15 Non-Obvious Tips for Beginners in Animal Crossing

These recommendations will help you get comfortable in the game.

The new animal crossing part for the Nintendo Switch quickly became one of the most talked about games. Largely because it came out at a very opportune moment: funny cartoon characters and paradise islands help to distract from the pandemic.

But the therapeutic effect is not the only advantage of New Horizons. The developers have created an amazing world with a lot of opportunities in which you want to live. Players can travel, extract resources, equip entire islands, trade and interact with each other.

Many of the features of New Horizons lie on the surface, but some are easy to miss. If you are just getting acquainted with the game, take note of us tips.

1. Be patient

The possibilities of Animal Crossing: New Horizons are revealed to the user gradually. A common thing for games. But if in most virtual worlds progress depends only on the player’s actions, in this it is also tied to real time.

In other words, access to many activities and items opens up as you spend in the game. So relax and don’t try to overtake friends who started earlier.

2. Organize your inventory

The game does not allow you to organize your inventory at the touch of a button. But if you select an object and pinch A, you can move it to another location. This will help to bring order to the collected things.

3. Use a stone axe

An iron tool completely destroys trees. And stone allows you to extract wood for crafting, without cutting them down to the end. Use the second one when you cut down trees on your island. After all, they will still be useful to you.

4. Prepare bait for fish

On the beaches of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can see trickles of water that rise directly from the sand. Here are hiding mollusks – the shells of venus. Come up and dig them up with a shovel. Then you can craft bait from these creatures and catch fish with it.

5. When shaking trees, hold a net in your hands

In the first days of the game, you will have to shake trees to get poles for crafting. But in the process, a hornet’s nest may fall on your head. If you don’t want to be bitten, hold a net in your hands. It will allow you to catch fallen insects.

6. Catch insects correctly

If you approach the insect in the usual way, it will surely fly away. Or even bite you if it’s a spider or a scorpion. Therefore, when fishing with a net, clamp A to sneak up on the target. If the insect adopts a defensive posture, wait until it calms down. Then sneak up closer and catch him.

7. Watch the night sky

Walking at night, periodically look at the sky. To do this, press the down arrow to remove objects from your hands, and lift the camera up to look around.

Thus, you can see a shooting star. Noticing a characteristic trace, press A – this will allow you to make a wish. Following one celestial body, others may fall, so do not rush to look away.

The stars, under which you will have time to make wishes, the next day the waves will take you to the beach. The wreckage can come in handy for crafting magic wands and other rare items.

8. Don’t be afraid of rash decisions

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a very flexible game. You can change many of the decisions made in it if you want. Do you regret that you settled in the wrong place? Pay a small amount and move somewhere else. The game will allow you to move not only the house, but also your other real estate. Tired of the character’s appearance or even gender? Get a mirror and re-customize the hero. That’s just a small part of what you can change.

9. Carry a workbench in your inventory

The game world is full of various materials for crafting. Many of them you will find in remote corners and will not be able to use until you return home. But only until you start taking a workbench with you. If necessary, you can get it and craft the necessary items right on the spot.

10. Grow fruit

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a lot of goods that you can trade: from insects to shells. But one of the most valuable resources is fruit. Developing your own farm and selling fruits, you will earn good money. Especially for the first stages of the game.

Travel and collect different kinds of fruits. Grow them on your island, and sell them to go to friends – they offer the best prices.

11. Communicate with other islanders

Don’t forget to interact with the characters – in many cases, it’s not just fun, it’s also rewarding. They give gifts, give valuable advice or teach the player something. But often this does not happen immediately, but after several conversations.

By communicating with residents, you can influence their behavior. If you make friends with the inhabitants of other islands, the game will allow you to invite them to you. And frequent conversations with neighbors increase the likelihood that they will not leave your island.

By regularly communicating with the characters, you also get the opportunity to give them gifts. In return, they often give other items or just money. If you present clothes, some heroes will be able to wear them.

12. Complete Tom Nook’s quests

At the beginning of the game, the character Tom Nook will become your guide. He will tell you what to do next. In addition, you will receive several optional errands that you can ignore. But it is better not to do this, otherwise you will miss important chips that affect the gameplay. For example, the ability to create roads.

13. Eat fruit

Eating fruit temporarily gives the player various abilities and bonuses. For example, it allows you to replant trees without damaging them, or helps to crush stone faster.

14. Mine iron from stone

To create good tools, you’ll need iron nuggets. They can be extracted from stone. Take a shovel or an iron or stone axe and crush the stone wherever you meet it.

At first, iron will not come across so often. If you want to speed up mining, go to remote islands. But to do this, you will need tickets that can be bought for a special currency – Nuka miles.

15. Create a Spider Island

Many mystical islands can be turned into spider islands. Thus, you can catch a bunch of spiders and make good money on them. There is no bug or hacking in this – only the mechanics of the game are used.

To begin with, make sure that there are insects on the island – butterflies or beetles. If you find them, you can proceed.

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, insects appear on flowers, rocks, trees, stumps, grass – and not only from above, but also inside. Therefore, all this must be destroyed: trees cut down, stumps uprooted. Eat the fruit and break the stones. Collect all the grass and flowers (you do not need to uproot the flower seedlings themselves).

Once you get rid of everything, insects will have three ways of appearing: water, earth and stones by the sea. So start combing the island. There may be giant water bugs in rivers and ponds – catch them. Jump beetles and sea cockroaches crawl on the ground and stones – scare them with a run. At the same time, be careful: you have just increased the chance of the appearance of tarantulas (aka tarantulas).

Tarantula ambush: If you don’t see the spider in advance, it will run after you and may bite. The chance of catching it in this case is very small – unless you have prepared in advance. Dig holes in the shape of an inverted letter P and, when the tarantula tries to catch you, run to the trap and jump over – the spider will be inside, you will only have to catch it.

Important: the easiest way to make a spider island with bamboo: there are no reservoirs, and the cut bamboo can not be uprooted. Also, some islands (for example, with money stones) do not spawn spiders – so the very first step with the search for basic insects is important.