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I’ve been pretty unproductive in New Leaf the past few days: haven’t paid off any loans, built any community projects in town, laid down any paths, re-arranged my gardens or trees, or done any WiFi. I thought that once I had a gridded map of my town, I’d get to improving my town right away, but I’ve been a bit lazy about it, I guess. 😛 Oh well, it’ll happen eventually! And there are still a few things to share, like the Summer Solstice on day 12 in my town — the first sort of mini-event so far. 🌞
Thursday, June 20 (Day 11):
My first perfect apple tree grew to full size yesterday. ^_^ But I can’t continue to admire it, I’ve already planted its three delicious apples elsewhere in town.
Aww, Vesta will be the first to move out of Citàlune. She’s one of my favorite neighbors in town, so I’ll be sad to see her go. But her house is in a spot I want to build something, and there are other neighbors I like, so I’m letting her leave.
No need to apologize, this is great news 😀
And it looks like there’s more construction work to look forward to on Main Street!
I went to see Isabelle about the completed bridge, but found her snoozing on the job! It’s okay, Isabelle, you deserve a rest 🙂
Then she told me about the Dream Suite, where you can visit “dreams” of others’ towns, and gave me the option to build it. So I did, and I paid it off the same day. (I was considering building a fountain, but I’m still unsure of where to put it, so this saved me from having to figure out where to put the fountain right away, phew. 😛 )
Now for the bridge celebration:
One day I’ll manage to take a screenshot of the exploding party poppers at just the right moment. 😛
Crazy Redd came to my town for the first time yesterday! Instead of the usual assortment of items I’m used to, his tent was full of art. I saw right away that the Nike statue had strange batlike wings, so I knew it was fake, but I thought the paintings looked fine, so I bought them all. He’ll only sell one artwork per character, so I had to use two of my other characters to buy the paintings.
Well whoops, it turns out two of the paintings I bought were fakes!
In this fake “moving painting,” the shell Venus is on is apparently flipped the wrong way? I would’ve never noticed that! xP
And in this fake “quaint painting,” the woman should be wearing a white bonnet. Maybe I should’ve noticed that.
The only genuine painting was also the only one I had no knowledge of. 😛 But there’s a description at the museum, so now I can learn a bit about it:
I don’t think the original paintings or artists were acknowledged in past games, so to have that — along with a brief description — is a great addition to the gallery in New Leaf!
Friday, June 21 (Day 12):
Today was the Summer Solstice, which means that it’s the longest day of the year. Although I had no idea this would mean that there would be no sunset or nighttime at all. 😆
There was a sunflower-themed photo-op set up for the occasion and Isabelle gave me some orange ladder shades. 😛
I feel like the photo-op was a bit of a missed opportunity; it would’ve been cute to have a WiFi friend in the “sun” of the display.
Phineas was also hanging around the town tree. I found out that if you talk to him over and over (instead of just accepting the badge he gives and leaving), he might give multiple badges! He gave me a couple to add with my Fish Maniac badge: the Skilled Angler badge, Insect Maniac badge, Bronze Medalist badge, and Village Representative badge.
I was surprised to hear that Sylvia had similar thoughts on the Solstice! After having cloudy skies and rain for so many days, I was happy to see that there wasn’t even a single cloud in the sky today, but it would’ve been nice to be able to the stars later. Watch tomorrow be all cloudy and downcast again. xP
A new neighbor moved in today:
Wow, when I saw the simple name Frank on the signpost, I wasn’t expecting a bright green eagle! xD
The Dream Suite opened today! 😀 I was eager to try it out and explore some towns, but was disappointed that whenever I tried to have her assign me a random dream town to visit, it said that my connection was too unstable. I thought that I’d wasted bells on something that wouldn’t even work for me! >_< But it did work when I actually entered a specific dream code to visit.
I visited a Japanese dream town called Kinmokusei (Dream Code: 1500-0180-4141) and explored it for quite a while. I probably could have happily spent hours there! 😀 I hope my town can be half as beautiful one day.
All these hybrids and dirt paths! ❤ Wish I could've seen it in bright daylight colors!
Back to my town…
I caught my first tarantula in New Leaf in broad daylight! It was surprisingly easy to catch, no scurrying away or attempts at attacking me.
Fireflies in the daytime, this was such a strange day! o_o
There wasn’t any furniture I needed on the island, but I bought a straw hat and a membership to Club Tortimer. I’m not sure how it works exactly, but I guess I’ll try it out sometime.
Vladimir gave me a moody painting, and I didn’t have much hope it was genuine, but it was! Wow, two paintings in one day! 😀 The description says it’s “The Sower” by Jean-François Millet.
Violet’s house was newly expanded today, and I’d actually like some feedback/advice on it. 😕 I want her house to have a small, cozy cottage feel (not an elaborate mansion). So now I wonder if I expanded her house once too many? Because I think before it did give off the feel I want:
But now that it’s expanded, it looks like this:
I like how this expansion has a window at the top, but I don’t really like how tall the side gables are, or how the house looks when it’s not viewed in full. What do you guys think? Which do you like better, especially for the small cottage feel I want? I can always demolish this house and start over, it wouldn’t be hard to collect the money again.
A Forest Life 
About your Lyra dilemma, I don’t think the one extra expansion makes the feel any different; in my opinion it just looks like a cozy two-storey cottage instead of a cozy bungalow cottage. Which it is, so no wonder. ^ ^
And you caught a tarantula! Awesome! My sister and I are terrified of those things, so we never have much luck catching them. :$ Also, you always seem to pay off your works projects so quickly – what’s your secret? 😉
Thanks for your view on it, I’m glad you still think it has the cozy cottage feel. 🙂
I was never that great at catching tarantulas or scorpions in AC:WW (though I managed to catch at least one of each for my catalog and museum). I almost think that they were harder to catch in previous games; they’d scurry and jump around and such, making it hard to swing correctly, and then they’d bite you. >_< But this time, it was just sitting there and I walked right up and caught it. Good luck to you and your sister for catching one!
My secret is just the island, I guess! 😛 I go there in the evenings a lot and bring back tons of valuable catches: palm tree beetles, sharks, and lately, tons of blue marlins!
I visited Kinmokusei too, just now actually! It really is awesome…I stole loads of her patterns off Wendell and took loads of photos of the inside of her house, for inspiration. I’m planning on using her road in Ogygia, but in a different way. Oh, and on the subject of Dream Suites, my town’s Dream code is 6600-2168-0901, so, while we were unable to WiFi, we might be able to see each other’s towns, in a way.
Lyra’s house is fine! Cottages can have small, upstairs rooms, so it’s no biggie.
I only have one painting in my Museum – I bought it using gut instinct.
The Solstice was great, sun at last! But it’s raining again 😦 In my town, at least.
I caught a tarantula too! I can’t catch it on anything but New Leaf. Now it sits in my museum creeping my out. I hate spiders.
LOL, Estel is really tanned. Just noticed that.
*Spoiler Alert* The shop next to the Able Sisters is…No, I won’t tell you. But he’s in City Folk. And he smells.
Oh, awesome! 😀 I haven’t gotten a dream code yet, I figure no one would really be interested in visiting it at this stage. But that’s a good idea! I still hope WiFi works for us eventually, though, I don’t know why it wouldn’t. 😦
(It’s actually Violet’s house, I haven’t done much of anything with Lyra’s house yet) Thanks for sharing your view on it! 🙂
Yeah, it’s cloudy again in my town as well. T_T It seems I was just given a one-day break from this weather for the Solstice.
Congratulations on the tarantula! I haven’t seen any scorpions yet, I wonder if they’re not out until July.
Hehe, I know what it is! Still waiting for it to open, can’t wait 😀
Your town’s really shaping up, Amy! Congrats for all the construction being done on Main Street! It’s too bad about Redd, he’s always trying to rip people off. >.< However, my sister and I have come up with a theory that there's probably only one 'real' item in store each visit, because he's always telling you: "Only one sale per customer, per visit!" Plus, we kinda cheat with our book – we inspect every painting for quite a bit until we make a purchase to make sure they are identical to what the book shows. ^^ Omg! Congrats about the tarantula! I was thinking about what a tarantula would look like in the broad daylight! 😉 Also, it's nice that you're now a Club Tortimer member – I wasn't sure what it did at first, but it's really neat for exploring different islands! (And even search the different shops for your mermaid collection). 😀 By the way, I like the look of Violet's cottage! I think it still has it's 'cottage-y feel' even though it expanded – just some more room for you!
It’s exciting to think about all the new shops and shop upgrades on Main Street there are to look forward to. 😀
Yeah, I guess I should’ve known, it would’ve been too good to get three legitimate paintings in one go! I was excited about it 😆 I agree, I think that’s why the limit is there as well.
I’ve read stuff about Club Tortimer on forums, and it sounds like some have run into rude people, or even vandals (cutting down trees on the island). It makes me a bit nervous, but maybe I’ll try it out today! It’d be great if it helped expand my island items collection, and it’s always more fun to play tours with others instead of on your own.
Thanks, hearing all this is making me feel better about Violet’s house, maybe I won’t demolish it after all. ^_^ And it’s true that it’s an extra room to decorate!
Oh, yeah there are some rude people on Club Tortimer, however there’s no need to worry about that, because it’s not you island that you’re inviting them to! You just go to random Club Tortimer islands depending on if you want it worldwide, or just people around North America (for us, that is). I know this because the fruit keep changing, along with the item selection in store. That’s why I’ll just keep going to different islands to see if I can collect different mermaid furniture. 😀
Ohh, I see! Yeah, thought I’d be having people over to my island, or going to others’ islands. I guess the complaints I heard about tree-cutting were by people who were trying to bug-hunt on Club Tortimer, and maybe they’d come across someone rude who was trying to prevent them from catching bugs. I’ve also heard the language barrier can be a problem when going international. Though to be honest, I probably wouldn’t go on Club Tortimer to socialize, I’d rather do that with people I know on my friends’ list. But tours are always more fun with multiple people, so that’s something I’d like to do on Club Tortimer, and I bet it’s great for collecting more items!
MEEP! How does everyone collect so much money so fast? I only built one bench, and only have about 30,000 bells total, throughout all of my characters!
Congrats on getting so far already, as I just wait for simple things to happen in mine…. *silent sob*.
To be honest, it’s interesting to hear this point of view on my town because I don’t feel like my town’s been progressing that fast. I haven’t done as much landscaping yet as many people have, and there are people who aleady have Shampoodle and the Cafe and such! But please don’t feel bad about your progress (and I know I shouldn’t feel bad about mine either). It’s not a race or a contest, everyone should feel free to go at their own pace! 🙂 I’m sure your town is coming along nicely, I’d love to visit sometime! (Oh, and the way i often make money is going to the island in the evening to catch beetles and sharks and such)
Aww, Amy, don’t work TOO hard! Remember the fun is in slowly and gradually customizing your town, so don’t spend your AC time worrying about path patterns and houses! (which by the way looks just fine!) After all, this game’s supposed to be relaxing, though it’s not always, lol. You worked so hard on Dafdilly- making that dead spot map, those detailed paths, and taking care of all those flowers- I think you should be a bit easy on yourself in Citalune XD. But you’re such a perfectionist, lol. 🙂 I bet your future town will blow Kinmokusei out of the water, to put it lightly, haha. 😀
Aw, thank you for this nice comment! 🙂 I agree about the gradual customization; it does seem like that’s the way New Leaf was intended to be played, with the slow start to being a mayor (it takes a few days to really get started), the slow building of new shops on Main Street, the slow unlocking of community projects, etc. I can’t help feeling a bit impatient at times, or feeling slightly embarrassed when I have people over since it’s mostly bare right now, but I do really look forward to slowly building up my town!
So amazing!! That picture with the sunflowers is so adorable, wee!! I’m so glad they celebrate so many events in New Leaf!!
Aww, I hate buying fake paintings hahaha, I guess Redd is still same old black market guy 😛
Club Tortimer?? o.O whaaa? That’s so cool! I guess since he retired now he sells old stuff? Heheh, well I’m so glad he’s still in the game, I remember someone mentioning that maybe Tortimer died and he wasn’t in the game and that broke my heart! Hahah
I’m enjoying these posts a bunch! Talk to you later, Amy!!
Yeah, can’t wait to experience all the events! 😀 Definitely an improvement from the holidays in AC:WW.
Every AC:NL town has an island that you can go to and play mini games (by yourself or with people on your friends list), buy rare furniture at the island shop, fish and catch bugs (it’s always summer there, so you can make lots of money!), and swim. After buying a membership to Club Tortimer, you can also go to a different island that people all around the world can visit, even people you haven’t added to your friends list. And I guess you can do the same things there that you do on the regular island, only this time with people you don’t know.
I’m also glad Tortimer’s doing well and enjoying his retirement! 😀 Although it seems like a busy retirement, running all the mini-games and tours on the island. xP
Aww, thanks Jemma! ^_^
Hmm…the random dream feature isn’t working for me either, or a lot of other people, apparently. I guess Nintendo will have to fix it. But picking a country and then just choosing a random dream from the list works fine and can be almost as much of a surprise.
Thanks a lot for that tip, picking from the region lists is a great substitute for the random feature! I just visited a dream town this way; it’s sometimes nice to have that surprise of exploring a completely unfamiliar town. 🙂