Back in September I gave some of my event ideas for a possible Switch version of Animal Crossing. That gave me the idea to start drawing out storyboards for some of my events to get a better idea of what they look like. So I did just that and will be showing them today.
(Keep in mind that my drawing skills aren't the best, this is just to show the basic idea of the event. So without further ado, lets get started!)
Fruit Festival
The Fruit Festival is where you give villagers your native fruit and you can choose between either a different fruit or some fruit themed furniture. This is a way for players who may not be able to trade with other players to easily get fruit.
As you can see above, I have my player giving Rosie(?) an orange. In return she will either give me a pear or a piece of furniture. For the furniture so far I have the kiwi stool which is already an item in New Leaf. Then next to it I have a banana sofa (the little cushions are sliced up pieces of banana). This is a new item that I designed which I think would look cool in a fruit themed home.
Swimming Race
The Swimming Race is easy enough. You head to the beach wearing a wet suit and race against one-three villagers to win a trophy. I will add on further that if you can keep beating your swimming time, you can get an exclusive set of furniture.
You can see my character drowning swimming with Iggly behind her. Since Iggly is a penguin, he is a faster swimmer while if I made a sheep character swim they would be much slower. The event would also have an award ceremony. I haven't decided who would host the event yet though. I'm thinking about either Kapp'n or Pascal. If anyone has any ideas feel free to leave them in the comments!
Pumpkin Carving
This is where you make a design and have it carved onto a pumpkin. The pumpkin will sit outside our house for the rest of October.
Yes I gave my pumpkin a mustache.
The designs tab has evolved so much over the years. It would be awesome to see it used more in events and stuff.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to drawing more of these storyboards for other events.
One year ago today I built up the courage to post something on the blog. One year... that's crazy! Today I'm going to talk about how it started, some of my favourite memories and some other important factors.
History
It started off back in 2014 when I did some work experience at a local radio station. On the last day of work experience I asked my employer how I could get more experience. They mentioned that blogging and web design could be a good way to gain some experience. That when I started thinking about the idea. June 2015 was when I decided to start a blog. I told some of my Animal Crossing friends about it. Sadly life got in the way and I was actually kind of scared of trying it.
From around April 2016 up to my first entry (it took me long enough) I started testing a bunch of blog making websites to see which one best suited my needs. In the end I went with Blogger because it has a clean and organised layout. So on June 12th, Squishy Pixelz was born. A little under a month later Beth was planning to start a blog of her own. I figured since we can both have slightly busy lives, I asked her to join me. She said yes and that's when we changed the name to Cosmic Acorns after both of our towns. One year later we are here today.
Thoughts
I'm really proud to make it this far with the blog. I have a bad habit of quitting things I've started so the fact that I stuck with it for a year is a huge achievement. It never felt like a job to me and I only do it because its fun and I enjoyed doing it. I looked forward to updating you all on my town or when I want to give my thoughts on an event or game. I enjoyed every last minute of it and will continue to enjoy it for many years to come.
My favourite blogging memory is when someone from Russia started binge reading the blog around the end of March. Glad you enjoyed it!
Shout outs
To start off, here are the ten most popular countries that read the blog throughout the last year. If your country isn't listed please leave a comment with your country. I enjoy seeing what countries like reading.
United States
United Kingdom
Australia
France
Germany
Portugal
Russia
Ireland
Canada
Belgium
Also, shout out to the person who read the blog on their 3DS once. That's where I started reading blogs too. :)
A HUGE shout out and thank you to Beth for being the other half of the blog. She is more than my blogging partner, she is also my friend. Without her hard work the blog wouldn't be where it is today. THANK YOU BETH!
Next is Jeff from JVGS Jeff. I've been reading his blog since 2012 on my 3DS before I knew what the internet was (I just stumbled upon it one day while messing around). We eventually started playing New Leaf together and became pretty good friends. Reading his blog all that time gave me the inspiration to start the blog so thank you Jeff.
Then there's my family, irl friends, online friends and the local radio station that gave me the idea in the first place. Although school is my first priority (sometimes), my family and friends understand how important the blog is to me and they just let me got on with it.
Lastly, thank you to every single one of you for reading. Whether you read it once or every time there's a new entry. I'm really thankful! What was your favourite entry/memory? Feel free to leave them in the comments. again, thank you so much and I'll see you for some more Animal Crossing later.
Hi everyone. So as you may know, we all had a bit of a big shock last
week. While the community waited for a simple Nintendo direct to tell
us about the update, Nintendo were planning to release the whole thing!
This
actually really surprised me, as I'm sure it did for many others.
Today, we're going to be briefly going through the new features shown in
the Nintendo Direct, which we'll post below.
We start with the Amiibo function, which is a big part of the update.
Nintendo introduced Amiibo for the New Nintendo 3DS and Wii U last year. Since then, Happy Home Designer and Amiibo Festival have been released as Amiibo compatible games - but it's only now that New Leaf has been compatible. Amiibo cards and figures can now be scanned using the bottom screen of the New 3DS or the NFC reader for old DS's when you talk to Wisp.
Amiibo now allows you to move in any villager you like simply by scanning the card and inviting them from the new Campground. There are also a few special characters based from Amiibo figures which can be moved in as new villagers. Examples of this are the new Cece and Viche squirrels based from the Callie and Marie Splatoon figures. You can see more about the Amiibo figures and what they each do on Squishy's new page about the update!
The Campground
Similar to the campsite, you'll be able to invite villagers to move into your town from here the day after scanning their Amiibo with wisp. Also, every day will come with a new NPC character in a different RV. You obviously can't invite these to move into town, but you can buy their furniture with MEOW coupons.
The campground is owned by Harvey the hippie dog, who also runs a shop here. You can purchase exclusive items from him with MEOW coupons. Which brings me on to...
Amiibo Camera
A new camera feature can be accessed from the title screen, allowing you to take real-life photos with your players, your villagers and any characters from any Amiibo cards you want to scan.
Mutual Exchange Of Wealth (MEOW) coupons and the Coupon Alocating Terminal (CAT)
As I've mentioned, you can only use MEOW coupons to purchase items and furniture from the Campground. These can be obtained by completed tasks known as Initiatives that will appear on your brand new TPC (Town Pass Card). The CAT machine is placed outside your town hall, and flashes when you have coupons waiting for collection.
Puzzle League & Desert Island Escape
Two brand new mini-games are available in this update, and they can be played through two new furniture items - the Wii U and 3DS you might recognise from Happy Home Designer. You can find these items through fortune cookies, and they allow you to play a picross-style game called Puzzle League (on the 3DS), and Desert Island Escape from Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (on the Wii U).
Puzzle League is a brand new game, but Desert Island Escape is from the Wii U game released earlier this year. I don't think the game was particularly successful, but out of all of the mini-games featured on it, this is the one that's most appealed to me. You can see a video of Jeff playing it on Amiibo Festival here.
Random note: Nintendo has taken a casual stab at themselves with the fortune that comes with the Wii U, which reads 'Great artists aren't always appreciated in their own time'. Many seem to think this is a reference to the bad reaction the Wii U got, and I think this could be right.
Dream suite
Nothing in particular has changed in the dream suite...apart from the fact that everyone now has to have a brand new address. This also means that if you try to insert an old address, it comes up with nothing.
Out of all the things about the update, this is the only bad thing I can see. It means that many people's old towns that have since been deleted (including my two old towns) and can never be accessed again. So those beloved lost towns are now gone. It also means many towns 'famous' in the community (Aika Village, for example), are now lost if they're not updated.
New villagers
There are 50 new villagers have been added in this update through a new series of Amiibo cards. You can see the cards here - although the page is in Japanese.
Secret Storeroom
If you have a fully expanded house, a new useful feature includes a brand new 36 page closet you can access from anywhere inside your house.
Linking Happy Home Designer
The update comes with the ability to link your copy of Happy Home Designer. This can be done from the title screen, but I haven't linked my copy yet. As far as I can tell, all this does is gives you the chance to order giant furniture only available in HHD.
This doesn't come with linking HHD, but we will also be able to move furniture and organise furniture using the same touch screen controls as that game. This comes with adding the secret storeroom.
Notes:
- You can exchange one MEOW coupon for 3000 bells (this can be done at the ABD in the post office) - You can sit on rocks - Items that take up two spaces can be placed on tables/bookcases
- You can shake trees with an item in your hand (as long as it's not held by two hands - like a shovel)
- Villagers no longer move where there's a pattern (although I can't see how this would work if you had patterns in every single available spot - maybe they put a limit on the amount of patterns you can place.)
- You can turn off the chat for people on the Club Tortimer island - I'm pretty sure this is for each individual person
- There is more leeway when placing public works projects
- Instead of completely restarting your town, Tom Nook will buy it from you. These bells will be in your new town when you start
- Net glitching has unfortunately been patched, but a few other small glitches still work
Squishy's Thoughts
I think that this is a great addition to a game that really needed it. The community is bigger and better. The campground is awesome but it's all the little details that get me playing the game more. The only bad thing about it is the whole Dream Suite dilemma. I look forward to discovering more in the update and have high expectations for a sequel in the (hopefully near) future.
Beth's Thoughts
Overall, I like the update. As long as you get over the fact that yes, it does include DLC (and that's just where Nintendo appears to be going these days), it does include some good additions.
Something I really like is the fact that it's obvious Nintendo have been listening to their fans. A lot of people have hated the PWP limit, annoying players on Club Tortimer and the fact that you can't choose where villagers can move. Nintendo have tweaked the game slightly to please fans without changing too much or making it confusing.
Although I have to say, I am wondering how much this is going to effect the next Animal Crossing game (whenever this may be). A lot of thought and brainstorming has obviously gone into this update, and I'm sure this will have an impact on the next game. Honestly, I would have much preferred a new game for the Switch in the first year after release rather than this update. But at the same time, I do like and appreciate what we've been given.
Other
news: Laura Kate Dale has tweeted to say the PAL release date for the
Nintendo Switch is March 17th. I'm not completely sure that this is 100%
accurate, but I have seen some big fans/blogs that do trust the source.
Also,
I've just seen that Nintendo have opened an official Animal Crossing
website! Obviously, it is all in Japanese - but you can see some useful
stuff on there (such as the new Amiibo cards). Click here to go to the site!
This is a collaboration post where we give our thoughts on the 3DS Nintendo Direct that happened on the 1st September.
Mario Sports Superstars
Squishy: I enjoy Mario sports games but usually not on a handheld. This game however looks really fun. I might pick it up.
Beth: I've played a few Mario sports games but they don't get me too excited - honestly I'd rather spend my money elsewhere. However, this does look like a fun game!
Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Woolly World coming to 3DS
Squishy; As someone who owns one game but doesn't own the other I can see this being both a good and a bad thing. It gives 3DS users that can't get a Wii U a chance to play these awesome games. Then again this is basically Nintendo saying that the Wii U is dead.
Beth: I can't wait for Super Mario Maker! As I don't own a Wii U, this one is definitely on my to-buy list. I've always found it interesting, and loved platform type Mario games such as Super Mario 64 and more recently Super Mario 3D Land. I'm not as bothered about Yoshi's Woolly World, but it is probably something I'll look into.
Streetpass Mii Plaza update
Squishy: This is one of the best updates for the plaza in ages. They finally updated the amount of Miis that come into your plaza at a time and make going though the Miis quicker. This feature will make going to conventions easier. Also the dolt cars game is fun (I may or may not have spent 40 Play Coins on it).
Beth: The Mii Plaza doesn't bother me much, but I do use it when I'm out in busy places. However, it is annoying to only be able to StreetPass 10 people at a time, so this update will definitely come in useful.
Pikmin 3DS
Squishy: My first thoughts when I saw this was "Josh (from TheBitBlock) is gonna go crazy". I haven't played a proper Pikmin game but I think that this is the correct way to introduce the series to handheld systems. Imagine keeping track of 100 Pikmin on a tiny screen. I might pick it up after I play one of the games in the main series.
Beth: I've never playe a Pikmin game, so I'm not really bothered about this one. If anything, I'd prefer to pick up a main game, like Squishy.
Animal Crossing
Squishy: The amiibo cards made me want to buy an NFC reader. Plus I'm really excited for the Animal Crossing direct coming sometime this Autumn. The only flaw with the Animal Crossing update is that they are re-releasing a version of the game with the amiibo data already in it. That seems odd and a bit unfair since people who got New Leaf at launch will have to go through packs of amiibo cards to see every character while newcomers to the game can just buy the never version and have it there automatically.
Beth: This update definitely looks interesting...but it also annoys me. The past year of Animal Crossing has been a major disappointment for me - with getting little fun out of Happy Home Designer and not being able to purchase Amiibo cards due to the cost. As I don't have a Wii U, I haven't yet played Amiibo Festival, but honestly I'm not bothered.
However, this update does look good, and there are a lot of features I'll be interested in. Getting new furniture (like some of that released in Happy Home Designer) is something that will definitely appeal to me, and I like the idea of adding new villagers. But...this will likely push back the release of Animal Crossing for NX (or whatever they decide to do next), which I would have been much more interested in. And unless they have a lot of ideas behind the scenes, it's likely we're going to have a lot of things in this update rather in the next game. In my opinion, I'd much rather see that in the works than a new side game or update.
Overall
Squishy: I think we had one of the best Nintendo Directs since April 2015. We got a balance of small things that release this month and bigger things coming in the near future. Plus we have an Animal Crossing direct to look forward to.
Beth: It's an interesting one. I'm excited to see that there's a lot happening in the world of Nintendo, and I'm glad I'll be around when it's all released...but as you can see, I have a few niggles, too. However overall, it's been a good one. We've got a lot to look forward to!
What did you enjoy most about the direct and what are you expecting to
show up in the Animal Crossing one? Feel free to leave a comment and
thank you for reading. :)
