The Animal Crossing Zenlocke Challenge!

[Lanstar]

Hello, once again! A couple days ago, I decided to create a new town with very special rules I designed myself. I call my ruleset a "Zenlocke” - which I derived from the term “Nuzlocke” in Pokemon.

Here are the Zenlocke rules:

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1. You must start the town with 4 character players, each house spread out from each other.

2. Each player's home must expand to a 6-by-6 plot, and no more.

3. You must build a campsite before 9 animal villagers enter your town.

4. You may only acquire villagers via the campsite or random move-ins.

5. If a camper appears, you must make the camper move in if there is space.

6. If a villager asks to move out, you must have it move out.

7. Backwards time traveling is forbidden, and other time travel methods are highly discouraged.

8. You may only use path patterns in the following ways, which are optional:

- You may create a boundary of paths 5 spaces around buildings if a villager may potentially move into your town.

- You may block the spot your last villager moved out from, to prevent your next villager from moving there.

- You may use them to plan positions of public works projects, greenery, and character homes on the days you position them.

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If you wish to try a Zenlocke town, I encourage you to do so! It would make a fun secondary town to change your perspective to playing the game.

Edit: Simplified the rules to be less wordy.

 

[Dorian]

I think if you enjoy that sort of challenge, this might be a fun thing to try. I don't enjoy putting stringent parameters or rules on my game play. For me, it defeats the purpose of having fun and relaxing. I play NL to get away from the rules and regulations of the real world. I would hate to force myself to play in a way that would rob me of choices. Life is already so hard. I don't want my games to feel like work. Good luck with Zenheart! I hope you have fun

 

[Lanstar]

I think if you enjoy that sort of challenge, this might be a fun thing to try. I don't enjoy putting stringent parameters or rules on my game play. For me, it defeats the purpose of having fun and relaxing. I play NL to get away from the rules and regulations of the real world. I would hate to force myself to play in a way that would rob me of choices. Life is already so hard. I don't want my games to feel like work. Good luck with Zenheart! I hope you have fun

I won't deny the unpopularity of rulesets like this for Animal Crossing. Considering that the game is about customization and stuff, restrictions seems pretty contradictory to many people.

However, you might want to think that the common effort of "finalized" towns can be equally restricting. I designed these rules to remove that one: Villagers just come and go as they please, and the game never really gets finalized. I kind of got inspired by the older versions animal crossing in that way.

Which restrictions did you find most stringent?

 

[hoodathotit]

View attachment 216762

Hello, once again! A couple days ago, I decided to create a new town with very special rules I designed myself. I call my ruleset a "Zenlocke” - which I derived from the term “Nuzlocke” in Pokemon.

Here are the Zenlocke rules:

---

1. You must start the town with 4 character players, and all of them must be spread far away from each other.

2. Each player's home must expand to a 6-by-6 plot, and no more - which is the same size as all villager interiors.

3. No Amiibo Card move-ins are allowed in town - but using the cards for items and furniture is fine.

4. You must build a campsite before 9 animal villagers enter your town.

5. If a camper appears, and your town has fewer than 10 villagers, you must make the camper move into your town.

6. If a villager asks to move out, you must allow them to choose to move out.

7. You may not acquire villagers from other towns - adopted, voided, nor via streetpass. To prevent this, only contact other players/use streetpass when your town has 10 villagers, and none in boxes.

8. There are only a few ways you may use path patterns, which are optional:

- You may use them to create a boundary of 5 spaces around all town buildings and homes any time you know a villager will start moving into your town.

- You may block out the spot that your last villager moved out from - so to prevent your next villager from moving on the same spot.

- You may use them to plan out positions of public works projects, greenery, and character homes - but only on the days you actually position them.

Otherwise, no path patterns are allowed to be placed on the ground, and they must be erased immediately after houses and projects are plotted.

9. Backwards time traveling is forbidden, and other time travel methods are highly discouraged.

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Other than that, anything goes! But if you wish, you may add other rules to your personal Zenlocke, as long as they don’t conflict with the official rules.

As an example, my own optional rules are as follows:

1. You must keep an updated dream address on every week you play in your town - But no path patterns on the ground!

2. You cannot import flowers from the island.

3. You may only choose permanent works projects, the instruments shelter, and ones that are derived entirely from nature: Like the Rack of Rice, Geyser, Hot Spring, Wooden Bridge, Log Bench, Fence, etc.

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I you wish to try a Zenlocke town, I encourage you to do so! I think it would make a fun secondary town to change our perspective to playing the game.

Good luck in this quest.

 

[Lanstar]

Cleaned up the wording a bit, so people can 'read' it.

 

[Jimmyjim]

I always try to challenge myself in every game but for some reason I never thought to do it in Animal Crossing, I'll have to try this out in my new town!

Would this be an offline only type of town? Or would trading etc. be allowed between other people while you're doing a Zenlocke?

Maybe when a villager requests a Public Works Project you have to build it no matter what it is? Or have it so you can refuse to build like only 3 of them so you won't get stuck with a Pyramid in a foresty town or something, but after that you have to build whatever they request.

 

[Lanstar]

I always try to challenge myself in every game but for some reason I never thought to do it in Animal Crossing, I'll have to try this out in my new town!

Would this be an offline only type of town? Or would trading etc. be allowed between other people while you're doing a Zenlocke?

Maybe when a villager requests a Public Works Project you have to build it no matter what it is? Or have it so you can refuse to build like only 3 of them so you won't get stuck with a Pyramid in a foresty town or something, but after that you have to build whatever they request.

I hope you try it out and see what you think!

Trading with other players is definitely allowed. But be careful: Oftentimes, you can end up acquiring villagers from the notorious void through direct contact from other towns. It can happen through Streetpass, too. To be safe, you should only do trades when you have a full town.

There's no real restrictions to works projects either - If you were to make rules on that, they would be self imposed. Those kinds of rules are perfectly fine, too!

 

[Lanstar]

My Zenlocke's progress...

I'm close to 1 month into my town of Zenheart. Overall, the game has been relatively tame:

My starting villagers were Ava, Wolfgang, Bunnie, Purrl, and Big Top. The random move ins were Rocket, Mott, and Chops, and my first campsite move-in was Deena.

Oddly enough, the campsite was totally dry ever since for over 2 weeks, and during that time, Mott was the first of the villagers to move out. The day he fully moved out, I then got another camper which was Graham (ugh). But on the day he moved in, I also got another camper in my town:



Thus, my Zenlocke town will have 2 superheroes (Rocket and Big Top) and 2 snooty cats (Olivia and Purrl). The RNG is quite interesting in this game!