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Well, I can’t really do an “End of October” post yet, because as I type this, my town is currently behind: on October 17th. I have a reason for being behind, which I’m excited about, and will go into more at the bottom of this post. But I was also excited about getting to experience the Halloween festivities in AC:NL in real-time after all, thanks to Ryann of Shantaki coming to the rescue!
Like I mentioned, Halloween hasn’t happened in Citàlune yet, but I was able to experience the festivities on the correct date because Ryann had me over to her town Shantaki on Halloween, for which I’m very thankful! ❤ This is probably the biggest holiday we've had yet in AC:NL, right? And it's exciting that there'll be more on the way in the coming months! ^_^
Right away she led me over to a pile of goodies she’d ordered for me, items I’d been wanting from the blue and alpine series.
Thanks so much, I’ll put them to good use in my characters’ houses! Of course, I had some things for her as well.
While Ryann and I were trying to sort out our gift exchanges, Opal came up to me all of a sudden for my first trick-or-treat encounter!
Though I came prepared with lots of candy, it happened to be in my closet space at the time instead of my pockets, so I had to play rock-paper-scissors with her. I said rock and she said paper, so I lost, and part of my mummy costume was turned to rags and ruined. 😦 I got a laugh at Ryann freaking out and running circles around me, though! 😆
And when Opal was done with me, she turned to target Ryann, her next victim! xP
Later, I talked to Opal again and gave her candy this time:
I was expecting a prize or something, but all she had to give was information — very uncertain information, at that! 
It turns out Moe is afraid of monsters:
When you scare a villager indoors with the right mask, they give a lollipop. I was pretty clueless going into this, so I ate my first lollipop and gave my second one to a villager, but what you’re supposed to do is give them to Jack in exchange for an item of the creepy set.
Scaring more of the residents of Shantaki. All three of her lazies are scared of monsters 😛
In addition to rock-paper-scissors, charades is another game you can play with a villager if you don’t give them candy. Unlike the random chance of rock-paper-scissors, it’s not hard to figure out what the right answer is in charades from the choices given.
I got a pumpkin mask from Chief! 😀 It’s supposed to be a punishment for when you lose a mini-game of rock-paper-scissors or charades, like when your clothes turn to rags, but I think they’re pretty cool!
With help from Ryann, I found Jack for the first time! ^_^
Jack gave me a creepy bat stone, which looks like a gravestone, and later on I also got the creepy wall and creepy floor. Then WiFi crashed and I lost the wall and floor, so I came to the conclusion that while it was fun to celebrate Halloween with someone else, it might not be ideal to try collecting Halloween exclusives over WiFi — I didn’t want Ryann to lose anything because of me! But I had a lot of fun, Ryann, thanks so much for letting me enjoy the Halloween festivities in your town! 😀
When I catch up to Halloween in my town, if anyone’s interested, I might consider opening my gates for some who need a second chance to get the exclusives!
As I mentioned at the top of the post, my town is still currently on October 17th. I want to catch up to the present, and will do so eventually, but it might be a slower catch-up than I originally planned. The grass and trees changed to a beautiful gold color on the 17th, and for the first time this Autumn, it’s a grass color change that I actually really like. (I didn’t like the pea-green color it was before.) The gold has inspired me to try making some changes to my town, if I can, like planting new trees and maybe even making new patterns. If I just speed up to the present time, I wouldn’t get a chance to do this, since I think on November 1st the trees change a darker orange-ish color (which is fine… but it’s not gold).
All this lovely gold ^_^
The town tree has golden leaves too! 😀 I think I’ve mentioned before that my plan for the area around the town tree is to make it look like a forest, with the town tree at the center of a flowery clearing in the forest. Of course, I’ll have to make some flowers-on-grass patterns to do that, and I thought that this might be a good time to start trying to make them, since I could have the flowers be gold to match the foliage. I think that has the potential to look really pretty. 🙂
For the flowers-on-grass pattern, I’m not sure if I should try to have it match the current grass color, or if I should have the flowers on a grassy green background (since it’s just going on top of the pavement, anyway — it doesn’t have to “blend in” with anything).
This was my first attempt to try to make a pattern that blends in with the current grass color, but I don’t know if I’m satisfied with it. I also don’t know if I can ever be 100% satisfied, since there are no magical palette colors like there were in AC:WW (palettes 12 and 13) that will blend in with grass/dirt flawlessly. 😦
I also thought I’d try making a new path, one that’s based off the fairy-tale bridge:
For some reason, I really like the idea of a path like this with elaborate patterns of stonework, lined with golden trees. I think it’d also look better with the muted colors of late Autumn better than my current vibrant paths. But obviously, it’s not done yet and still needs a lot of work!
Just wanted to give a heads up on why I might not catch up for a while. Another thing that might slow me down is that Robin is moving out, so I’ll probably get the chance to move in another dream neighbor soon, and I’ll want to spend as long as it takes to get their house in the spot I want. I’ll try not to settle for a less-than-perfect spot this time. xP I’ve been working on building PWPs for house-repelling purposes in areas I don’t want houses to go, so hopefully that will help some.
A Forest Life 
Dear Amy,
so happy to see a new post from you! 🙂
I was pretty exited to celebrate halloween and I collected much candys. But a day before halloween I did a re-start of my town.
In fact of I was not so happy with the look of my town, the river ancso mjch other things. But the most problem was I can’t let Wild World behind me. So I named my town like my WW town and started to collect the same furniture for my house. But now I’m really happy with my current town. 🙂
Enough from me! I really like your idea to change the patterns, don’t understand me wrong, I love your current path, but I enjoy it too much to see the season change in your path design. (I hope you can understand this sentence!)
But I guess it would maybe look great if you could combine your 2 path designs. I guess the greatest thing on your town is how colourful it is.
I really loved by the way your candy theme in Dafdilly and watched this video really often. For my town I planned the same and wanted to create patterns for christmas. But Amy, I’m still lazy in fact of the qr-codes. It exist so pretty patterns I could scan! Do you feel sometimes the same?
And I guess it would look great if you plant a row of christmas trees (don’t know the english word for it. The green ones with no leaves?!) and perfect apples, and this combined with orange roses. I think it would have a nice christmas look and matches good with the current golden grass. 🙂
So, I’m exited to see your town grow and I can’t wait to see your new path! 🙂
Kind Regards,
Sophie
I hope you’ll be happy with your new town! That’s sweet about naming it after and re-creating aspects of it after your Wild World town. 🙂 I still have affection towards Wild World and my town as well, and it makes me sad that I don’t really get the chance to play in Dafdilly much anymore like I used to. I still turn it on sometimes — always on the same date, though.
Thank you! Yeah, I feel like I’ll miss the vibrant effect of the mosaic path, and how it coordinated with the hybrid flowers and fairytale PWPs. But I’m interested to see how the fairytale bridge-inspired path turns out. ^^ I’m planning on adding a border to the path, so hopefully I can incorporate a touch of color there.
Aww, glad you liked the video of Dafdilly’s candy theme! x3 It should be a lot of fun to do that sort of theme for AC:NL, now that there’s candy-themed house customizations and more palette options for the patterns. Have you unlocked the QR machine already? I’ve seen some great candy-themed patterns floating around ^_^
Ooh, I like the idea of alternating cedar and apple trees, that would look lovely! I’ve been stocking up on cedar saplings so hopefully I can make good use of them this winter.
Thanks so much Sophie! I hope your town grows as well and you meet all your goals and dreams for it 😀
Sometimes im still sad that you don’t post something about Wild World. WW was my first Animal Crosing game and I played it for 7 years, so my heart is more on it as on New Leaf. But I guess after more month I will love New Leaf more, in fact of the new name and new design. 🙂 I don’t have the qr-code mashine, but I think I got it on my next visit. I’m searching really long for cool path designs, but I don’t want to have a path it looks like chocolate, because it’s a little bit too much Dafdilly. I ‘m searchingfor path the look like a normal floor, and on a few tiles are candys. I guess this will be cute, but actually I don’t have the time for creating my own. I hope later, maybe. But if you have good qr-codes feel free to give me a few if you like. 🙂 When you maybe wrote on your blog you are searching for a good new closet design or something, I want to help you out, too. 😀
Ah Amy, I have to say how much I love it that you wrote back on my comments, because I write unknown and I hope you can take a look someday on my town about the dream suit. 🙂 And when I write with you my english gets better and I learn new words from you, like alternating cedar tree (new favourite word! :D)
Yeah, it makes me sad as well. 😦 AC:WW was how I started off this blog, so I’ve kind of ‘abandoned my roots’ a bit, so to speak. I wish I had lots of time to dedicate to both games, but I have to focus on my education and such as well. AC:WW is unfortunately a little more high maintenance for me because of all the flower-watering, but it’s still such a charming game.
Here are some sweets-themed patterns, if you’re interested:
Aww, well I’m very appreciative that you take the time to comment on my blog! 🙂 I always love to hear from you, and others who’ve read my blog x3 I look forward to visiting your (sweet? :P) town in the dream suite one day! 😀
Hello Amy!
At first: I don’t wanted to reply this comment anymore, because I don’t want to write too much. But I really need your help and hope you can help me!
Also at first: Thank you, thank you, for this awesome QR-Codes. I look at all of them and every path has something nice. So I came to the result I want to create my own path and maybe take a few influence from strangers path designs in my own. So for this I checked out your Wild World pattern and wanted to match the red-brick path with flowers and sweets. When I checked out Wendell’s chocolate design I saw this sweet little pink frame! https://aforestlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/acww-wendells-chocolate-pattern-instructions.png
And I wanted to ask you if you have an idea how can I match this in New Leaf.
Oh, and my next problem is: In Wild World I created the path really simple and straight with a few colours, but in New Leaf it looks so awkward without details, but I have no idea how can I make it to look real. Also maybe that a stone cames out and looks more natural. Maybe you have a few tricks?
Uhm and yes, I don’t know how you can really help me, but I hope you know an answer! 🙂
Kind Regards,
Sophie
I think your observation about transferring Wild World patterns to New Leaf is unfortunately spot-on. It’s not just the palette colors that are different, but the graphics, aesthetics, and overall look of New Leaf is so different from Wild World that most paths/patterns made for Wild World will look simplistic and out of place in a New Leaf town, at least compared to patterns specifically made for New Leaf towns.
But I do think that you could maybe create a candy path for New Leaf with elements that are similar to my old path for Wild World (if that’s what you’re asking — sorry if I misunderstood!).
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Adding more detail to patterns is easier in New Leaf now that there are more palette options, so make sure to pick the best colors needed to create the candy patterns. Often times you’ll pick a base color for an object, then a lighter version of the same color for highlights, and a darker version of the same color for shading. This will help make objects look 3D if you determine a “light source” and shade the objects accordingly.
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Another thing you can do to try to make paths/patterns more realistic is to study other sources. One of my favorite things to draw inspiration from for patterns is the game itself. I based a lot of my candy patterns in Dafdilly off of the sweets series introduced in City Folk:
sweets room
sweets room 2
I mostly used the wallpaper and carpet for inspiration, but I also thought it would be cool to draw inspiration from the sweets furniture, like having gingerbread cracker benches around town. (Didn’t end up doing that, though.) In New Leaf, something you could draw inspiration from are the new candy-themed house parts.
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You can also draw from sources from outside the game, like googling different kinds of candy — or the boardgame CandyLand, like I did 😛 I drew inspiration from Lollipop Woods and Peppermint Forest for parts of my town. There are also ice creams, gumdrops, cookies, cupcakes, gingerbread houses, etc. Looking at pictures of these candies and trying to replicate them in a pattern — with maybe a grass, snow, or candy-ish background — could be a good way to go about it.
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I try to avoid drawing inspiration from pattern-makers because it could be seen as copying and they might be offended, but as long as you’re honest where the inspiration came from, it should be fine. And I don’t mind if you use mine at all, here it is: http://i.imgur.com/EPJOUGZ.png
The cream parts of the path would especially need a lot of updating with New Leaf’s palette colors, though.
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(I’m sorry if this didn’t help much >_< Let me know if you have more questions :))
Wow, I miss the golden grass and trees already! The orange doesn’t really fit with my town paths, but at least (I think) there’s a design color that mostly matches it? I can’t remember exactly which color it was, but it was one of the darker oranges on the palette. I can’t wait until December comes and there’s snow on everything – it should make the town paths I have in mind look less out-of-place.
I went into Halloween knowing all the available prizes, so I tried to get EVERYTHING (the creepy set, the patched outfit, the old wallpaper and flooring, and every pumpkin head). I ended up with a lot more green pumpkin heads and old walls/floors than I wanted *sweatdrop*
Your fairy-tale bridge path looks nice so far! I’m currently torn between sticking to my simple paths (that only take up two spots in my design space) since I can’t exactly make my second character the pathkeeper, or using my new third character to store more complicated paths.
If you don’t already have the green-pumpkin head or the old wallpaper and flooring and want them for your catalog, or if you just want to see my town during the daytime, then I can give you one of each (I can PM you my Friend Code since I’d rather not have it public).
Marina/Mira
I’m really looking forward to snowcover as well! I think it would fit Citalune better than Autumn (especially Estel’s castle and garden, with all the white flowers).
Thanks! 🙂 I think simple paths can look great as well, and the fact that complex paths take up so many pattern slots is kind of a bummer, but oh well. Wish more space for patterns could’ve been one of the improvements for this game.
I don’t have those items, but I still have Halloween coming up in my town, so I have the chance to get the rest of the items I need then. But if you really want those items to stop cluttering up your storage space or something, I’d be happy to take them off your hands ^_^ And of course, it’d be nice to visit your town as well! I’ve visited the dream of it before and it’s gorgeous, I especially loved all the flowers and the tree-lined roads. 🙂
My FC is 3222-6062-4806 (and I have information about private messages in the “Contact” widget in the sidebar).
I can imagine Estel’s front yard in the winter right now! I’m sure it’ll look gorgeous with the holly bushes in bloom and the white flowers to go with the snow! I also think your rainbow flowers by the town hall would look nice with the snow 😀
The reason I did simple paths was actually because I read about and visited a town from Tumblr that used only two path patterns. I liked the idea of having paths that I could just keep with Marina (right now I have two paths, three dresses I made myself, and five QR dresses I switch out when I get bored of them) – if you end up making Fern’s house a horror house (or one with any story to it), be warned it eats up a lot of pattern space! I definitely agree with the increased pattern space idea.
Wow, I’m happy you loved my town! I’m actually trying to get more flowers (it’s probably noticeable in the area by my fountain). I also went into the game unprepared and picked the first town map available, planted trees in random places, etc. I didn’t even put much thought into the café location and just plonked it right where Tom used to live, but I’m happy with where it is now that Stitches moved in the convenient spot where he did. Anyway, I’m so glad you liked RainCity and I’m excited to get to see your town in person!
Marina/Mira
I love how you would like to create a autumn theme in your town plaza. I think that gold roses and orange cosmos/roses/tulips would look very nice.:) Also, would you mind when your not busy to put your BFF connection thing on?
I agree, warm colored flowers like that look great in Autumn 🙂
I think our time zone difference gets in the way of us being online at the same time, but the next time we both are, sure!
well, im sure we can work out the time difference, like for me right now its 8:58pm.
Awww, like I said before when I visited, your town plaza is gorgeous with the gold trees and subtle green pears. It’ll be interesting to see how the forest clearing turns out 😀 Wow nice job with the patterns! I had to do a double-take to see what that grass picture was about, it blends so well. It’s probably not anything you would be interested in incorporating, but I kind of like that chequered effect too, between the patterns and the real grass.
Halloween was awesome and I loved the items! x3 It’s so good being able to enjoy these ‘proper’ holidays in AC. Lol, that Opal wreaking havoc, and you eating and giving away your first two precious lollipops 😆 At least you still get to do Halloween properly later on in Citàlune ^_^
I first planted the pears because I didn’t have enough saplings, and I thought they were a good option because of how well the color of the pears blended in to the light green trees, but now they stand out a bit more against the gold foliage. I hope the flowery clearing turns out okay! If the flowers don’t work out, maybe I could have a pattern of leaves covering the pavement, fitting for Autumn. (It’ll be annoying when Crazy Redd or someone comes in and destroys the patterns, though xP) I’m glad you think the grass pattern blends in alright! 🙂
I hadn’t celebrated Halloween in AC since 2 years ago in Ordale (if you remember that :lol:). The level of detail and variety of things to do on Halloween in New Leaf impressed me, and hopefully it’s a taste of more great holidays to come. It makes me look forward to what else is in store in the future ^_^
Since we have added each other on our 3ds I saw your gates were open, i wanted to go but I want to ask you you first so, may I come? 🙂
Oh no, I’m so sorry I didn’t see this sooner. 😦 In the future, do feel free to come over if you see my gates open! (Even if they’re open for some other arrangement, you can still come hang out :))
Aww, no problem! Halloween was very fun! 😀 Thanks for coming over!
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Aww, sorry to hear your mummy pants got ruined. My pajama hat and flipflops got ruined too! 😦 Also, I have jack-in-the-box, so that can’t be a good thing…(means I lost an item).
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Ahh, I think I’d be interested in coming over! Do you have any ideas of when your Halloween might be? I’d like another chance to get the remainder of creepy furniture and the pumpkin heads from villagers. 😀 Plus, it’d be funny to do Halloween with other villagers! 🙂
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It’s too bad that the gold doesn’t stay for very long, eh? It’s only like a solid 10-15 days that it’s here! Cos already the trees are orange! And that was today that they turned – November 10.
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Annndd it’s depressing that the town tree is dying! My sister noticed that today!
Thanks so much for having me, and for all the furniture! 🙂 It was a lot of fun to experience New Leaf-Halloween for the first time with you, and a great opportunity to get more lollipops than I could’ve got in my own town. And you’re definitely welcome to come to my town when I catch up to Halloween to get the things you still need! (It might be a little while, though, I’m sorry >_< But I'll definitely let you know!)
Yeah, I guess it's the tree losing its leaves for winter. 😦 I like that the tree changes depending on the seasons, but I'll miss the full branches…it'll make the tree's plaza seem emptier.