One Year Aniversary for my town - day after it's bugged.

[titanium sparrow]

Hi folks. I'm so confused and a bit sad and frustrated.

I started playing 30th of August 2018. In August 2019, I bought myself a notebook to keep track on the days, because I didn't have the time in the summer to play, so I would write down the time and date of my last save, so that I would know where to start up next time I played. For example, I played August 2nd. I quit the game at 5 PM. So I would write in my book, August 2nd, 6 PM. That way, I could choose to continue on August 2nd or just skip a day.

Last night, it was August 30th 2019 in my game. I have had the fireworks all through the August sundays, and I had won some trophies for bugs or fish, I forget which at the moment.

Isabelle tells me I've been mayor for once year, we celebrate, etc.

I play the day as normal.

I didn't need to write down the day, because it was such a big event, and I was gonna pay early morning next day.

I start up the game. I didn't check too much, if it was September or not - but I remember thinking when starting the game - that "hm shouldn't it be fall soon?" - (but my sister told me it doesn't show until mid september.)

I played, on what I assumed was 1st of September, just going about my day. There was nothing unnatural.

The animals all wore the clothes they wore yesterday (I believe some of them had other clothes in start of August, but I am not sure.) There was nothing out of the ordinary.

I quit the game as normal.


I start up the game about 7 or 8 hours later, which matched the time IN GAME. (I believe it was around 1 pm when I quit, and it was almost 9 pm when I opened it again).

Except, now Isabelle is asking me if the date is 1st of August.

I don't understand. I am 100% sure I've already played all of August. I've seen all the fireworks, Nana had her B day, town had it's anniversary, I had a town celebration!!)

I thought, maybe it's just a glitch at first, and thought I'd try to skip to September.

When I chose "1st of September", Isabelle was like "ohh you haven't played in a while" etc, so I quite the game at that prompt because I didn't want to start the game. I know some of the characters had been talking about moving out in August.

I quit the game, restart the console, start up. She asks, 1st of September?? I get that "dont close without saving" speech from Isabelle. I start 1st of August instead.


Weeds everywhere, my hair is a mess. For some reason, the notice board, all the messages are mixed and jumbled and no longer by date. The trophy-events are all "oh the event happened" without stating who won etc etc..
All of this probably because I went into September and even without starting the game properly, it spawned in these things.


I don't know what to do... I'm so lost. I don't know what happened. I can't understand that I'd have somehow messed up the date myself. I've NEVER changed the month before, and these last days I've not touched the dates at all, (as evident by the fact that I did not need to write in my notebook these last days because I was playing everyday). Now my town is in shambles, I have to play the entire month again to keep checking up on everyone so I don't lose them. I don't understand what's the smartest thing to do. I don't want to play August again... I just want to cry. Is there no where to check up on the latest saves and roll back a previous save??

 

[stitchmaker]

Did you ask Isabelle to change the date the next day but forgot to change the month?
On a spare towns at the end of the month I've changed the date but forgot to change the month a few times.

 

[kyle on saturn]

Honestly, one thing I learned is when you time travel, you should always have the “beautiful town” ordinance set, it wouldn’t have too many weeds spawn and won’t mess up flowers.

 

[titanium sparrow]

Did you ask Isabelle to change the date the next day but forgot to change the month?
On a spare towns at the end of the month I've changed the date but forgot to change the month a few times.

I'm not 100% sure, but I had no reason to. I wasn't changing the date, because I wanted it to be the 1st of September, so I had no reason to change the date. I mean, I've been so notorious on the dates and making sure it was correct, I don't understand how I could have messed up when there wasn't even any reason to change the date. (Since I wanted the date to be September.)

sidenote: I've never changed the month ever before, even. I've only ever just skipped a day or so forward. I've never travelled bak in time before, and never by a month either. I'm just so ...blah. I've been playing August since.....well, August. I'm so tired of it. And now it's all messed up. Town is in shambles, my character looks homeless. If I don't catch it all, the townies are gonna move away etc. I don't know what to do.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Honestly, one thing I learned is when you time travel, you should always have the “beautiful town” ordinance set, it wouldn’t have too many weeds spawn and won’t mess up flowers.

That's the thing, I've got it set up! Normally I get like two weeds every other day or something. Now I had loads of weeds, random flowers scattered etc.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

I don't think there's any way to go back to a previous save. Once you save, you can't go back. The situation that you're having is really strange. Did your 3ds get affected by the daylight savings time by any chance? Though I highly doubt it because you have to manually adjust it to do so. Actually, now that I think about it, did you adjust the time on the 3ds itself, not the game? Because I can vaguely remember that when I had to adjust my time, it also affected Animal Crossing without going in the game to change it.

 

[titanium sparrow]

I don't think there's any way to go back to a previous save. Once you save, you can't go back. The situation that you're having is really strange. Did your 3ds get affected by the daylight savings time by any chance? Though I highly doubt it because you have to manually adjust it to do so. Actually, now that I think about it, did you adjust the time on the 3ds itself, not the game? Because I can vaguely remember that when I had to adjust my time, it also affected Animal Crossing without going in the game to change it.

Sorry for the late reply!
But nope, I didn't manually adjust the time on my 3ds! Now that I think about it, I believe I saw that the watch had not changed the first time I checked - but that it had set itself correctly later that day - but I'm not entirely sure. Maybe that could have attributed to something, but I don't know.

What irks me is just these little things that don't add up. I've never time travelled backwards before, but my sister did it quite a lot in her game. However, she never did it more than a day or two. She pointed out that it was odd that Isabelle would say "you haven't played in a long time" upon time travelling from, "1st of August" to "1st of September" - when I know for a fact that I played the entire August.

Now, I would love to know if this is normal if you time travel back and forth with so many weeks between.

For instance, time travelling between 30th of August and 29th of August wouldn't get a reaction.
My sister would get a "you haven't played in a long time" whenever she in fact hadn't touched her game for months. That's normal.

I know for a fact that I played through the entire August. I have screenshots with the in-game dates, etc. I played more or less from 1st of August to 30th.

Two things strike me as odd when I got thrown back to 1st of August, (either by accident on my hand, or by some bug.) When I put the in-game date to 1st of September, Isabelle said "you haven't played in a long time", when obviously I had, meaning that time-travelling would in a way "wipe" my 2nd of August to 30th (if you know what I mean?). Unless she just says this simply because there was a jump back and forth regardless. Maybe it's just a standard reaction to jumping 4 weeks forward, but I found it weird because technically, I wasn't jumping forward, I was jumping backwards and then forward to the PRESENT time. (again, I hope that makes sense.)

When I opened the game on 1st of August, (after evidently timetravelling first backwards then forward to September and back again), the notice board was a jumbled mess with no chronological posts. Why? What happened? They were fine all through the first playthrough of August.

The noticeboard also wiped the memory of me winning the tournaments, and didn't spawn in "random" winners like it does if you do not compete. It just stated that it had happened. Why did it not save me winning tournaments, or the notice board stuff correctly if all I did was an "innocent" time travel that usually don't mess with stuff?

I mean, I believe in Occam's razor. The most likely scenario is that it's my fault, maybe I had swiped at the screen or something without looking, rather than some huge conspiracy about some messed up bugs... and I don't have anything to compare it to either, but I still just find all these things so strange.

Thoughts?

 

[Shellzilla_515]

Honestly, I do not know what else could’ve happened to your town. Are you sure you remember all the exact details that happened? Did the things you earned back in August still remain with you? Is your 3ds showing it’s age? Or did by any chance ask your sister if she touched your 3ds and somehow changed the time? I’m just throwing these questions out there and again, I do not know what else that caused this. Hopefully everything will be fine soon on your end.

 

[titanium sparrow]

Honestly, I do not know what else could’ve happened to your town. Are you sure you remember all the exact details that happened? Did the things you earned back in August still remain with you? Is your 3ds showing it’s age? Or did by any chance ask your sister if she touched your 3ds and somehow changed the time? I’m just throwing these questions out there and again, I do not know what else that caused this. Hopefully everything will be fine soon on your end.

All the stuff I earned in August remains the same. (I had also put away some money in the bank and that was correct too.) I had moved around quite a lot in my house (rearranged a room), sold off some old furniture, changed clothes from a red aloha t shirt to a skull tee, etc. Nothing that I did in August was "undone", except the notice board messages spawned unchronological. I remember seeing the notice for a roccoco furniture I bought the day it was there, I celebrated Nanas b-day because I googled what she liked and I happened to have something she would like. I remember winning the bug tournament. I've got screenshots of some of the dates I played in August. I filmed the 1 year anniversary with my mobile phone.
I was with my sister when the weird "issue" came up, I read the notice board messages out loud to her like "ok, this for instance, only says that the tournament was held.. not who won...etc" and I read her the jumbled dates how they appeared in the notice board.

August was 100 % played. Now, I reckon Isabelle probably just stated "you havent played in a long time" becaue I went from 1st of August to 1st of September when I was checking if there was just a mistake on the consoles' end. I don't have anything to compare it too, though. I would assume that since I had actually played August, she wouldn't have said this, but I wouldn't know.

My 3ds is the newer XL one (not the unfoldable ones, the blue and black "normal" bigger 3ds) and only 1 year old.

I mean, it's either a mistake on my hand, maybe I somehow changed the dates without knowing/paying attention after 30th of August, and all these things are normal occurences, or maybe something got messed up.

I was playing the 30th of August anniversary in IRL time 2nd of November, just past midnight. (So from Friday to Saturday.). (My cell phone video tells me.)

About 10 AM or so on Saturday morning, I was playing the game again (because there was a MacGyver re-run here), on what I assumed was 1st of September. I don't recall changing the dates, but as I said, I'm not against the idea (Occam's razor and all that) - but even so, I find it bizarre that even if I did happen to jump back to 1st of August, that when going back 30th of August + 1 day, it would seem as I had never played August at all. You know what I mean? But I've never time travelled that far, so I don't know if that's normal.

For the game, it should have seemed like I went back one day and then just jumped back to present day, since obviously I played 30th of August.

PS, also, hehe nah my sister would never ever ever touch my DS. I mean, we're both 30+ years, we don't mess around with each other's stuff)

 

[Dragostea Din Tei]

I know this post is kind of old, and i got no clue if you already solved it but i am going to try to explain as much as my small knowledge of english lets me:

First thing: It does not matter if you played the entire month of august. The game does not register that. It saves any changes you have made (new furniture, proyects, villagers, etc) and those will always stay no matter what. There is no way to 'erase' anything you might have done by time travelling backwards. It is completely normal that you still have everything you got during that month. Second: Let me try to put the time travels in a more simple way

1) You went from august 30 to august first. Since you play by changing the date this most likely happened when changing from august to september. You might have missed the month so instead of september 1 you started on august 1 (this has happened to me a lot). Either that or something else messed up the date (someone else changing either the game or the console time) The important thing is: time travelling backwards in time any amount of time only counts as one day in game. that is why you couldnt notice any noticeable changes. Even if you go an entire month backwards the game counts it as one day.

2) You time travelled forward to september first. When time travelling forward every single day counts. A month without playing is enough to get the 'you havent played in a long time' message. Since the game did save before you quit (it saves when you first load the town at the start) the damage was already done even if you quit.

3) You went back to august first (since it is backwards it only counts as one day you dont get any message from isabelle) and see the effects of the second time travel (weeds, bad hair, etc)

All of those things have a simple fix: speak with all your villagers and play normally until a villager asks you to leave. Tell them to stay in town. After you have done that you should be free to time travel forward as much as you want without losing a single villager. The villagers moving date is calculated in such a way that if you tell no to a villager to move you can tt as much time as you want without anyone moving. Someone might want to move when next time you play so find them and tell them to not move (or not if you dont want them in your town. your choice. at that point it doesnt really change anything). After that you can continue as if nothing happened. You will only need to change your hair back and pull out any weeds or unwanted flowers so it is 100% back to normal. I hope this can help you or anyone reading this ^^

- - - Post Merge - - -

I know this post is kind of old, and i got no clue if you already solved it but i am going to try to explain as much as my small knowledge of english lets me:

First thing: It does not matter if you played the entire month of august. The game does not register that. It saves any changes you have made (new furniture, proyects, villagers, etc) and those will always stay no matter what. There is no way to 'erase' anything you might have done by time travelling backwards. It is completely normal that you still have everything you got during that month. Second: Let me try to put the time travels in a more simple way

1) You went from august 30 to august first. Since you play by changing the date this most likely happened when changing from august to september. You might have missed the month so instead of september 1 you started on august 1 (this has happened to me a lot). Either that or something else messed up the date (someone else changing either the game or the console time) The important thing is: time travelling backwards in time any amount of time only counts as one day in game. that is why you couldnt notice any noticeable changes. Even if you go an entire month backwards the game counts it as one day.

2) You time travelled forward to september first. When time travelling forward every single day counts. A month without playing is enough to get the 'you havent played in a long time' message. Since the game did save before you quit (it saves when you first load the town at the start) the damage was already done even if you quit.

3) You went back to august first (since it is backwards it only counts as one day you dont get any message from isabelle) and see the effects of the second time travel (weeds, bad hair, etc)

All of those things have a simple fix: speak with all your villagers and play normally until a villager asks you to leave. Tell them to stay in town. After you have done that you should be free to time travel forward as much as you want without losing a single villager. The villagers moving date is calculated in such a way that if you tell no to a villager to move you can tt as much time as you want without anyone moving. Someone might want to move when next time you play so find them and tell them to not move (or not if you dont want them in your town. your choice. at that point it doesnt really change anything). After that you can continue as if nothing happened. You will only need to change your hair back and pull out any weeds or unwanted flowers so it is 100% back to normal. I hope this can help you or anyone reading this ^^

 

[titanium sparrow]

The important thing is: time travelling backwards in time any amount of time only counts as one day in game. that is why you couldnt notice any noticeable changes. Even if you go an entire month backwards the game counts it as one day.

2) You time travelled forward to september first. When time travelling forward every single day counts. A month without playing is enough to get the 'you havent played in a long time' message. Since the game did save before you quit (it saves when you first load the town at the start) the damage was already done even if you quit.

Thank you!

This is what I was theorizing, but I couldn't put it into words, and I guess it's not what most players do so it's hard to know what happens or how to ask for what is gonna happen. I'm guessing this happened to me.

I never really got it "resolved", I just had to assume it was me either switching dates and not seeing "September", (though I wasn't suppose to change the date because I wanted to play the day after my anniversary), or I hit it by accident while loading the game while watching TV.

Not sure about the message board notes being jumbled around, but perhaps they just "spawned" in like that. Idk.

I ended up just trying to grind/speed run through August, but it took me quite some time because frankly I just got tired of having to deal with everything again after spending so long fixing the weeds and all that. I mean, it's not that it takes so LONG, it's just annoying in the same way when you make dinner and spill it out over the entire floor, ya know? Like you spend so many hours on something and then just make a huge mess out of it that you need to clean up before you can do anything.

I play the game to calm down and this was doing quite the opposite. Infact I fell so behind, I had to speedrun through December too in these two christmas weeks.. Just today I had Toy Day (and didn't get it right cause of my speed run) so yeah... :\

But yeah. Atleast this thread can stand as a warning, an explanation, and maybe some information to someone who maybe later makes the same mistake as I did.