Plants in Animal Crossing

[LaparaLaela]

So I was thinking a lot about plants today, since I like gardening a lot, and it occurred to me that it's kind of a shame that Animal Crossing has so much actual information about the real world with the things in the museum and some plants (the bamboo growing very fast just like in real life.) that it's kind of a shame that most of the plants you can use to decorate your town are very similar to each other and go against what those plants do in real life.

So I've come up with some changes that could be easily made and some plants to add for diversity. I'd love to hear other people's ideas, however a lot of times these threads end up being wild dreams. Either the suggested ideas are already covered within the game somehow, or there isn't really a mechanic to make those things work within the context of a video game. Although those threads are fun, I'd like to see people coming up with ideas for plants, as well as how the game mechanics surrounding them would work.

Alright, with the lengthy introduction out of the way, let's get to work fixing these plants!

Trees:​

My main concern here is diversity. I know from experience that it is very difficult to get a natural looking forest because of the lack of tree options!

It is a shame that fruit trees and oak trees are so similar. Fruit trees are oak trees plus fruit, so the only reason to use oak trees is the cherry blossom festival in the spring. However, I would like to point out that oak trees don't flower! The reason trees flower is to pollenate their fruit. Hence the name "Cherry Blossom Festival." Why not have different fruit trees flower during their respective flowing seasons, or maybe have all of them flower at the same time during the Blossom Festival.

Fruit trees are so unique and interesting. We already know that Nintendo can make differently shaped leaves because of the bushes, so why not make each fruit tree a little different? Not only would that make people more likely to use oak trees (because they would look different from all the other trees) but it would also give us much needed variety with something as simple as a pallet swap and changing the shape of the leaves on the model.

Spoiler: More Realistic Appearances for Fruit Trees

I converted the oak tree into a style that was easier for me, then made different trees using that style. The little green shapes next to each tree is the vague shape of their leaves (very different from the oak trees!), and the little whiteish or pinkish dots are a vague idea of what their blossoms would look like.





So as you can see, there is a lot of potential for diversity. Also, once you do this, the Oak tree becomes a lot more desirable because it's so different from the others.​

I didn't have the time or energy to do this with every single fruit tree in the game, but you get the idea. Some of the fruits they already have in the game don't actually grow on the types of trees they have them on, like bananas!

There are even more possibilities when you add in more fruits, since some of these have really interesting trees as well as just really interesting fruits. So here are some possibilities for fruits to add in:

-Avacado
-Plum (Purple anyone? To complete that orchard rainbow we've got going on?)
-Olive (They might be a little small to work as fruits, but their trees are so cool and I figure they can be connected like cherries.
-Pomegranate
-Fig (Have you ever actually seen a fig? Like, a real fig that isn't already mushed up into fig newtons? They're so cool go google it right now.)
-Pineapple (Seriously, we have bananas and coconuts, but no pineapples? That's like the holy trinity of tropical fruit that Americans like. You gotta have pineapples.)
-Lime (Pears are getting lonely being the only green fruit and we already have lemons, so why not?)
-Starfruit
-Rambutan (Go look this thing up right now. It's kind of incredible. I mean, it's not like people knew what Durians were before this game, so why not these?)
-Soursop (Another one to go look up.)



Now I'm going to start getting into things that are a little bit less realistic, because instead of a color pallet change, some of these things would actually have to change some of the mechanics of the game, but I figure they're worth including, because it would be so freaking cool, and also the changes to the mechanics wouldn't actually be that big.

Why do Oak and Cedar get to be the only non-fruit bearing trees in the game? I think it's high time some of the other beautiful trees out there get their chance at fame in the game. These trees might need a new model in order to work right, but that's something we know they can do, since cedar trees look way different from oak trees. I just chose a few of my favorites, which are pretty cliche, but get the point across.

Spoiler: Possible New Tree Types

​

Some interesting things that I thought of that could potentially be messed with in the coding that could make these even better, though aren't necessary to add the trees in.:

-Willows could be planted directly next to rivers and ponds (though had the same rules as other trees for all of the other things)
-Vine Maples would grow overhead to create an arbor when planted with only one space between them.
-Birch would reproduce like bamboo, only a little slower. Maybe once a week.


Crab apples are apples that are smaller than normal apples and taste very sour and bitter. I started thinking about it, and I think they could be integrated into the game pretty well. They would grow to the size of a couple day old sapling, and when your character eats the fruit, they get a sour expression on their face (similar concept to how when you eat a mushroom it can make you grow really big for a split second.) This concept could potentially be spread to other trees too, to create different sizes of trees. Banzai them somehow, but I don't know how this would work mechanically, so I'm not going to go too into that.

---

Ground Plants:​

Something that has bothered me for a long time has been the lack of ferns in Animal Crossing. I honestly don't understand why they haven't already been implemented, since it would be so easy to do so. All they have to do is take the model from flowers, and edit the appearances. You would be able to walk through them, but if you ran through them there would be a chance of them getting destroyed. They would reproduce like flowers do. It seems like it would be a great way to make nature towns look more nature-y and more urban areas landscape more effectively. Just in general, having ferns would be a good idea. I have a few more ideas about them too though.

There would be several different types of ferns. I'm gonna go with sword and lady for the time being, since I'm not really familiar with any of the other types. Sword, you would be able to hold in your hand like a sword. People could have epic sword-fern battles with their friends. Lady ferns could be used to treat stinging nettle, which I will go into right now.

I also want to add stinging nettle to the game. Mechanically it would work like a cross between a regular weed and bees. If you see a stinging nettle, and pick it before you walk though it, you'll be fine, but if you don't see it and you walk through the area where it is, then you'll get a rash, similar to a bee sting. You'll then have to go find a lady fern, pick it, and choose the "use" option, which would get rid of your rash and use up the lady fern. Stinging nettle would probably only appear in towns with lower ratings (but not as low as you would need to get rafflesifia [I can't spell that word for the life of me.].) so that if you had a town that you worked hard to maintain, you wouldn't need to keep using up all of your lady ferns.


I would also like to add more plants that are a cross between clovers and flowers. Little plants that aren't necessarily flowers, but still would add an interesting, more in depth touch to the game. Lady's mantel for example, might keep the drops of water on it when you water it as apposed to sparkling like flowers do.





Wow, this got way longer than I though it would, also considerably less coherent towards the end, since I've been up all night. This is something I'm really excited about though. I love plants.

I also believe that adding more plants and different types of plants would be the way to get rid of the "every town feels eerily similar" feeling that a lot of people dislike, myself included. I used to think that having biomes where you could choose what part of the world you want to live in was the answer, and although I still think that would be cool, a much more manageable and possible solution would be this.

Alright, over and out until someone else responds!

 

[Kailah]

oh my gosh! so first things first, i'm so happy that you brought this up and i wasn't the only one thinking about how the trees are super similar and it doesn't show diversity at all? but kudos to you! i really liked this long post, even if it's 12:55 am and i'm almost falling asleep, it was interesting to read another person's perspective of the game and other things related.

the realistic appearances that you came up with was something that i liked in your post since of course, you added the realistic part! it's amazing how you also included the actual pictures and went along with that.. you should definitely share more of your ideas because they're actually pretty fabulous! and you go into so much detail, it's amazing. i loved reading your post! ah and the idea of other fruits being produced in the game was something else i also liked, since i know there are way more fruits involved on this planet and animal crossing always seems to like to relate it back to the real world as much as possible, i would like to see more fruits, as well!!

oh and your idea for possible tree types.. i really LOVE the idea for the willow next to ponds and everything! i find that the willow looks really eerie, but also at the same time, very beautiful. it would look great in the game, although i don't know how they would do that since it would look very complicated to portray? i don't know if that makes sense, but it made sense in my head. XD but it's an interesting idea that seems to attract my attention! the japanese maple would also look very beautiful.. your ideas are so awesome, i can't say enough. ;;

but thank you so much for posting this! if you reply back, that would be wonderful. i don't know as much about gardening and whatnot as you do, but i would love to make more conversation about this topic! it gave me something to read and think about, also you should make more forum posts about your ideas and opinions on the game! loved it and can't wait to hear a possible response!

edit: wow, i didn't even realize how much i wrote and how much i praised you until i posted this LOL

 

[J e s s i c a]

This is amazing! I never thought about this, I love the amount of detail you put in this!

Fact! Soursop can stop cancer!

And Rambutan are really cool! And the new tree ideas are great! and for a forest town like mine they will be a perfect fit, well done!

 

[Dae Min]

All of your ideas are incredible. *u* I have a mighty need for these options now

 

[KiraNinja]

Wow this is perfect, AC would be incredible with your ideas. Also I would love willows in my town they would look beautiful<3

 

[Ettienne]

So far we have a fairly nice variety of bushes. A few different trees would be nice. I'd be interested in willows and maybe some other flowering varieties, like dogwoods. But at the same time that would require a lot more attention to detail for a fairly simple structured game. The intended goal is to make friends with 300+ villagers. If the focus were on plants, we'd have 300 of those~

If I want to have a variety landscaping, I'll play Sims.

 

[fuzzynumber9]

I feel like we are a few iterations of ac away from some of these ideas, but they are all fantastic! Aside from the willow, I'm not sure it's such a good idea being able to plant them against the river. Maybe have them get wider than other trees somehow or make them only be able to be planted near water features like the river and ponds and as they grow they lean toward the water slightly so they still seem to overhang.

I would personally like there to be beach grass and shrubs also. There is so little attraction to the beach and it's a shame, it would be lovely if there were a Bush type that could grow on the sand (beach plums please!) And grass similar to weed grass that could spawn slowly and be used to make a dune/buffer area.

I think the idea of adding some variety to the plain trees, and making the fruit trees be the ones to flower instead would be the best first step here, maybe make an additional one or two types of deciduous trees for now, I'd vote for sycamore personally, because the bark is so pretty. And ginkgo I think would also be cool. And maybe have the different types have different leaf colors in the fall.
I think the birch spawning would be kind of neat too.
Maybe if you picked a certain "theme" when you started your town you could get different types of flora! Like, not every type will grow in every town, say you choose a region to travel to when you are on the train, like continental region, so If you said Asia you'd get bamboo as your spawning plant, but if you chose North America you'd get birch. So you'd have to dream or visit people who picked other regions to get to see the different plants.

I also miss the lily pads in the lake from gc, there should be some plants in the lake and ponds like in real life.
Oh! And maybe add irises! They can only reproduce near a water feature!

I need to stop, you've got me all worked up and I don't usually get into the whole "what should ac change next time around" threads... But this one really speaks to me

 

[htmlad]

It seems especially silly that the trees all look the same now that we have such a lovely variety of bushes. I think that this is a really cool idea! I hate that all of the realistic kinds of trees are made into bonsais and as such can only be kept inside, it's really lame.

 

[LaparaLaela]

Wow! I wasn't expecting to get this kind of a reaction to my post! Let's keep it going you guys, these ideas are really good! I might put together a master post of these ideas and send it into nintendo somehow, but I want to find out how to do it professionally first. But yeah, no this is so cool.

I'm going to respond to people now.

---

wow, i didn't even realize how much i wrote and how much i praised you until i posted this LOL

Oh man, thank you so much! (I'm a huge validation hog so don't worry. c: )

Fact! Soursop can stop cancer!

I didn't know that! I just thought it looked cool when I added it to the list! This could be put into the game somehow too. Maybe if you eat it you get little sparkles around your head or you run faster or something? (I think this might be a mechanic for all fruits you eat, but I'm not sure so I'm including it anyway.)

A few different trees would be nice. I'd be interested in willows and maybe some other flowering varieties, like dogwoods.

Oh man, I had thought about including dogwoods, but I didn't know enough about those particular trees to feel comfortable including them. (I know we have a couple of dogwoods somewhere around the house, but I don't know where they are so I don't know what they look like.)

But at the same time that would require a lot more attention to detail for a fairly simple structured game. The intended goal is to make friends with 300+ villagers. If the focus were on plants, we'd have 300 of those~

If I want to have a variety landscaping, I'll play Sims.

I completely understand where you're coming from. The focus of the game IS partly about becoming friends with the villagers and that's not something I'm trying to invalidate. However, I do think that creating a beautiful town from the undeveloped place you come to when you get off the train. Part of the game is to encourage citizenship and get kids more involved in the idea of making the place they live a better place to be. This includes landscaping and making a plain area into something beautiful. The museum is an extension of that. If you want, you could just sell the fish and bugs and fossils and paintings, and get money for yourself out of it, which you could use to make your house bigger and grander, dress yourself up in fancy clothes and hair, ect. However the game provides a way for and encourages you to put them in a place where everyone can enjoy them. The game already has 72 fish, 72 bugs, 35 paintings, and 63(?) fossils. That should show that the game really is committed to a diverse, interesting experience within the town.

There are already several different types of flowers, mushrooms, and public works projects to be used for landscaping. Most of the area that you use daily is meant to be landscaped into your creative vision. They allow you to put patterns on the ground in order to do things that can't be done in-game, such as paths. The game is already geared towards landscaping, so the lack of non-flowering plants and different types of trees is a little jarring.

The thing is that this would be a really easy way to fix the problem that "every town looks eerily similar", since there would be so many more options to make your town look different and stand out. Some of the trees are bound to get more popular (I'm already seeing a trend of people really liking the idea of willows.) so there would be some that were unpopular and it would create more challenges of ways to use those trees in interesting ways (or to use the popular trees in new and interesting ways.). Overall I think that more plants would fix a lot of the problems that people have with the game and also create more long term interest in the game.

Please be aware that I'm not trying to attack you, and that if you aren't into landscaping in the game, that's fine! You do you, friend. However, I am asking you to look at it from a wider point of view and see that a lot of people ARE into variety landscaping, and having the option of diverse trees and more plants would make them very happy.

I feel like we are a few iterations of ac away from some of these ideas, but they are all fantastic! Aside from the willow, I'm not sure it's such a good idea being able to plant them against the river. Maybe have them get wider than other trees somehow or make them only be able to be planted near water features like the river and ponds and as they grow they lean toward the water slightly so they still seem to overhang.
...
I think the idea of adding some variety to the plain trees, and making the fruit trees be the ones to flower instead would be the best first step here, maybe make an additional one or two types of deciduous trees for now, I'd vote for sycamore personally, because the bark is so pretty. And ginkgo I think would also be cool. And maybe have the different types have different leaf colors in the fall.

Yeah, no I'm not trying to push for these immediately at all! At this point it's just speculation, and I feel like if you aim for the stars then you might get to the moon sort of? I might as well put down all the ideas I have and maybe some of them will gain steam. The willow idea is probably the most farfetched one I have (other than the vine maple trellises) and I definitely wouldn't consider it a requirement for the tree! I just want willow trees. c: Honestly the only things that I really really want out of all these ideas are different looking trees and ferns. Ferns are so needed in this game it isn't even funny. I am a huge advocate of ferns. I also just looked up sycamores and oh man their bark is super pretty! I'm not really sure how the texturing would work given the style of how they draw bark in the game, but definitely worth a nod. And Gingkos!!!!! I had no idea how much I loved Gingkos until this reply made me look them up. For those who don't know, a Gingko looks like this:

Spoiler: Gingko Tree

would personally like there to be beach grass and shrubs also. There is so little attraction to the beach and it's a shame, it would be lovely if there were a Bush type that could grow on the sand (beach plums please!) And grass similar to weed grass that could spawn slowly and be used to make a dune/buffer area.

YES! Beaches are SO BORING because there's nothing to put on them. I don't know a whole lot about beach plants, since I live in the middle of a temperate rainforest, but that sounds absolutely amazing. It would mean that people would actually pay attention to their beaches. Most of the time when I go to dream towns, the beaches have nothing but flower breeding on them (which is almost all they're actually good for at this point!). This is wasted space that needs to have more to do.

if you picked a certain "theme" when you started your town you could get different types of flora! Like, not every type will grow in every town, say you choose a region to travel to when you are on the train, like continental region, so If you said Asia you'd get bamboo as your spawning plant, but if you chose North America you'd get birch. So you'd have to dream or visit people who picked other regions to get to see the different plants.

Although this would increase the amount of people going to different towns, I feel like people would get frustrated. After all, you can grow bamboo in the US! So I feel like it would just limit what you could do with your town. I know that I would be severely torn having to choose between birch trees and bamboo.

I also miss the lily pads in the lake from gc, there should be some plants in the lake and ponds like in real life.
Oh! And maybe add irises! They can only reproduce near a water feature!

I had no idea there used to be lily pads! (I've only played new leaf.) So, yes, those should definitely come back. Also the idea of having a few plants that can only live near a water feature is super cool because it encourages people to actually use their ponds. I've seen a lot of people who will map reset until they only have 1 pond, and then hide it. This would encourage people to get creative with their pond areas!

---

Alright! Now that I've responded to everyone, I'm going to get down to business with some of the ideas I came up with while I was at school today!


So to start this off, I kind of wanted to make a thread that had actual possible ideas. Out of all the things that could be implemented into the game, things like different color pallets for trees seems like one of the easiest. I'm assuming that the teams who do the research for fish and bugs and paintings and fossils would do much better research than I did (since basically all I did was look up "peach tree" on google images.), and therefore would be able to make the trees more realistic than mine were.

I actually have a lot of ideas for plants, but I'm not sure how they would be implemented, such as berries. They seem like they would be too small to do the same thing as they do for fruit, so maybe they could be like holly bushes? Those have berries on them. But for things like huckleberries and blueberries, the appeal of the plant has a lot more to do with the edibleness of the berries. I think if we were to get berries, the holly bushes would be the most like what we would get.

I was also thinking about things that grow on the ground. A lot of people like to make "farms" out of patterns and stuff, but what if there were actual vegetable that would grow in the ground. I understand that the turnips are supposed to represent the stock market, but perhaps there could be an option to plant them instead (They would rot like normal if left above ground for a week.). That might mess with the stalk market too much, but other vegetables that grow under the ground could be a possibility. Like potatoes, or what if when you pulled a weed, there was a chance that you could get a wild carrot (similar to the chance of getting a lucky clover.), and then you could plant them again and just a bit of the carrot would show above the ground when you plant it. They would reproduce once they were like this, and more carrots would spawn around them.

Ground covers similar to clovers is also something that would be cool. Here are some of my ideas:

-Moss patches
-Succulents/Seedums
-Nasturtiums (Might be able to grow upwards if you plant them next to something like a tree or a house?)
-Ivy (Similar to nasturtiums.)
-Leaf piles (Similar to the item you can use indoors. Would only spawn in the fall within a certain radius around trees, but would stick around until you cleaned them up.)
-Blossom Petal Piles (Like leaf piles, but would occur during the Blossom festival.)

Other small plants that would work like flowers would be fun too. Strawberries would be one that I would personally like to implement. You would be able to walk through them like flowers, but they would grow little strawberries during the strawberry season. It would be nice if there was a way to pick the strawberries, but realistically, I can't think of how the game mechanics surrounding that would work. Maybe each strawberry plant would just show up as "Strawberry" when you pick it and then you could either eat it or plant it again and it would immediately become a strawberry plant again. There are so many small plants like that that would be easy to put in using the flower model, and some of them could have an "eat" option. Here are some that are off the top of my head:

-Chives
-Lady's Mantel (I mentioned this up there)
-Sweet Woodrift,
-Forget-me-nots
-Lavender
-Thyme
-Sage
-Oregano (can you tell at this point that I really like herbs?)
-Lettuce
-Rhubarb
-Bleeding Hearts
-Asparagus
-Tall grass/Wheat fields (You know the item that’s wheat fields that you can use in your house? The mechanics of that outside would be super cool.)
-Salal/Oregon Grape (This one could also be implemented as a new kind of bush, but I like it better in this category.)
-Spider Plant

I also really like the idea of Cacti in AC. I think they would work kind of like bushes, in that you wouldn't be able to walk through them. I like the idea of them just being an aesthetic plant, but they could also be a harmful plant (sort of like the stinging nettle idea I had earlier.). Like, maybe they only spawn in dirt patches and if you go too close to them they prick you. I want to use them for landscaping though so maybe not. Just the idea of harmful plants (like harmful bugs) in general seems really interesting to me.

Alright, well that's all I have for now. Keep replying! I want to keep going with this! C: Sorry I keep making you guys dig through miles worth of post. :/

 

[Ettienne]

Oh man, I had thought about including dogwoods, but I didn't know enough about those particular trees to feel comfortable including them. (I know we have a couple of dogwoods somewhere around the house, but I don't know where they are so I don't know what they look like.)

I completely understand where you're coming from. The focus of the game IS partly about becoming friends with the villagers and that's not something I'm trying to invalidate. However, I do think that creating a beautiful town from the undeveloped place you come to when you get off the train. Part of the game is to encourage citizenship and get kids more involved in the idea of making the place they live a better place to be. This includes landscaping and making a plain area into something beautiful. The museum is an extension of that. If you want, you could just sell the fish and bugs and fossils and paintings, and get money for yourself out of it, which you could use to make your house bigger and grander, dress yourself up in fancy clothes and hair, ect. However the game provides a way for and encourages you to put them in a place where everyone can enjoy them. The game already has 72 fish, 72 bugs, 35 paintings, and 63(?) fossils. That should show that the game really is committed to a diverse, interesting experience within the town.

There are already several different types of flowers, mushrooms, and public works projects to be used for landscaping. Most of the area that you use daily is meant to be landscaped into your creative vision. They allow you to put patterns on the ground in order to do things that can't be done in-game, such as paths. The game is already geared towards landscaping, so the lack of non-flowering plants and different types of trees is a little jarring.

The thing is that this would be a really easy way to fix the problem that "every town looks eerily similar", since there would be so many more options to make your town look different and stand out. Some of the trees are bound to get more popular (I'm already seeing a trend of people really liking the idea of willows.) so there would be some that were unpopular and it would create more challenges of ways to use those trees in interesting ways (or to use the popular trees in new and interesting ways.). Overall I think that more plants would fix a lot of the problems that people have with the game and also create more long term interest in the game.

Please be aware that I'm not trying to attack you, and that if you aren't into landscaping in the game, that's fine! You do you, friend. However, I am asking you to look at it from a wider point of view and see that a lot of people ARE into variety landscaping, and having the option of diverse trees and more plants would make them very happy.

No attacking, just opinions! We cool! I also agree about lily pads and maybe some reeds in the water. Also, we have an interior wall with ivy--how cool to have an exterior option with it? c:

And, here's a dogwood when it's flowering.

 

[fuzzynumber9]

Dogwood also comes in a blush pink, at least the ones near me do.
I really want to read your new post but I need to go to sleep. Will come back to this tomorrow!

 

[pika62221]

Except the plants and trees haven't changed other than new colors/styles since the original, and if I had to guess technical limitations are why it's so limited in the first place.

 

[fuzzynumber9]

The trees actually did change for this version previous oak trees had a bladed leaf structure while now they have the much more attractive palmate structure...
And some of the changes would require very little design differences to implement, for instance with the sycamore idea I had you would only need to update the bark color and make the leaves slightly larger. Or making the fruit trees flower instead of the oaks would be a pretty minor one.
Obviously we are talking about many changes here, realistically they would never implement them all at once, but consider that for new leaf they added 2 new flowers (lily and violet) all of the bushes, and bamboo, they also added the town tree and the special stumps, as well as updating the look of the oak trees to be more realistic and adding five new fruits to our available fruit roster, as well as mushrooms which offer an additional movable "natural" element (forget if they were in cf, but they def weren't in ww or gc).

Anyway.
While I do like how detailed some of your ideas are I think some of them might overcomplicate a game that's supposed to be very relaxing and laid back. If people want a farm SIM they have harvest moon (and personally I couldn't get into harvest moon, it's too involved for me somehow yet I've stuck with ac through 4 versions), so lots of growing of edibles may bring it out of the relaxed forest feel and over to being like "work" though I do like the sound of some of the plants. In cf there was an additional stalk market option of red turnips, you'd buy a seed from Joan (could only buy one) and plant it, had to water it daily then sell it on Saturday. It wouldn't make you the kind of bells that buying white turnips could if you found a good price, but if you didn't forget to water it it was a guaranteed set profit every week, much closer to different types of actual stock market transactions, one that's risky but pays huge if you're lucky and one that pays less but is safe. I do miss that option, but I think having to tend a full garden might get to be too taxing to me.

I do like the cacti but wouldn't know what to do with them other than as bushes, and they're such a limited biome item, maybe prickly pears on the beach but otherwise they kind of lack the same feel as the rest of the game.

I think you have something with ferns, but maybe one kind to start, and definitely on the flower model not the bush model, I have a big forest area in my main town with a clover and stone path and mushrooms covering the floor under them because it's the best we have for now to give a forestry feel, I think to start they should just spawn like clovers do or like mushrooms, maybe any time two or more non fruit trees are planted only one space apart it has the potential to spawn a fern the way a special stump has potential to spawn a mushroom. It seems that people aren't always looking for a forestry feel and many of them plant large fruit orchards but limit their oaks and cedars, so as long as they didn't want ferns they just don't plant any oaks or cedars too close to each other.

I definitely like more berries, but agree they would probably make better visual landscaping than edible landscaping. Just have a couple new bushes that fruit like holly does, maybe bluberry, salmonberry, and something with a white or purple berry. (Huckleberries are trees near me, so I don't relate them as a Bush) and instead of only showing off in a set season maybe make them a two season Bush, like one season flowers, then the next fruits, it would be nice having more than one bush type with color on it at a time.

I also like the leaf and petal piles. They need to bring back falling leaves like the cherry blossoms. Maybe have the piles accumulate only over the set dirt patches as a temporary visual barrier to them since unlike cf they no longer allow us to regrow grass in all areas which annoys me (and I LIKE animal tracks, so that's saying something about my priorities lol) they'd be like the "bushes" from gc that were basically just leaf piles.

The only reason I think picking a region for some of the plant suggestions would be a good option is that the space you have to work with is so limited, yes the console games are always much larger, and each version offers a little more space, but it would be overwhelming and very crowded to have all the things.

Maybe not on the train, maybe when you upgrade to the emporium (or have an option as mayor once emporium becomes unlocked to set up one or two out of like four or five garden/plant shops) have a prompt by Leif to offer a set type of expanded merchandise. Like have a master set of trees and shrubs available from the start then he asks what you'd like to see more of, and prompts like deciduous woodland plants, edible plants, tropical plants, Asiatic plants or whatever and you pick a limited combo of them instead of all of them, so if you WANT to farm you could, but that way it wouldn't oversaturate the shop with so much available plant life that it's hard to get multiple if you're working on a theme (imagine having all those extra pls rd and having to wait on the random generation of one type for a specific project you're doing! Yikes!)
Oh! Or make it be like by catalog!
So Leif would sell the basics (the main trees, the bushes we already have, tools, flowers and fertilizer) then we would get randomly generated catalogs that each offer a different selection of items, you can order up to ten items from each catalog them you have to wait for another of the catalog you want, maybe like you get a catalog two or three times per week every week (probably three, M/W/F, I know Pete delivers on Sunday, but he shouldn't lol) and they're random generated the way the shop merchandise is, so one week you could have all different catalogs, the next you could end up with three of the same, it's all by chance. That way if you WANT all the types of plants you can, but you could also stick with just plants from one or two catalogs for a more one region feel.

I definitely think other groundcover options would be awesome in the future, like hope for ferns now on the flower model and maybe add in lavender and sweet woodruff if the ferns are a success. They would all be half based on the flower model and half based on the lucky clover model, you can walk in them, but if you run they can die and they don't breed, you either have to order them or get lucky and find a spawn of them (maybe ferns and woodruff spawn, and lavender is orderable) I can only imagine how pretty it would look to line a path with lavender!

Again, my head is spinning about this. Landscaping has been a big deal to me since ww when they first introduced the ability to put a path down, all my towns had paths since then (though I used natural dirt paths in cf cuz it was easier then) and lined them with planned out hybrids and tree orchards. Pwps and bushes and new flowers have all been amazing for me, but yes, with so many people who play there is still quite a bit of repetition from town to town and the best way to break that up is going to be to keep making the plant life more realistic. This game is a huge step up, I hope it keeps getting better.

(I mean, I also hope one day that oak trees will loose their leaves for winter too, but we'll see)

 

[princessmorgan]

This is amazing! I officially nominate you for part of the next animal crossing planning team! Imagine how many more people might still be playing @v@

 

[Prof Gallows]

This would pretty much get me back into Animal Crossing. I'm a huge fan of gardening and just plants in general, and there really is only so much I could do with the flowers and the available trees/bushes.

It wouldn't be hard to expand upon the current garden shop and make it an upgrading business like Nooks. And it'd be a nice way to give people more of a reason to try and get a perfect town that doesn't involve putting flowers in every imaginable spot.

 

[tumut]

I like the iconic ac oak trees .I think the cedars should be a bit taller though. I'd like to see blue spruce,dogwood, birch, and pine trees.

 

[fuzzynumber9]

Oh blue spruce would be beautiful! Or make "cedars" into blue spruce and make an actual cedar tree instead of what we have lol.

 

[Imbri]

I love the ideas you've come up with. I'd love to see some sort of ground cover, like the clovers, but with a white/pink/purple flower. And beach grass would be wonderful (While we're at it, could we get a little more real estate on the beaches? I miss the larger area from ACGC, instead of the narrow strip we currently have.)

Adapting the wheat field from indoors to outdoors would be cool. Maybe some other garden crops, like tomatoes (they already have a planter for that). You could plant a garden area to augment the steady diet of fruit everyone eats.

Also, maybe flowers of differing heights. Sunflowers, which would grow tall, hollyhock or gladiolas that could be a mid-height? You could then plant a garden against a fence and it could really have some depth to it.

I'd urge you to copy your initial post and send it to Nintendo, maybe with a few of the other suggestions others have made. It would be nice for them to know what the players are thinking.

 

[nightglow]

It is amazing seeing this thread and what we have today in ACNH.

I really like the idea of fruit trees flowering in spring. Pear trees could have little white flowers in the green leaves and those pears will look awesome hanging there. Cherries could have tiny pink flowers, apple have pink and white, oranges can have white narrow petaled flowers, peaches can have hot pink.
They may not have done it that way because it could make the tree look like a busy mess of colors and fruit is around all year.

As for the oak trees, they do flower in real life.

Spoiler: Oak tree flower

Plants I would love to see coming into the world of animal crossing...
> I would easily be happy with the normal yellow sunflowers, but there are other colors that would be awesome to see as well like red, orange, or a combo of these warm colors in one flower. Idc if these end up being more of a crop rather than a flower, I just want them in. Sunflower seeds are edible and good and can be used to make oil.

Spoiler: Cool sunflowers

> Berry bushes would be nice for cooking that exists now. Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Not really a berry but would probably work similar to a bush in game are grapes. We need those too.
> More crops. We already have wheat, sugar, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and 4 colors of pumpkin. I would like to see:
* cabbage (green and purple)
* melon (idc what but I love cantaloupe, honeydew is similar, and watermelon is familiar to alot of people )
* peanuts (yum)
* bellpepper (green red orange yellow purple)
* corn (indian/glass and yellow)

Spoiler: Don't know what indian/glass corn is?

> Tree variety. I know this can be a little rough to pull off with the 6 fruiting trees we already have(apples peaches oranges pears cherries coconuts), the fruit trees that were missing in ACNH(lemons mangos lychees durians persimmons) , pine trees, and the oak trees we have already... But I would like to see:
> sycamore trees and willow trees as an option even if they end up being a random immovable feature on the map or just a large expensive placeable item (I hope in the form of a PWP).
> I would like to see smaller trees (half the size of the pine and oak) that produce nuts. This is probably my most wanted along with sunflowers. It will help give height variety to the scenery and will still having a purpose, culinary. Maybe take longer to produce nuts than the fruit?
* Almonds

Spoiler: Cool pic

* Pistachios

Spoiler: Cool pic

* Cashews

Spoiler: A Cool pic

* Hazelnuts

Spoiler: A Cool pic

* Walnuts

Spoiler: A Cool pic

I think the colors and shapes of the features of these nut trees would be so awesome to have in game. (Favs being cashews and hazelnuts)
> Fruit trees, I would like to see mangos and lemons come back with the 6 from ACNH with an addition of Bananas and dragon fruit.

With biomes starting to become a thing, perhaps regardless of your map biome you can grow any of them that are rare to be found, cuz of your biome, with a handy little greenhouse. You will just be limited on how many you can grow and they can only be inside instead of around your town.