I like the idea of this feature—what I wish is that they would still follow from room to room like New Leaf. Giving regular home tours was a nice incentive to put some effort into decorating, but in this game there isn’t any point. When am I ever going into the left-hand room of my house? I only need a work bench, a storage closet, and a bed. I miss being able to see my villagers appreciate the effort I put into decorating all my rooms. Whenever they visit they just sit on the floor five feet from the front door for a few minutes and then leave.
Residents can follow you, they will even mention they want a tour of your house. Visits are different depending on how they get into your home:
- If they show up unannounced and you are on the main room/run to it after they knock, they will stay on the main room.
- If they ask you first (by pinging or thought bubble), they'll want to tour the house and visit any room. (this applies for immediate visits or visits the next day).
Both kind of visits have the initial gift and high-low card game available.
I don't know if this difference existed before, but you can indeed show your effort to your residents. They'll comment on the general feeling of the room ("wow! the stuff here can't be bought anywhere!"), on certain categories of items ("the smell of your Traditional Balancing Toy makes me feel the Autumn season"), particular items (their photos) or even shared items between you and them ("you also have a Toy Box? Muscular!"): so you can give pretty nice tours to all your residents.
please note the quotes above are not the exact ingame dialogue
edit: brought some pictures because everything is better with pictures:
Zucker asked to visit my place. Here's the "thank-you for letting me interrupt your decorating" gift.
This room has mostly photos, posters, Mom's items and trophies. This triggers the "rare items" dialogue, in this case, him feeling this is a museum.
The wedding candles showcase this line of dialogue- any other wedding item will give the same result. I don't know if the dialogue that can happen on your island if they are near wedding stuff is the same or if it changes slightly.
I gifted some moon cakes to Zucker and he placed them on his house. Once he looked at them on my house, this special bit of dialogue happened as we shared the same item.
And lastly, I had forgotten they can also roast your decorating decisions lol (The chair has an specific way to be placed according to the code- since I ignored that, it's technically facing the wall and my residents-and the HHA- will call you out).