making islands designs functional

[Le Ham]

I guess I've never really thought about it when I put my island together, but I do try to keep a balance. If the hedge fence runs up against the river, I make sure I can reach a fish in that spot from either side of the fence. If it feels cumbersome walking around a barrier to get to something, I eventually cave in and make a small shortcut. If I notice myself start to pull out my ladder at a certain spot, I know I need to do some work on my incline/cliff game. I've lately planted weeds on my dirt path in my orchard to spice it up a little, but I pick any weeds that grow where the fruit would fall off the tree.

 

[bunn1es]

so, I like to watch a lot of island tours, and tour then myself as well. Some island look absolute beautiful, but then I realized something: it's not functional. The most straightforward example is beach decorations, some people have it so cluttered you cant reach the shore - so you cant fish. I had mine very decorated, once I saw a fin shadow in a place I couldn't reach ;-; it was the last straw. Some stuff actually helps, like rock garden. But yk...
Putting so many trees you can't find wasps, furniture and fossils, or block the view and you can't find your villagers, not having space for blowing up ballons or fishing on the river, and so on. Something I had on my old island is that the paths were so curved with so many detours that it took me like two minutes to go from my house to Nook's Cranny (I started using Rescue Service a lot lol)
Anyway, how do you balance functionality and decoration? Do you care more about being functional or pretty? Also tell me creative things you saw/came up with to make gardening/fishing/etc easier!

Well, I don't have New Horizons yet (sorry, I know this is the wiki for it, I just like to read and respond to posts sometimes ^^") but I think it's definitely a good idea to have something that is both functional AND pretty. You can make a brilliant, open and accessible space while still fitting in a lot of decorations that you can walk around or through. I like to have a fountain, and then kind of build an area up around that and make path ways through to the whole space so there are no areas where you feel like you're trapped or lost :>

 

[Nami]

I balance function and form. I decorated my beach a lot, but I leave the shoreline itself, the last tile before water, completely clear so that I have no fishing hindrance.

 

[Tileve]

I like a balance. I have some objects on the beach, but no big path designs as I like to find manila clams. The trees on the higest place of my island are fruit trees so I don't have to climb each time to shake the, when I'm looking for the furniture. I keep a space fo the stuff to fell on the ground if my trees are closes to something else. I put some flowers but I don't want them everywhere. I have a ground desing on higher the waterfalls where I don't want a fossil to spawn.

I like an island that's like eye candy, but I am the one playing on my island. I want it in a way that makes it easier for me to enjoy the game!

 

[Hobowire]

Reep fishing!

 

[Uffe]

I agree. I feel like a lot of islands I've seen that look large is mostly due to the fact things are squeezed against each other and your villager ends up having to jump around certain crevices if I should call it that. I wouldn't like an island like that. They can look really nice, but it's not for me when it comes to cramming things together.

 

[deerteeth]

I am very guilty of making areas non-functional TvT
My paths and shortcuts have nothing blocking them so you can run where you need to freely and conveniently, and I have room to fish for the most part, but I just love the cluttered look sooOO much. So while you can easily get to an area, the area is most likely non-functional. My campsite is a good example of that. There are log benches, a fire, and some other things too, but you can't actually go there to sit. You can only go into the tent if there's a camper. You could cut through the trees if you really wanted to but you still wouldn't be able to explore the area really due to all the blockades, but you can see all I intended from the front!

I kind of think of it as an art gallery. You walk to see something and admire it, then you walk to see the next thing. No touching, just looking. c:

 

[dizzy bone]

I'm 50/50ish on functionality/prettiness. My main interest is landscaping and town design, always has been throughout all the AC games I've played. In New Leaf I barely even touched my museum because I was too hooked on constantly working on my landscaping and houses. This game is a little different though, because I've prioritised the museum even though I didn't care much about finishing exhibits in past games... the museum in this game is just too damn impressive not to, haha. So to me functionality is always going to be important. That said, half my town is already overly landscaped and decorated BUT I do have my own personal locations for fishing that I know work. Most my rivers are covered by cliffs or awkward in terms of spacing but I have one open river I always use only for fishing using bait. My two of my beaches are clear and I have one functional pond (although all ponds for fishing suck and everyone knows it lol). My town hall area is also open with clear roads that are easy for balloon popping and all my villagers are easily accessible. As long as I have a few places I can fulfil my tasks with ease, I consider that functional enough. The rest can be crazy haha :')

 

[pup]

I use the running test on my island. I love to decorate but only if I can easily navigate/run through the area in a way that doesn't significantly block function or slow me down moving from one area to the next. If I set up a block in certain areas, it's to encourage traffic in a different direction. I do have a few areas that require the 'side step animation', but those are in small decorated areas, not major thoroughfares.

ooo i love this running test idea! i am definitely going to use this going forward.

 

[sfelix]

I made my island very pretty and it bothers me a lot that my villagers almost never visit the lovely gardens and so on that I made. And for that matter I hardly ever visit them either. Everything takes place in the same few locations - the plaza, the shop, the museum, and one particular bit of beach, and the rest of the island gets ignored by my villagers and myself. I don't know what to do about it. Certain bits of the island are very pretty but totally useless and it feels like a waste of space.

 

[Etown20]

Function is most important to me, especially in regard to villager interaction. In most cases I will choose an object a villager can interact with over one that is just there for decoration.

 

[ayeeprill]

I agree with this! It really bothers me when people have just random cliffs that serve no purpose or inaccessible parts of the island. When I planned out my island, if there was a place that ended up blocked off and could only be reached with a ladder or vaulting pole, I reworked it. Vaulting poles didn't end up being as big of a deal because you can terraform islands in the river to hop on, but if I had to have a ladder to get somewhere, I wasn't gonna do it. I really had to rework things when the Redd update came along.

One thing I ended up doing is on the two cliffs I had that can't be accessed any other way then by ladder - my waterfall cliffs by the entrance - I covered the entire top of the cliff with shrubs and flowers so I don't have to worry about weeds or fossils popping up there so I never have a reason to go up there.

 

[Nodokana]

My island is a mixture of form and functionality. The front half is more of form while the back half is mostly original to my starting island design and easy to navigate. I would love to change up the back area to access and decorate the rocks but it's too much work and time to move my whole residential area just for that.

 

[cainhurst]

Cranky villagers have a saying that goes something like this: "You ever see ___'s place? It might not be for me to say, but I'm glad I don't live there."

That's kind of how I feel about "designer islands" - they're nice to look at in tours, but some seem like they'd be an absolute nightmare to actually play the game on. For some people it doesn't matter and designing IS their game, more so than things like fishing and bug-hunting, and I can definitely respect that, but I personally get frustrated if I can't easily traverse my island. I may one day end up focusing more on form than function and go hard on design, but for now I'm of the opinion that just because you can put furniture outside in NH doesn't mean you should put ALL the furniture outside lol.

 

[Feraligator]

Lol my entire left beach is blocked off by a river next to a cliff so you can't vault or climb a ladder to it and you have to go around the slopes.
My island is like more aesthetic with a bit of functionality (the shops are close together and there's no need for ladders and poles unless you want to get around fast). I have a lot of areas where I've terraformed rivers right next to a cliff (as I have a heavily elevated town) so it's actually kinda hard to get from the east to the west quickly if you're on the bottom level.

I originally had so many weeds and flowers around my trees too that I'd get like 2 wasps a day...I've decided to lessen the amount of trees and place invisible patterns on the space around them so flowers can't spawn. They're also no longer aligned and just placed randomly with lots of space around them so I can get stuff from the trees.

I do prefer aesthetic over functionality but I still have some structure to my island to get around easy and there's nothing blocking any paths (and there's no where you have to scoot in between). I hate wasted space though. I try to use every bit to place flowers or trees over.

 

[amylsp]

I have one cliff area (3rd level) right next to my house that is only accessible by ladder. This was by design tho, not lack of inclines. I wanted it to be a true retreat where villagers would not be able to come, so the lack of ramp basically guarantees this. Having to use the ladder also gives it a wild, remote vibe that makes it feel more special.

Once CJ showed up there for the day, so that was a bit of a pain. But otherwise I love it!

 

[zenni]

I actually started the game three weeks after the release so I had some time to go see other islands before I started terraforming. I used custom patterns to lay down a rough estimate of the roads--nothing fancy, just intermittent lines here and there--before I even had paving unlocked, so I could organize buildings in an organized manner.

I have one main road that goes directly across the island horizontally, which has the plaza, museum, Nook's Cranny and Able Sisters along it, and then all roads diverge from that one. This allows me to run from any place to the beach which helps me farm balloons for seasonal recipes etc. Cherry Blossom season was very stressful for me, since I started the game on 4/3 and basically missed like 5 precious days of balloon popping because I didn't have access to a slingshot for the first few days

 

[Deliquate]

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?

 

[fairyring]

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.

 

[John Wick]

I always make sure I can easily navigate around everything I do, and still make it beautiful.