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Hey everyone, I hope it’s been a great new year for you all so far!
I’m really sorry I haven’t been able to do much for my blog since changing my URL. 😦 Since starting up school again, with classes, homework, and other activities, my days have been very full and it’s been hard for me to find a lot of time for Animal Crossing related things. Usually I’m reluctant to post unless I have lots of pictures of one of my towns, but I feel like a little update is necessary since it’s been so long.
In my last post, I hinted that a return to playing AC:WW regularly again was a possibility, but that I hadn’t decided yet, with AC:3DS coming out in the not too distant future and all, and my town being months behind. Well, I decided recently that I do want to start playing in my AC:WW town again and posting about it.
Whenever I say my town is behind, I mean that for a number of days (or months :oops:), I didn’t play AC:WW. And when I want to play again, I set the DS date to the last day that I played to prevent neighbors from moving away and flowers from dying. So when I’m behind in time like this, to catch up, I time-travel forward one day, play that day, time-travel forward another day, play that day, and so on until I’m at the present day. But this time, I felt my town was just way too far behind to catch up this way, so I decided to just set my town to the present without playing the days in between.
You might wonder, “What about the neighbors? Won’t they all move away if you time travel months ahead?” Actually, if you time-travel forward a long period of time, you should only have to worry about one neighbor moving away. Time travelling forward any length of time = only one day passing as far as neighbors moving away are concerned. I knew it would be Maelle who’d move away because she was packed up before I time-travelled:
Bye Maelle…
I also didn’t have to worry about flowers because I’d packed them up a long time ago because of dead spot testing and hadn’t put them back in town yet.
So all I had to worry about was…
…lots and lots of weeds! It’s not very fun to pull that many, but if you’re focused, it doesn’t take forever.
And on the plus side, I found three four-leaf clovers!
And lots of gyroids. As you can see, only three fossils were to be found after all that time; this is because you can only have three fossils buried in your town at once, so it’s important to dig them up each day in order to get new ones. New gyroids are planted after any day it rains or snows, so they accumulate over time.
My neighbors were of course concerned about what had happened to me during my long “vacation.”
A new neighbor moved in to replace Maelle: another snooty, Whitney.
Then Tabby moved out. I’m eager to see who will replace her… a favorite peppy, like Rosie? 🙂 Pleeeeaase?
All this was happening during my winter break, so I got a holiday greetings letter from Mom. I hope you all had a happy holiday season as well!
I thought it would be cool to decorate my town with Christmas patterns, but I didn’t start making them soon enough. I only had a few days to make patterns and I didn’t get very far because I was busy spending time with family and such as well. This is the path I started to make, and didn’t finish (no point now):
It’s supposed to be hedges or holly bushes (not enough greens on the palette to really differentiate between the two, anyway) covered with snow and decorated with festive tinsel and ornaments.
It didn’t turn out as good as it looked in my head, but one thing I liked about it was that I made multiple patterns for the horizontal border pieces: one with a present, one with a candy cane, and one with a stocking. I think it adds nice variety to the path:
I’ll admit now that my town has gotten behind again. 😛 I set my town to the present on December 22nd, started to work on the festive path, but on December 25th time became frozen again. The reason why I’m not letting time pass normally is because I want to landscape and decorate my town again before New Years Eve in my town, when the cedars are all lit up. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s my game, and I can play it how I want to. xP
The patterns I’m planning on decorating my town with are candy-themed. I know… again? 😛 But I had already made these main paths and side paths a long time ago (and I’ve never used them in Dafdilly before), so it will save me the trouble of having to make new ones right away:
A different side path:
And to make this post less boring, I’ll share a few more candy-themed patterns I made a long time ago, but can’t use for my town right now because they were meant to blend in with the summer ground.
This is supposed to be a peanut brittle house. I’m also working on a gingerbread house, and I hope it turns out better.
I based my peanut brittle house on Gramma Nutt’s from CandyLand. 😛
And here’s an ice cream cone I made to sort of blend in on the summer dirt. Like the peanut brittle house, it was done on palette 5, an interesting palette because it contains a color that sort of resembles the summer dirt, but not as exactly as the colors on palette 12 do. On palette 12, I could have maybe used a grass background, a tan/brown cone, and turquoise ice cream to make a summer ice cream cone pattern, but I thought the colors on palette 5 would be funner with the pink and purple. I like the ice cream I made for the winter ground better, though, and ironically the color options were much more limited there. 😛
Well, that’s it, I’ll continue working on pattern-making and landscaping (using my dead spot testing results to plan trees) and getting my town to look the way I like it, instead of a barren wasteland. I can’t wait until it’s back to normal, and playing in it again day-by-day regularly, and hopefully WiFing again 😀
Edit: I realize I’ve made a lot of references to palettes in this post that would be confusing for someone who didn’t know them, so here’s a list of all the palettes:
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A Forest Life 
What an interesting post, with your big leap through time as well as new patterns! You really captured the festive feel of the holidays with those vibrant colours in the Christmas hedge path. (And incidentally one of the bushes you can make hedges with in AC:3DS is holly). Your new candy-themed patterns are looking perfectly scrumptious too. I’ve never heard of a peanut brittle house before though 😆
I didn’t know that about the gyroids/fossils and moving neighbours before! I knew neighbours weren’t going to move as much but I didn’t know it just simply counted as one day and at most a single neighbour would move. Haha Puddles, these animals have wild imaginations. I also had Whitney way back in my first town. I loved her appearance, but I don’t think I can ever really like a Snooty 😛
Looking forward to seeing your town on NYE, and then… spring! 😀 Oh and, “it’s my game, and I can play it how I want to. xP”. Damn straight, you tell them! 😛
I wanted my first post on Dafdilly for my new blog to be one where I showed all new decorations, but it’s taken too long, so I felt like I had to at least post something, even if it’s not done yet. I’m glad you still found the post interesting, thanks! 😀
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Yeah, I was actually inspired by the snow-covered hedges I’d seen in AC:3DS screenshots, they look great! I was really impressed with how the snow looked on all of the town landscaping objects and plants. Haha, I probably wouldn’t have heard of peanut brittle houses either if I hadn’t loved this (now ancient) CandyLand computer game when I was a little kid. 😛 It’s been an inspiration to me for my candy patterns: the peppermint forest, lollipop woods, candy castle, etc.
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I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, but it’s good to always be careful with time-travelling anyway. Maybe they have it that way to make sure that there’s always a chance for you to convince the neighbor to stay or to say goodbye; if four neighbors moved away while you time-travel forward or if you’re away for a length of time, there’s no chance at all for that.
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I’m not sure who I want to be Dafdilly’s permanent resident snooty, I was thinking either Eloise (she looks sweet for a snooty) or Queenie. I like Whitney’s design too though, and she also happened to pick my favorite house style and a nice location, so it’s worth considering to keep her. But my original plan for Dafdilly’s neighbors was for them to all be colorful (Rosie-purple, Static-purple, Puddles-pink, Kid Cat-red, etc.), and I’m not sure if Whitney’s colorful enough 😆
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lol, I probably sound too forceful in that quote, I was just very conscious of the fact that it was a stupid reason to have my town be behind again. 😛 I’m looking forward to those things too! 😀
Ahhh, so CandyLand is a computer game. I never really picked up on that, I thought it was some kind of super popular boardgame, in which case I wondered how people knew details like characters and where they lived.
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They did a good job with the snow ^^ Someone had an outdoor canvas chair as a community project and it got a collection of snow in the dip right where you sit, which I thought was realistic enough xP
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It’s funny you mentioned a permanent resident snooty, because even while I typed that about Whitney, I was thinking, but when I get Willow in NL, I’m keeping her!!! As for Bundeena, I suppose recently Mathilda’s become my resident snooty, but I never actually planned on having one. I just have a soft spot for her because she was one of my first neighbours ever, and back then when I was still a wet-behind-the-ears newcomer, she felt like a motherly character with all her advice on manners and life (which you find out all snooties give you) and all her “wee-baby”s.
That’s lucky about Whitney ^^ She’s also pretty cool as the pure white wolf of the series. If it helps, the parts of her that aren’t white are pink and purple 😛
You were right in your initial thought, it was originally a boardgame. 🙂 But the computer game appealed to me more when I was a little kid because it was the same concept and game, but the computer game immersed you in the CandyLand world more. Every step you took along the CandyLand path, the scenery would change a bit, and you could stop to meet the characters like Princess Lolly along the way, and play minigames with them. The same characters and locations were on the actual boardgame as well, though. (Maybe you can see Gramma Nutt and her peanut brittle house :P)
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Ah wow, I haven’t thought at all about the neighbors I want in AC:3DS, or the villagers much in general (with all the new customization features being most interesting to me). But there should be a lot of villagers from all three games along with new ones, that will be exciting! I guess I’ll probably want my favorite, Melba. I think Mathilda’s a great choice for Bundeena’s resident snooty for those reasons, and she also has a lovely house!
Hahaha, those are some interesting characters and fantastical places 😀
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I haven’t really thought about what permanent villagers I want either; I just knew about Willow because I’ve wanted her ever since learning of her for AC:CF and knowing she wasn’t in AC:WW. (Her NL house is no good though, lol.) If I had a selection of favourites I was planning to keep I’d wish for them to show up as late as possible, after I’ve had a good portion of the Animal Crossing population come through my town 😛
That complete palette list is so awesome I had to comment on it!! 😀 It would sure beat cycling through the palette menu and comparing shades in your head if you were making something.
Thanks! 😀 I’ve had that image for a while, only without the numbers added to it. It’s very helpful if you have an idea for a pattern and want to look over the palettes to see which one would be the best for your idea. It’s also cool to see them side-by-side because it becomes clearer that there are certain “family palettes” like 14&15, 1-3, 9&10, etc. Palettes 11 and 16 are so similar that I wonder why they have them both as palettes instead of having a completely different palette. 😕 In general, I like using a combination of the AC:WW rom I have and MS Paint to work on patterns on the computer; the pattern-makers at sites like ACC often have inaccurate palette colors, which can completely change the look of a pattern. They should’ve used a color-picker tool to get the exact colors from a rom or something. >_<
Nice post Amy! 🙂 I love that Christmas path (especially the great idea to differentiate the outer designs) but I think you could maybe get rid of the presents, stockings and candy canes for the other seasons? 😕 Also, is that side path for the candy theme a new one? It looks great 😀 anyway, I hope to hear more from you once again 🙂
Thanks Will! 🙂 If I was going to make a hedge border without the festive decorations, I would definitely use a different palette with more greens. The festive path I was working on would mostly just be used around Christmastime, or if someone were hosting a Christmas party. I made the candy paths a long time ago, but they’re new in the sense that I haven’t used them for my town yet or posted them on my patterns page. I’m glad you like them 😀
Whoa!! I really like your Christmas and Candy Path, Amy! Maybe save them for your town in AC:NL? x’D since you can choose about any palette color.
The candy path reminds me of Parfait’s paths in ACC. 😀 I remember I also used the paths as well. also, it reminds me of the paths on that…japanese site that had lots of nice AC:WW Patterns, The cherry or pink candy and grahams reminded me of it a little bit? 😛 But the peanut brittle house really caught my eye! I love it and I feel like it’s some kind of small little house for little peanut brittle elves. ❤
all in all. I love this post. It's been a while since you posted and I hope there's more. xP But I can understand how busy you are…. It's been a (lot of.) while, huh? Reading posts like these reminded me of the days. :')
Thanks Choco! 😀 I look forward to AC:3DS’s new pattern making options as well; not being limited by certain palettes will be almost surreal. xD
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I know I’m not the first to use candy patterns for an Animal Crossing town; it’s a fairly popular town theme, not just with Parfait or Japanese pattern-makers (ex.: here and here and many more). But a candy theme appeals to me because it seems like an appropriately whimsical/fantasy-like theme for Dafdilly in the winter (in the spring I prefer flowery pattern paths), because of my love of CandyLand as a kid, because I’ve always used the candy carpet and wallpaper for my main room, and because, well, it’s just awesome to have your own candy world! 🙂 I didn’t base my patterns on anyone else’s, I actually based it off of the fairytale wallpaper for the most part (and it’s very possible other pattern makers were inspired by the fairytale series too), like you can see the ice cream and cherry in the wallpaper, the gingerbread below it, the chocolate bars, the graham crackers, etc. So the idea is having my whole town match my main room. All of the pixels of the main path were thoughtfully planned by me, how to shade the candy canes to make them look 3D, how to draw vanilla cream with only white and tan, how to do all the confusing corner pieces, etc. The side path is much simpler, but I also pixelled it myself and you’ll see it’s different from other people’s, who don’t have a monopoly on chocolate bar patterns. 😛 I’m sorry for getting a bit defensive, but it sort of felt like my hours of work on the patterns were summed up as being the same as Parfait’s or others’ patterns.
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I’m glad you like the post, I hope I can be more active soon as well! It will be easier to post more once I’m back on track to just playing “normally” ie. time passes in Dafdilly as it does in the outside world, and I can play for a quick 30 minutes or so a day. 😛 I look forward to it!
Ahh, I hope I didn’t sound mad before, I was just explaining my thought process. 🙂
Oh,o you didn’t base it? Then it was just a coincidence then. xD I just noticed that it also looks like the fairy tale wallpaper in cityfolk/wildworld. haha. 😆 Your town does look kind of fitting in candy land patterns. 😀
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It’s awesome how you pixel paths so well. I would, but call me lazy. xD and I can understand why your being defensive now. When I actually saw the pixelated version, it’s much more different. I said they only looked a little bit of the same. but it’s a popular theme (like you said.) so probably, the main ideas for patterns of the theme is probably all used up now and people might start saying “that’s the theme of that town!” etc. Forgive me as well. >_<
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Also, Candy land is actually a computer game? 😮 …I just knew about that, I thought it was a board game. lol.
It’s okay, I’m also sorry, I’m afraid that I might have sounded overly defensive. I can see how the paths are similar (same palette, both candy), but I hope they’re different enough as well, and I wasn’t trying to copy hers; I was trying to have it match the fairytale wall. Parfait’s is a lot better anyway, but I wanted to make a candy path of my own and I find that 3-space wide paths work well for my town. I like having a main path/side path system.
CandyLand is indeed a boardgame, it just became so popular that they made multiple video games based off of it (one of which I loved as a child, and preferred it to the boardgame) and they’re even going to make a movie based off of it starring Adam Sandler. 😆
lol, that biskit post. xD
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I think you and Parfait are both great at designing. 😀 You two are my favorites at pixelling. haha.
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I would like to play the video game myself.. If i have time though.. and I can’t help but notice… on the link…”Adam Sandler is about to destroy your childhood memories” xDD
Aww, thanks! I personally don’t think I’m nearly as good as Katrina’s Cranny, Parfait, and other pattern makers, but I still enjoy making them for my town, it’s a fun part of the game for me. I love your landscaping for your towns as well and your wonderful drawings, like the one for Twisk and your recent post, you are a great artist in general 🙂
Haha yeah, I’m not sure about an entire movie based on a very simple board game for children. I expect the visuals will be amazing, maybe the storyline will surprise.
Even so, I still love all the patterns you make. 😀 I love landscaping as well, If i weren’t so lazy. xP But I’ll definitely do my best on landscaping when it releases…I hope it’ll release on Q1 2013.. I wanted it to be released on summer (in my country.) xP
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Oh yeah, and thanks sorta, I’m not “that” great of an artist yet. but we’ll see. xD
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and the idea of the movie makes me feel like I want it as a short episode. If it’s “that” simple of a board game with no plot (is there? xD haven’t played this yet.) and make it into a movie..
Well, I wouldn’t call what you did for StarCity and An Ville lazy! 🙂
I checked Wikipedia and under the release date section it says that AC:3DS is scheduled for Q2 for North America, Europe, and Australia. I’m not sure what Q2 means exactly, but another article says “first half of 2013.” So maybe June or July? That’s summer where I live, but I think your summer starts earlier than that.
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There is not really a plot to the boardgame other than traveling across the CandyLand path, and the goal is to get to the finish (which is the Candy Castle) first. I got the impression that the screenwriters are going to have to invent their own plot. But the original boardgame does have certain characters and places that they can use for the movie, like Princess Lolly of Lollipop Woods, Mr. Mint of Peppermint Forest, Queen Frostine of the Ice Cream Sea, etc.
It’s because I didn’t put much effort in it, like you do. xD It just looks good when you put it on the ground. but the actual pixel was crazy. 😆
Q2 is the second quarter of 2013. It starts on June, which means summer for you guys. 😀 and school for mine. 😛 It says on a 3DS blog that it will be released on the first half of 2013… it has nintendo’s release dates for games, but AC:3DS was not given a specific released date but instead an “early 2013”. 😛
Oh.. Sounds like a very simple game.. I hope the movie will be fun.. there are many plots to think on a place where there’s such things like a peppermint forest. xD i wanted to play the game AC:WW style too… lol