is why the game gives you so little from the start...and really drags out how long it takes to unlock new things.

For example...if I had access to absolutely everything I wanted right from the start, I probably would have been overwhelmed by doing everything at once. But being able to slowly chip away at what was made available has kind of forced me to just focus on one thing at a time. And I think my island is better for it.

Instead of my town having a definitive theme...I was forced to just make it look nice with what I had. And now my town feels more like a "real"/"functional" town than it ever would have if I just went wild from the beginning. And I still change things as I go. It's never really "finished"...which is how I like it.

 

[Xara]

same, honestly. i finally looked at the patterns that sable gave me for the first time earlier and there’s so many?? and there’s so many other options too and i just-

 

[aeroyAEIOU]

i should mention that it's not the fact that i didn't have an actual "theme" in mind, rather it's just the layouts and stuff that stress me out. i'm trying to tackle a light vegas theme; lots of neon lights, palm tree lamps, etc. after designing the main entrance area, i literally have no idea what to do for the rest and i start feeling overwhelmed, yknow.

Post automatically merged: May 17, 2020

same, honestly. i finally looked at the patterns that sable gave me for the first time earlier and there’s so many?? and there’s so many other options too and i just-

i still have yet to unlock sable's patterns, how many are there??

 

[Manah]

I have no theme. I have little themed sections (or will have if I ever get around to working on them) that are more or less connected to each other.

I used to be overwhelmed too, but now I come across things like flowers and furniture sometimes and I'm like "this would look great with this fence next to that building" or "what if I made a little pond in my forest and put these flowers around it" and that sparks even more new ideas. And it's only ever a small section that doesn't feel like too much.

But I do need to stop being intimidated by river remodeling.

 

[Bloobloop]

same here, i keep changing the layout of my town! i originally wanted an urban area (hence my town name: seoul), but then wanted a studio ghibli-themed town, then changed back to an urban one, and now i want to put the asian items to use for a rural village? but i also visited someone's town that i thought was gorgeous, so i have so many different ideas and i can't decide on what i want ;;

 

[Lurrdoc]

Having a theme can be challenging. I personally theme my island into different sections.

You don't need a theme, though, just do what you like. For some it'll take more work to get to something you like, but the key part is to keep trying.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

If you don't like it you can always just start over (I don't mean starting completely over, like deleting your island). I didn't landscape my island with any theme in mind, and while I love my island, I will probably tear it all down and re-do it eventually. I think the most fun part of the game is the progress of making your island in to what you want, though I suppose that's not everyones cup of tea

 

[eminyan]

i personally had to have a preset format for my island before doing anything so maybe look for game towns and such for inspiration?

 

[SCORPA15]

I found the creative freedom we are given overwhelming at first, but I find terraforming/moving things around slowly the best solution for me.
For instance I terraformed the area around my museum first, I then left it for a few days to see if I liked it.
Once I decided I was happy with it I then decided to decorate it more extensively.
A good thing about this is that you only need to tidy up the area that you are terraforming.

Even though my island is no where near finished, i'm happy what ive done with it so far.

 

[Magus]

I agree there are so many cool options and furnitures in this game, for my concerns instead of making a ONE THEME island, my idea is to have multiple areas which are meant to be different (like asian area, town area, forest area etc). With this method I can use a lot of things and have diversity on my island without the whole being too messy.

 

[JKDOS]

i can't DECIDE A TOWN THEME!!!! there's so many different things i wanna do. i had another town before my current, but reset after doing a huge terraforming project i ended up hating.. currently working on roads and paths but i can't decide on anything. i'm honestly feeling kinda hopeless about it all. what do you guys do to help you actually like your town?

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a good town. You just need to take things slowly and don't outdo yourself or think you are going to accomplish everything in a short period of time. It's taken me over a month of massively re-terraforming my island to get where I am, and I still got more to do. I've restructured my entire town at least 5-times now. I'm finally in a place where I am happy with the ongoing development of my town.

You first need to settle on an overall idea on the look and feel you want your town to portray. You need to work on eliminating the others and focus on the one you want most. Once you have the idea or a general idea of what kind of town you want, you need to work on it piece by piece. One example is start off by decorating the Resident Services and Airport areas first and foremost.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend using Happy Island Designer to try out ideas for your town. (Not a sponsor)

Happy Island Designer

Plan your dream island map. Made for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Draw terrain and paths, place buildings, and trace your in-game map.

eugeneration.github.io

You can also watch town tours on Youtube to get inspiration for certain aspects, and ideas for things such as villager homes and resident services.


One thing you should keep in mind is that terraforming is not permanent. Anything you do with Terraforming can be undone and vice-versa. You should not have to reset your town just because you hate the terraforming work you did. All resetting will do is push you further behind schedule and erase all your hard-earned progress towards friendships, bell earnings, achievements, villagers collected, hours put in, and DIYs unlocked.

 

[Holla]

I have multiple different areas and each has it’s own theme. Most are still a work in progress but it’s more fulfilling than just doing the same theme throughout. I do have an overall theme (Sailor Moon) but I’ve further split that theme to match different characters such as having a cafe area, zen area, playground/park area etc.

To separate the areas I mostly use the river and cliffs so land on other sides of the river or different levels is considered a different area. I also kept terraforming to a minimum and only really did some where I felt like some areas were super tiny so I added more area to them by taking away area from a bigger part.

 

[Arckaniel]

There really are a lot of themes possible for an island, but if you really can't think of one theme for your island, you could do multiple ones in each section of your island and make it work