Island Map Help!

[*Maddy*]

Hi I have 540 hours in this game and have no idea what to do about my island layout,,, I've debated flattening it, resetting, ect, but idk that all just seems like too much so I'm looking for some advice!

I'm looking for river placement, house placement, general building place advice or whatever you guys think would be useful! Any advice would be really appreciated!
Edit: here's some more general info on what I'm kinda going for!
I'm trying to go for a more natural overgrown kind of town with lots of ceder trees and such! I have a lot of flowers so they're a bit limiting. I want to incorporate some cool cryptid elements around with some designs I've found online! I'll add more here if it come up!

 

[Pyoopi]

My first question is do you have a theme or a story? Is your island natural, urban or both?

It's hard to say when there's missing information about your island and island representative. Moon Bay sounds whimsical, and more of a natural island but for someone else it could be a rave nightlife island.

 

[ranch]

your layout actually kinda reminds me of mine! we even have our house and resident services in almost the exact same spot! I'm not so good at making the hyper-designed Super Islands I see sometimes - although I think they can look really pretty, I'm too lazy when it comes to actually playing and I always end up designing for convenience lol. but when it comes to just like, general quality of life, I'd definitely place more bridges and inclines in areas that will allow you to easily run a loop of the whole island without having to swap tools around. some ponds for fishing might be useful, as well as another cliff lake to make it easier to catch those fish? I guess you don't need two cliff rivers but...as I say...I get lazy and don't wanna go to the other side of the island...
I love the tiered cliffs aesthetic with the flat main area (reminds me of NZ), so I wouldn't wanna flatten it!
my favourite design thing to do is to place natural winding paths around and border them with fields of flowers in specific colours...that way I can change the whole Mood of a location based more on colour and atmosphere than actual terraforming!
I don't know if any of that is especially useful, but my 2c!

 

[*Maddy*]

Oops @Pyoopi

Yeah I definitely want a more natural overgrown vibe! Lot's of cedar trees around! I've wanted to incorporate cryptids and small stuff like that but also don't know where it'd fit in. I also don't think I need a whole theme set throughout the whole thing, it's a personal town but a less restrictive theme with some fun wouldn't hurt. I'll add a bit of this to the original post for clarification.

Post automatically merged: Oct 3, 2020

your layout actually kinda reminds me of mine! we even have our house and resident services in almost the exact same spot! I'm not so good at making the hyper-designed Super Islands I see sometimes - although I think they can look really pretty, I'm too lazy when it comes to actually playing and I always end up designing for convenience lol. but when it comes to just like, general quality of life, I'd definitely place more bridges and inclines in areas that will allow you to easily run a loop of the whole island without having to swap tools around. some ponds for fishing might be useful, as well as another cliff lake to make it easier to catch those fish? I guess you don't need two cliff rivers but...as I say...I get lazy and don't wanna go to the other side of the island...
I love the tiered cliffs aesthetic with the flat main area (reminds me of NZ), so I wouldn't wanna flatten it!
my favourite design thing to do is to place natural winding paths around and border them with fields of flowers in specific colours...that way I can change the whole Mood of a location based more on colour and atmosphere than actual terraforming!
I don't know if any of that is especially useful, but my 2c!

Ooh thank you! I definitely need to add more bridge/incline wise but wanna the whole design more situated before I spend all my bells on stuff like that lol! Didn't know the tiered cliffs were a NZ thing! That's cool! I like them and will definitely try to do more with them too! Thanks for the input!

 

[ranch]

oooO cryptids and stuff are absolutely my jam!
I've had a lot of fun with stuff like this lol

it might be fun to make little areas in the forest where everything (flowers, furniture, custom designs) suddenly fades to dark or monochrome and a hidden speaker plays a strange song...

 

[*Maddy*]

oooO cryptids and stuff are absolutely my jam!
I've had a lot of fun with stuff like this lolView attachment 324282
it might be fun to make little areas in the forest where everything (flowers, furniture, custom designs) suddenly fades to dark or monochrome and a hidden speaker plays a strange song...

I love having music around so hidden spooky speakers sounds like a plan! I've found lots of good designs online and can't wait to do something with them!

 

[ceribells]

My map's pretty similar, too (just flip resident services and the airport's spots). I made that central island my "town" with both shops and a few residents. I tried to cluster more on there, but it got too much and I (and my villagers) had little reason to spread across the island. I put my museum up on my 2nd level, just above a row of houses. And two villagers are on the 2nd level, in like a foresty/cabin setting. I also have villagers at both southern corners.
For your map, maybe one of your villagers is a recluse who wants to live near one of those ponds, or by a waterfall? Or a beachcomber striking out on their own at the far south corner? I think spreading out also gives you reason to walk among all that nice nature!
I definitely wouldn't flatten it. Try and riff of what's there - add and subtract as you need to carve out different areas.

 

[*Maddy*]

My map's pretty similar, too (just flip resident services and the airport's spots). I made that central island my "town" with both shops and a few residents. I tried to cluster more on there, but it got too much and I (and my villagers) had little reason to spread across the island. I put my museum up on my 2nd level, just above a row of houses. And two villagers are on the 2nd level, in like a foresty/cabin setting. I also have villagers at both southern corners.
For your map, maybe one of your villagers is a recluse who wants to live near one of those ponds, or by a waterfall? Or a beachcomber striking out on their own at the far south corner? I think spreading out also gives you reason to walk among all that nice nature!
I definitely wouldn't flatten it. Try and riff of what's there - add and subtract as you need to carve out different areas.

Yeah I've definitely been getting more tired of having all of my villagers so close together, wanting a more foresty town but not having the space is frustrating so I'll try to work on that! As the others have pointed out I won't flatten it, I'll keep that thought in the back of my head lol, thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[goodra]

i have a similar themed island. what i did was mostly work with my natural cliffs- i made some bigger / smaller but kept more or less the same layout i got. flattening could work if you have a solid idea of what you want, but it will take a while.

all of my trees are cedar except for a small fruit orchard i rarely go to. i also have a "dip" in a second level cliff that leads to a weird haunted thingy. some little spooky areas hidden between the trees as well look nice!

i also have a neighborhood im pretty sick of lol. moving the houses to the beach temporarily could be useful while you work on the areas you want them on, maybe?