Major island overhaul

[Imbri]

I've redone areas, but not my entire island. The big spots - where buildings/houses are - I'm happy with, so it is more about landscaping around the anchor points.

Even without leveling it and starting over, it can be a lot of work to get things just right.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

I've redone my island without flattening it. I took about a week before starting anything to map out my plans on Happy Island Designer, which in turn also helped me find an optimal way to move buildings around without having to move everything onto the beaches. There were some times when I disliked the outcome, but it was unfair to make that conclusion when I was still in the middle of moving things around and had not yet started decorating the island. Just take things one day at a time, and use any waiting time (as a non-time traveler) to plan out next steps (e.g. what items to order -- thank you, 5 orders per day limit ).

 

[Loreley]

I've just redone the right side of my island and I'm very happy with the outcome! I didn't do a huge rework, just slighty changed the structure of my residential area. However it was necessary to remove all the buildings for that, which was a bit tedious. I did not flatten everything but worked on smaller sections, depending on where I felt the most inspiration at the time.

I think it's important to take your time with such a project. There were definitely days were I just placed down one or two items because I wasn't inspired. Also, it took me about a week to decide whether I should rework this area or not because I was scared of the outcome. I tried visualizing what I wanted as much as possible (sadly the 3D villager builder doesn't work with my slow laptop) and I also ended up sketching how I wanted my map to look in the end. Of course things never turn out exactly how you planned but it's good to have a rough plan.

 

[Katzenjammer]

Yes, I've literally leveled my entire island and started over from scratch. I got it how I wanted it for summer but now I'm not really digging the layout so much anymore even though the place is barren. I'm doing an overhaul for autumn and winter. I still haven't started as I've been busy with real life lately and the TBT Fair. Now that the fair is coming to a close, I'll have time to begin. I do feel overwhelmed by it though as it's going to be a LOT. The only upside is I know what I want to do and have most of the custom patters I'll need now. I have no idea how many hours it will take, but I figure I have nothing but time. I guess I have to be in the right state of mind before I go in to work on something so big and I try to work from the south side of the island to the north, little by little as I'm able to.

 

[Baroque]

The island customization is probably my favourite aspect of New Horizons. I admit that I mostly just draw inspiration from other people's islands, like the super-awesome modern Japanese shopping street or a neat hill-mounted library I saw somewhere, but I find it oddly therapeutic to, like, shape the spots that I'm gonna use to make those little areas and prepare the ground for it and such.

A whole island overhaul sounds like it'd take a loooot of time but, if you've got said time, then it can definitely be cool XD

 

[HappyTails]

I just started an island overhaul. My resident services is just slightly off-center so I keep redoing the entrance part of my island over and over to find a layout that won't make me crazy, and the surrounding areas get changed along with it. I'm having fun alternating terraforming and going to lots of islands/dream addressed for inspiration though. Not so fun is all the bells and TT needed to move buildings around for the millionth time

Yeah, my resident services isn't quite centered with my airport either. It's a lot of bells and can be time consuming if one doesn't time travel.

Post automatically merged: Sep 7, 2020

I've redone areas, but not my entire island. The big spots - where buildings/houses are - I'm happy with, so it is more about landscaping around the anchor points.

Even without leveling it and starting over, it can be a lot of work to get things just right.

I've redone my island without flattening it. I took about a week before starting anything to map out my plans on Happy Island Designer, which in turn also helped me find an optimal way to move buildings around without having to move everything onto the beaches. There were some times when I disliked the outcome, but it was unfair to make that conclusion when I was still in the middle of moving things around and had not yet started decorating the island. Just take things one day at a time, and use any waiting time (as a non-time traveler) to plan out next steps (e.g. what items to order -- thank you, 5 orders per day limit ).

I've just redone the right side of my island and I'm very happy with the outcome! I didn't do a huge rework, just slighty changed the structure of my residential area. However it was necessary to remove all the buildings for that, which was a bit tedious. I did not flatten everything but worked on smaller sections, depending on where I felt the most inspiration at the time.

I think it's important to take your time with such a project. There were definitely days were I just placed down one or two items because I wasn't inspired. Also, it took me about a week to decide whether I should rework this area or not because I was scared of the outcome. I tried visualizing what I wanted as much as possible (sadly the 3D villager builder doesn't work with my slow laptop) and I also ended up sketching how I wanted my map to look in the end. Of course things never turn out exactly how you planned but it's good to have a rough plan.

Yes, I've literally leveled my entire island and started over from scratch. I got it how I wanted it for summer but now I'm not really digging the layout so much anymore even though the place is barren. I'm doing an overhaul for autumn and winter. I still haven't started as I've been busy with real life lately and the TBT Fair. Now that the fair is coming to a close, I'll have time to begin. I do feel overwhelmed by it though as it's going to be a LOT. The only upside is I know what I want to do and have most of the custom patters I'll need now. I have no idea how many hours it will take, but I figure I have nothing but time. I guess I have to be in the right state of mind before I go in to work on something so big and I try to work from the south side of the island to the north, little by little as I'm able to.

The island customization is probably my favourite aspect of New Horizons. I admit that I mostly just draw inspiration from other people's islands, like the super-awesome modern Japanese shopping street or a neat hill-mounted library I saw somewhere, but I find it oddly therapeutic to, like, shape the spots that I'm gonna use to make those little areas and prepare the ground for it and such.

A whole island overhaul sounds like it'd take a loooot of time but, if you've got said time, then it can definitely be cool XD

Nice to see other people have the same idea as me and it worked out. I'm seriously considering leveling my entire island. I mean it definitely going to be a big project. The customization is pretty awesome, it's nice to have the ability to shape our islands the way we want.

I saw that island designer app. I might end up using it just to see.

 

[meggiewes]

I'm in the middle of a giant re-do of my island. While I really liked how it looked initially, I really disliked that I could easily miss CJ or Flick if they decided to hang out behind the cliffs that were directly behind my resident services building. So, I'm in the process of removing most of my river to go with a new layout for my cliffs and buildings.

I'm also dreaming of a lot of towns as I do this to see what sorts of layouts and decorating ideas I like running around in. I only wish that we could pick random dreams to dream about from a list instead of having to use a third-party source to find dream addresses.

 

[HappyTails]

This project is already taking it out of me. I'm already tired. XD

But it's fun. I keep getting the urge to restart my entire island so I'm turning the game off a lot to keep myself from doing so.

Post automatically merged: Sep 7, 2020

I'm in the middle of a giant re-do of my island. While I really liked how it looked initially, I really disliked that I could easily miss CJ or Flick if they decided to hang out behind the cliffs that were directly behind my resident services building. So, I'm in the process of removing most of my river to go with a new layout for my cliffs and buildings.

I'm also dreaming of a lot of towns as I do this to see what sorts of layouts and decorating ideas I like running around in. I only wish that we could pick random dreams to dream about from a list instead of having to use a third-party source to find dream addresses.

I hope they add the random/search function back in a future update. The random dreams was fun.

 

[saucySheep]

i just moved my museum and now im thinking "oof im too lazy to make it look decent now" lol

 

[Khaelis]

I recently finished a major overhaul of my island's design a couple days ago. So glad I did it. My previous design was "okay" but I put little effort or thought into the design, I just started doing it and let it flow. It eventually just stopped being "okay" for me, so I decided to overhaul it completely with a well thought out design I actually worked on for a while. Even remade my island journal thread to document it here and there.

 

[Clock]

I'm debating on redoing my island layout since I'm not happy with it, I did do a major overhaul on my island though, which was the cafe in my island.

 

[HappyTails]

I'm debating on redoing my island layout since I'm not happy with it, I did do a major overhaul on my island though, which was the cafe in my island.

If you don't like something, the cool thing about terraforming is you can always change it.

I recently finished a major overhaul of my island's design a couple days ago. So glad I did it. My previous design was "okay" but I put little effort or thought into the design, I just started doing it and let it flow. It eventually just stopped being "okay" for me, so I decided to overhaul it completely with a well thought out design I actually worked on for a while. Even remade my island journal thread to document it here and there.

I'm happy that your overhaul turned out well.

So tiring....

Luckily not all of the houses are in the way, so I don't have to move all of them.
I already marked where my river and cliffs are going to go, and I can already see that at least 3 more houses will need to be moved for me to make the cliffs.

 

[sleepydreepy]

YEEEEES I am all for island overhauls!! I recently bulldozed a major section of my map to the ground and its been so fun and satisfying to have free range and just experiment and do whatever I want. I really love it, and I hope you also have a good experience!

 

[HappyTails]

Thank you. Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun. My island is an absolute MESS right now. But I like that, because it will make the time when it's actually looking nice all the more satisfying. I just finished terraforming the area where my house is going to go. I already have a system going as well.

Like my house right now is the focus. Once I move my house, I will focus on decorating around it. Then move on to moving another building, then focus on the landscaping around that building, and so on. That way the wait a day system this game has won't be as annoying since I will be focusing on decorating and landscaping instead of the fact that I have to wait to move another building.

 

[MapleSilver]

It's times like this where I'm grateful they gave us the ability to terraform and move buildings. I said yesterday that I was happy with how it was turning out, but I think I jinxed myself. XD

I agree, I remember in New Leaf a lot of people were stuck in an endless loop of resetting after realizing they weren't happy with one aspect of their towns. I haven't heard of nearly as many people resetting in New Horizons and I'm sure terraforming is a huge reason for that.

 

[HappyTails]

I agree, I remember in New Leaf a lot of people were stuck in an endless loop of resetting after realizing they weren't happy with one aspect of their towns. I haven't heard of nearly as many people resetting in New Horizons and I'm sure terraforming is a huge reason for that.

I know one of the main reasons I reset constantly in New Leaf is because of the location of houses. Not a problem anymore. XD

 

[avieators]

oh gosh,,,so this year has been very not good for me (like most ppl) and to keep myself from thinking abt how everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong i may have flattened my island three times...the first time i had no idea what i was doing and ended up hating everything, the second time i made the mistake of looking at other ppls islands while in the process of building, hated everything/got inspired by others' work and wanted to try out new ideas and tore it all down again, and the third time,,,might be the charm! i've kind of accepted that theres no real "perfect" island, its just what you as the owner want to make it :3 plus i've visited some dream addresses of like, those instagram acnh islands and,,,the amount of stuff they have out makes the game run sooooo sloooooow, i wanna actually be able to play my game lol.

terraforming is kind of the worst thing to happen to me as someone w a perfectionist streak but its also great to have this much control over things as someone w control issues

Post automatically merged: Sep 8, 2020

Ah I did! I terraformed and moved my villagers into a neighborhood and has this whole modern vibe but then grew to dislike it ): so I tore everything down and moved everyone to the beaches and started over and made my island more “natural” and I’m happy with it for now!

oh i have one of those cute lil neighborhoods! i adore it and i worked really hard on it but i def can see how it wouldnt be considered very "natural" lol. i just like having everyone being neighbors and i'm horrible at designing those cute yards for villagers :3 (except my second character whos a hermit and lives way out by my park. she guards the park hsjdjdj)

 

[HappyTails]

Just wanted to share one small part of my island that worked on today. This is where my house is going to go. I have to move it here tomorrow. I really hope it fits here, I'm not good at measuring by eye. Also, uninvited grasshopper totally photobombed. XD

 

[Candy83]

I'm about to start a big project. A complete overhaul of my island. Granted I'm not technically done with it but I'm starting to not like how it's turning out.
It's times like this where I'm grateful they gave us the ability to terraform and move buildings. I said yesterday that I was happy with how it was turning out, but I think I jinxed myself. XD

So this can be turned into a discussion thread, has anyone else done a major overhaul and if so, did you regret it or did it turn out better than you expected?

I did a re-design and rebuild of my island, Óhana.

I made the decision because I wanted an easier flow for navigating the island. I also did it because, as much as I appreciate the islanders, they were not using their yard and the pieces of outdoor furniture I built and designed in layout for them. They are programmed especially to be at or near Resident Services.

I have included before-and-after pictures of the map of Óhana. I have more to do before I establish a code for a Dream Address. But, I am pleased with it so far.

 

[HappyTails]

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I did a re-design and rebuild of my island, Óhana.

I made the decision because I wanted an easier flow for navigating the island. I also did it because, as much as I appreciate the islanders, they were not using their yard and the pieces of outdoor furniture I built and designed in layout for them. They are programmed especially to be at or near Resident Services.

I have included before-and-after pictures of the map of Óhana. I have more to do before I establish a code for a Dream Address. But, I am pleased with it so far.

Oh wow, that map really did change a lot. I build a lot of outdoor furniture but it's mostly for aesthetic reasons, not so much for using but I am definitely downsizing a lot. I can't wait to see it once you have an DA for it.