We compulsively bought 2 new Switch Oled just before December, so we would have them for our Mega Awesome Holidays. But why did we do such a thing while our vanilla Switch(es?) are still in perfect condition and we mostly play with the console docked?
Yep, that’s right, we did it to create a second Animal Crossing Island. Added bonus: they match the black & white theme of our PCs, yay!
My new island is named Moonglow and Soforah’s island is Starlight. We played every single day for a month and we’re progressing pretty nicely. The terraforming is complete and all the buildings have been moved to their right places. We both decided to go for a more “city” style and we’re using custom patterns all over the place. However, there’s still a lot of work to do before we can share our dream codes. So, I’ll go back to my bush planting now…
As usual, we’ve spent New Year’s Eve at home in our clean PJs, eating a ton of food prepared by Soforah and watching movies. We first watched Nobody (with Bob Odenkirk) and it was great, then we’ve watched No Time to Die and it was amazing.
At midnight, we logged into our Animal Crossing Islands where we enjoyed the fireworks with the other residents.
We hope that you (the few who have found their way here) had a great evening and we wish you an amazing year 2022.
I totally agree with Isabelle, Soforah and I got married in June, 18 years ago. Time flies when you’re having fun! We didn’t have much of a celebration this year, with the Covid and all… But we’re almost fully vaccinated, one more month of patience and we’ll be able to go for one of the things we’ve been missing most: a Whopper. We’ll make it a celebration Whopper!
It’s been a year since the confinement has started. One of the games that has entertained us the most is Animal Crossing New Horizons. It has constantly brought good mood, relaxation and sunshine in our lives.
Yesterday evening, my island, Lonestar, has finally received a 5 stars rating. I still have to upgrade my house twice and my museum collection isn’t complete but I’ll happily spend another year running around my happy place.
Well, I didn’t see that one coming. My island is far from what I want it to be, it’s messy and I need to do something about the wild growth of ugly flowers.
Out of curiosity, I talked to Isabelle the other day, expecting a 2, maximum 3 star rating. Imagine my surprise when she told me it has 5 stars. I guess that the Miskatonian residents don’t mind the mess, or maybe they are just loosing their sanity… that’s what happens when the name of your island is inspired on the Cthulhu universe.
After a very unpleasant experience with Pixelmator Pro, followed by an OKish experience with Affinity Photo, I finally subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud. After all these years screaming that I would never pay a monthly fee to use a software, why did I finally do it?
Well, it wasn’t a comparison spreadsheets on Reddit, no Sir… What truly got me are the Lightroom presets for Animal Crossing made by creative folks like Saturn and quinn on Twitter. Yep, you read it correctly: I now pay 12,00€/month to Adobe because I want to make my Animal Crossing screenshots look cute.
After a few days of using the combo Lightroom/Photoshop on my Mac, my Ipad and my Iphone, I’ve learned a few things:
Adobe softwares are the most intuitive, I found back my PS automatisms faster then it took me to develop new ones on any other software;
If you read online comparisons between Photoshop and its alternatives, you don’t really do it for the results. You do it because you don’t want to pay a monthly fee and you need to be comforted in the idea that you won’t be using Adobe softwares anymore;
12,00€ is cheaper than the enamel pin I buy from Etsy each month (now, I’m convincing myself).
One of the greatest features of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the hourly tune. While we love all musics from the game, our favourite is 5 PM. This smooth jazz tune with a touch of 70s bass is an instant shot of good mood.
After weeks enjoying the peaceful life in Animal Crossing New Horizons, KK Slider finally visited our Islands and, by doing so, Tom Nook unlocked the terraforming app. We recently had a week off and we enjoyed our days away from our office laptops reworking the shape of our beloved Islands.
Sardoken
I had planned to keep as faithful as possible to the original design of my island. I would only move what was really necessary in order to build great yards for the residents and correct a few things like the position of the bridges.
By the end of the week, the island had changed much more than I had anticipated. I changed the path of the rivers, deleted a cliff, moved most of the buildings and relocated my house.
I am completely addicted to terraforming and I can’t stop changing the design of Lonestar to further improve it.
I only wish that they would have kept the entry of the buildings and the bridges to even numbers. For example, the exit of the airport is 2 blocks while the entry of the museum is 3 blocks, which makes it harder to center the paths. But it’s just a small complaint, the app is really well done and fun to use.
I wonder what my island will look like after my next week off…
Soforah
I remember playing Animal Crossing in 2006, Chris had bought me my first gaming platform, a Nintendo DS, and AC Wild World. I was so happy at that time roaming around in my little town, it already seemed so huge. Fifteen years later, we’re actually terraforming, crafting, and decorating an entire island. I knew that New Horizons would be different from all previous AC games, but I never expected it to be this great. When I created my island, Miskatonia, I chose one that I thought would be the perfect lay-out to begin with. 100+ hours later my island doesn’t look at all anymore like the original map. So far, I’m having tons of fun creating little nooks and crannies all over the place. So much has changed already, I wonder what it’ll look like in another 100+ hours from now.
My first week back at the office felt horrible. The day before the big come back, my left ear got inflamed, probably because of allergies, so I felt like crap before it even begun. I also had a little problem under my right foot which made walking painful. At the office, people didn’t care much about social distancing, I spent the day walking backwards to keep a safe distance. As if it wasn’t enough, I had an allergic reaction to soy (my kryptonite) on Friday.
Happily, we can now swim in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and it is super fun, especially doing cannonballs and meeting Pascal, the wisdom otter.
Tomorrow Animal Crossing: New Horizons will be released, and as you can see, I am ready for it!
With the COVID-19 pandemic, my flu-like symptoms and quarantine, this couldn’t be a better timing. If you would have told me at the beginning of the new year that the whole world would be on a lockdown at some point due to a deadly virus, I would have laughed, thinking you watch way too much survival stuff on TV. Yet, here we are, and it would be pretty boring if it were not for netflix and video games. So yes, ACNH is more than welcome at this very moment.
