making islands designs functional

[voltairenism]

i mean i think it’s a really personal thing. everyone designs their island in whatever way suits them best. someone’s island may look like a navigational nightmare to you but maybe they really enjoy taking the time every day to walk slowly and admire what they’ve made. they probably know all the little easy access areas you don’t necessarily see on tours. people will design things based on what is important to them. if someone doesn’t care about fishing, they won’t care about how accessible their rivers are. i think it’s more than a little judgey to decide someone’s island is nonfunctional just because you don’t know how to function on it.

Being functional is a very straightforward fact, it's not judgey saying it's not functional. Being functional: able to fish, catch bugs, blow up ballons, get bottles and shells on the beach, reach your shops fast, find your villagers, shake all trees, and so on. Some islands you clearly can't do that. And it's not a bad thing. If you don't care and your point is making the island as beautiful as you can, you do you. Dang, I wish I didn't care so I could decorate the heck of my island. I am not gatekeeping anyone

 

[Mikaiah]

I hate fishing, so I crowd my beach and got rid of a lot of my rivers. It doesn't bother me, but I know it bothers a lot of other people, haha. I have a lot of flowers/fencing/furnitures lining my river and honestly I could care less. I really hate fishing lol

I've been moving buildings around, and everything is centralized, except for the museum... but I don't really know where I want to put it

 

[voltairenism]

I try to figure out what I *do* on my island and then design to facilitate that. Form follows function.

Vaguely related though: most of the decor is not functional but I also think about the purpose of decorative items. The wells are very adorable but I cannot stand seeing a well next to a pond, for example. If fresh water is readily available, what's the well for? Is there a giardia problem on the island?

lmao yeah, when I was decorating my island I tried to be aware of that type if things but only have so much space and need filler decorative items xD So I kept putting wells everywhere. Once I saw an island that had wavebreakers all over the beaches and the host said "they are not pretty but I don't want everyone to die in a tsunami" and omg talk about decoration that makes sense xD

 

[DeltaLoraine]

I think it's a good balance of both. I put everything in a kind of grid to make paths that are easy/helpful/and direct (though some people don't find that pretty or "creative" enough). I also line my paths with pretty flowers so that they are more defined and "fenced in" without actually using fences that would block someone from getting into the forest. (The flowers also allow access to the river without it being blocked)

For furniture, I make sure it is flushed up against a cliff or a fence or something so that there is an obvious path around them so it looks pretty but is also functional.

For beaches, I put all the palm trees up against the edge of the sand furthest from the shore and surround them with bushes and flowers that make them look pretty. the flowers allow openings to walk through, and having the palm trees all the way in the back allow for more sand space and fishing capabilities.

In the end, I think it's definitely a personal thing for every player to figure out what they want for their island.

 

[Bloobloop]

it’s like 70% decoration and 30% functionality for me! i definitely like using the disneyland effect (ie long windy paths) to make the town seem bigger than it is! however, i don’t like to overstuff it with decorations and make it hard to access different areas. at the end of the day, i want every part of my village to be accessible and to feel like a real town. with that comes an infrastructure that (i hope) will loosely resemble a real town’s in the future! i have a more urban/busy area that uses fences and clear, gridlike paths and is a lot more straightforward than my mountainous rural area in the back, which has more foliage and is a bit harder to navigate. all in all, it comes down to personal preference, and i just like the feeling of a very realistic asian village. it feels super cozy to me, so i like being liberal enough with my decorations that it really emulates that nostalgia!

 

[nammie]

Function is extremely important to me for the reason you stated, personally I don't see the point of a beautiful island if its... unuseable if that makes sense lol. Like impossible to get certain fish, bugs, hard to navigate, etc.

When I decorate I make sure that all main paths are at least 2 blocks wide, and if parts of a river are blocked then other parts are still open so that I can still fish. I do have some trees I cant easily reach, but most of my catalog is filled now so I dont care as much about shaking trees and stuff anymore.

 

[cheezu]

Yupp...
I placed a bunch of stuff on my dock before because I saw people decorating theirs and it made it very hard to fish so I just ended up getting rid of it in the end.
But I guess different people value different things. For some who TT, it's very possible they have already completed their critterpedia and make money through other means so they might not care about things like bug catching, fishing or tree shaking.
I like to fish because I find it relaxing but I can see how many people wouldn't care for it. To some people the decorating aspect is more important.

 

[Meira]

I've been starting to decorate my island and functionality is the most important thing I always have in mind when I do something. For myself as well as my villagers.

My beach has space all around the shore so I can fish and there's not too many things on the sand, so I can dig up bait.

I don't have any land where you will need to skip to get to the other side. I think it takes longer than just having a straight path. Although, I've seen people have them, it's not function for my villagers because they can't hop and I think it's useless and a waste of space if you're the only one who can access it.

Some of my trees are covered all around, but I have many trees that aren't blocked by anything so I can farm for materials.
I hate it when I farm for them and it just disappears because there is no space. This also applies for gifts.

I think islands that are created for aesthetics don't really care for any of these, but for me, these type of tasks is what keeps me going.
What's the point in having a really pretty island but you can't do anything. I guess it comes down to preference but I would imagine the game getting dull if you can't do half of the things you would normally do.

 

[violixir]

I’ve gone through a few island layouts trying to catch the happy middle for aesthetics and function, and I think I’m starting to hit that. One of the main things I’ve come to accept for my style of town is that as long as there are some functional parts, I don’t need every inch to be constantly functional, and sometimes it’s nice to have to just walk the long way around something to get to a staircase. I wouldn’t cut through a lawn or hop over a river in real life, so I don’t mind fencing things off to force people (mostly myself) to go the long way.

 

[fairyring]

Being functional is a very straightforward fact, it's not judgey saying it's not functional. Being functional: able to fish, catch bugs, blow up ballons, get bottles and shells on the beach, reach your shops fast, find your villagers, shake all trees, and so on. Some islands you clearly can't do that. And it's not a bad thing. If you don't care and your point is making the island as beautiful as you can, you do you. Dang, I wish I didn't care so I could decorate the heck of my island. I am not gatekeeping anyone

agree to disagree i guess, i don’t think it’s a big deal to pick up an item if you wanna get to a fish in that spot and then put it back after. there’s very little in ac that has to be done in an immediate sense. even with the balloons you can just go to an empty spot that you can see it’s heading towards. it’s one thing to change things around so that you can access a function that matters to you but i do think functionality means something different to everyone.

for example i have a sushi bar on one of my beaches with a zen fence around it and sometimes shells, message bottles, fish etc wind up in the one spot i can’t access due to the fence. so i simply take down the fence, pick up the item/catch the fish, and then put it back. it doesn’t bother me and i don’t feel it hinders the functionality of my island at all.

this is definitely a to each, their own situation imo!

 

[voltairenism]

agree to disagree i guess, i don’t think it’s a big deal to pick up an item if you wanna get to a fish in that spot and then put it back after. there’s very little in ac that has to be done in an immediate sense. even with the balloons you can just go to an empty spot that you can see it’s heading towards. it’s one thing to change things around so that you can access a function that matters to you but i do think functionality means something different to everyone.

for example i have a sushi bar on one of my beaches with a zen fence around it and sometimes shells, message bottles, fish etc wind up in the one spot i can’t access due to the fence. so i simply take down the fence, pick up the item/catch the fish, and then put it back. it doesn’t bother me and i don’t feel it hinders the functionality of my island at all.

this is definitely a to each, their own situation imo!

i agree. you can take things out, it's not a big deal. the meaning of functional in this context, though, is "practical". Not "if you can't immediatly do something, your island is broken"