Well, it’s been about a week since I got Happy Home Designer, so I thought I’d do a little post on what I’ve done in the game so far! Designing these homes and yards can be quite fun, but it can also be hard to come up with something satisfying given the limitations and slow unlocking process, so don’t expect much. 🙂
I named my designer character Flora — was trying to resist reusing one of my favorite character names from New Leaf, like Lyra or Violet. And I also figured it would be fitting since I tend to love using flowers as decoration so much 🙂
This was what I came up with for my first assignment (a room with “a lovely atmosphere”), which at the time I thought was either for a mystery villager client, or just a test-run/tutorial of the new bottom screen set-up for designing.
But it was a pretty big surprise for me that it turned out to be Lottie’s house! I might’ve worked harder on it if I’d known >_>
I wonder if I’m doing something similar 😐 Will I get to design a home of my own eventually?
I was much happier with the room I put together for my first real customer the following day, Goldie 🙂
She seemed quite happy with it too 🙂
Customer #2! Just found him outside Nook’s Homes, which is how I’ve approached all of my clients. The only amiibo card I have right now is Digby, who came with my game. I reaally want Melba’s! ❤
Well, I tried. He wanted a stylish urban space, and these types of modern/sleek/minimalist type rooms aren’t really my favorite to do.
This, though, this is my favorite room I’ve designed so far ❤ It's such a nice mix of cozy and elegant imo, which is fitting for what Pecan asked for (“chic and relaxed”). I also purposefully drew inspiration from her home in past games, so it feels like a spruced up version of her old favorite room design.
Aww, meeting Isabelle for the ‘first’ time 🙂 She’s here to help with building public facilities, but still had some paperwork to do before we could get started.
So I helped another client I found outside, Roscoe, who wanted a “black and white bastion.” Again, I tried 😛
Now we can get started on our first facility together 🙂
I had trouble picking the exterior of the school, they were all so nice D: Green’s my favorite color and I liked the darker wood, so I went with that…hopefully I won’t regret it, since it’s also important to me that all the buildings mesh well together in the end.
And this is how the classroom inside turned out. There’s a teacher’s desk area, a blackboard and some standard school-desks, an art table and science table, a cozy reading corner, and a space by the door for students to put their bags and lunches and things. It’s nothing mindblowing but I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out:
Oh man, it’s soo cute seeing the major NPCs and villagers as the teacher & students ❤
And the following morning there was a ceremony. Aww, well isn’t this dialog familiar :’)
The same day as the school’s opening ceremony, I got my first new house request (for a room, house exterior, and yard)! This was something I was really looking forward to 😀
I like how the yard turned out, and how I was able to set the season to Autumn. The Fall colors add so much coziness to the playground & decor!
For Carrie’s interior, I went with a cozy-but-messy feel, and I like how a lot of the colors inside remind me of the color scheme outside 🙂
Since house exterior & yard designing had just opened up with Carrie’s request, I decided to go see Goldie again and offer her a new house re-design. She originally requested living in a “forest of books,” and mentioned that she was drawn to living in a quiet countryside, so I loved the idea of giving her this forest cottage. 🙂
For the interior, I didn’t change anything except adding a new clock I’d unlocked above the fireplace.
When I saw Tangy hanging outside Nook’s Homes, I didn’t hesitate to work with her next; she was in my first Animal Crossing town on the GameCube and as a little kid I was in love with and jealous of her fruity room, and of all of that fruit furniture I could never seem to get a hold of. 😛
In AC:GC I remember one of my villager houses being placed in a river nook, and there was an impressive semi-circle of an orchard around the house. I don’t think it was Tangy’s house, but I still used that nostalgia to influence how I decorated Tangy’s new home in HHD here ^^
This was the day I had just unlocked ceiling-hanging items, and I think those items added a lot to this room.
Enjoy your new home, Tangy! ^_^
Designing Muffy’s new home was another one I was pretty excited about (rococo!!), and it also greatly benefited from having ceiling-decorations. I wish I could’ve customized the rococo to Gothic Black/purple, though.
I felt pretty limited in landscaping her house’s exterior: no purple and black roses for a ~goth garden, no fountains to play up the grand feel of her home’s interior…
Purrl here asked for a “kotatsu cottage where she could nibble on oranges,” a request that sounded intriguing compared to the other options that day. In the end I tried my best with what I had to work with, but I was feeling pretty limited by my flower & foliage options again.
The interior also felt pretty “meh” to me.
Like Carrie, Sylvia was another kangaroo who wanted a home & yard for her joeys to play in. She wanted a pool in particular, so I picked a plot of land that had a large ‘natural’ pool, but then I saw that a magnificent actual pool had been unlocked :O I didn’t end up using it because it didn’t go with the casual backyard atmosphere I’d envisioned (so I used the inflatable backyard pool instead), but it was a surprise for me to see a fancy pool like that in Animal Crossing xD
I also unlocked purple tulips with Sylvia’s home, which gave me hope that eventually in the future I won’t feel so limited in my gardening options.
The interior reminded me a lot of what I did for Carrie’s home >_>
Moe asked for a “magician’s hideaway,” which was such a juicy request I couldn’t resist. I wouldn’t have ever expected a theme like that in this game, least of all from Moe, a lazy cat I never thought much of (preferring other lazy cats). It was also a fun parallel for me since in New Leaf right now I’m working on redesigning Violet’s magician’s workroom. Moe’s came out quite different from what I plan for hers, but I like it:
For the exterior I didn’t do anything too fancy — wanted a stark, plain atmosphere, as though it was the magician’s goal for his hideaway to remain hidden in the mountains.
Moe’s my latest client so I have nothing more to share, really! Currently working on my second facility, the hospital. At first I was putting off doing any of the facilities until I unlocked more furniture from working with clients, but then I heard that you can always edit the facilities later (I think?? is that right?), so there’s no real point to putting them off for that reason.
Some miscellaneous/overall thoughts and opinions on the game so far:
- I loove the sweeping camera angles and adorable music that plays when you finish a home/facility design! It’s really a wonderful way to celebrate and appreciate the finished work. Of course, I’m also thrilled about a lot of the updates like squeezing between close furniture, ceiling decorations and whatnot, but I had heard about these for a while from tumblr and such, so these weren’t a huge surprise. Still great, though!
- One of the most exciting things about the game for me is actually the fact that every single villager in the game has a request for their ideal home. It excites me because I’ve always been fascinated about learning the things that make individual villagers unique — like it’s often touted that all villagers of a certain personality type are identical (and rightly so, as far as dialog goes), but there are still little things that set them apart, and that you can use to form your own head-canon/interpretation of each villager. Things like catchphrases, favorite quotes, the music they play in their house, how they design their homes (and in this game, what they request for you to design), what clothes they wear and umbrella they carry, and even their house exterior in some games. You can imagine how this game is a pot of gold for me as far as learning more about the villagers’ tastes, learning what their dream home is, and what furniture is dear to their heart. And sometimes I’m left very surprised by what I learn, like magician Moe!
- The opportunities and process for designing in this game is really different for me from New Leaf. In AC:NL the only rooms I’d design were ones that were to my taste and choosing, and usually fit the theme of my town. In HHD there’s probably hundreds of clients, each with a request fitting their own taste, not mine, resulting in me getting to design rooms I never would’ve done before.
- Sometimes the limitations can be a little disappointing and frustrating, though. Like not having those purple/black roses for Muffy’s house, not having access to the furniture and PWPs you want, etc. The house plots themselves are kind of limiting, even though you can choose from a wide variety of marvelous locations, because they’re smaller than the landscaping spaces you have access to in a traditional Animal Crossing town. I doubt I could ever landscape something like the garden in front of Estel’s castle in Happy Home Designer, for example. Also, I notice some awkwardness with the landscaping placement tool sometimes. Usually in traditional AC games a tree takes up one space, and you can plant flowers on all sides of that one space. In HHD a tree takes up four spaces, and when you try to plant flowers next to it, there’s an (often unwanted, for me) bit of space between the flower and the tree. There’s a similarly awkward space like that when you try to plant a flower right next to the house itself
Stuff like this can put a bit of a damper on my creative-excitement, and lead me to abandon ideas I was looking forward to designing. I’m sure some of my frustrations will be solved once I simply play the game more and unlock more stuff, though 😉
I also want to add, while I’m at it and writing a post for the first time in forever, that it was never my intention to abandon this blog, or abandon AC:NL. I’ve still been playing, and steadily working towards a summertime dream update for Citàlune. I’m really really excited for this dream update, and can’t wait to finish it both for my own satisfaction, and for letting you all finally see something other than that cherry blossom update xP It’s been a lot of work so far; I demolished Violet’s house and rebuilt it, had to pay off the loan again and track down all the house parts, and I’m still in the process of redesigning the interior. I’ve also re-done a lot of rooms in Estel’s and Lyra’s homes. Though it’s not my WordPress posting style to share stuff like this before I’m done (when I can then do a comprehensive post on everything), so that’s why I’ve been quiet. Also have to admit that I’ve got a bit more going on in my life than when I first started this blog, so that’s why my town-building progress might not be as speedy as it used to be, I hope you can understand & forgive me for that 🙂
I hope you all have been doing well! Feel free to let me know how you’ve been doing and what you’re up to in the comments, how you feel about and what you’ve done in HHD, what you’re still doing in AC:NL, and so on! I’ll try my best to catch up on some WordPress posts I’ve been missing in my reader, along with replying to comments and such 🙂
A Forest Life 
Wow, it’s nice to see you posting again! 🙂
I have a question, can you change your character’s face in HHD? I noticed you have one face in a few pics and then another face in the rest of them. Do you unlock the ability to change your face, or did you just get two games? 😛
Thanks Marina! It’s great to talk to you again 🙂
You can, as long as you save up some play coins from taking steps with your 3DS. Upstairs in Nook’s Homes there’s a machine like the one in Shampoodle that you can unlock with the “designing handbook” or whatever it is, once you have the play coins you need. I started to regret the look I made for my character at the beginning of the game, so I was glad of the option.
Oh, that’s great! That means I don’t have to worry about having chosen the face shape I wanted to try out over the one I like with specific glasses… 😛 I have a lot of Play Coins, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Have a great time with the rest of ACHHD and I hope you’ll be able to post more ACNL updates soon! 🙂
I had just gone out and bought a copy of AC:HHD (after coming home from a trip to China and realising it was out already! 😀 ), and got a huge grin on my face when the email notification for your new post appeared right as I turned on my 3DS x3
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I love Goldie’s forest cottage and how you did Pecan’s house! And kind of envious of Purrl’s peaceful new garden ˃_˃
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Just looking at the exterior picture of Carrie’s house, I was wondering how the houses in the background worked. I’d seen promo pics with houses in the background too and I’ve been wondering if they were actual houses you’ve made that actually take up a permanent spot on a map, or if it’s just a visual backdrop for a particular type of environment?
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This is still just a strange new way of playing Animal Crossing to me, I’m still working out how I feel about it… After furnishing Lottie’s house and being forced to meet the next client without being allowed to explore anywhere outside the office, I felt like the game was a bit dry… but then after a few hours I had the odd urge to play again and furnish another house. How are you feeling after unlocking more features?
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Wow you’ve been working hard in AC:NL 😮 I’m looking forward to seeing your summer update!
still such* a strange new way
Wow, I hope you had a nice vacation Teru! And aww, hehe, that’s such a sweet coincidence! x3 Hope I didn’t spoil anything too much for you though, I should’ve put a spoiler warning.
Thanks! 🙂 I thought of you when I made Goldie’s, because of the cottage style house and red flowers.
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Houses in the background like that are shown in some of the ‘acres’ closest to where the main town’s location is, so it’s just one of many set backgrounds that are unchanged by what houses you make for clients. I interpret that background as a way to suggest that the client isn’t living in the middle of nowhere, that they’re near town or maybe a neighborhood or something. 🙂 Because some of the acres look like they’re in total wilderness by comparison. It’s a nice background, I like the coziness added by the assortment of houses ^^
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Something a bit related that took me by surprise is that I thought you could only use each acre location for one client, so with Carrie’s house I actually picked one of the acres that looked a tad lackluster to me (while still being fitting for her home) because I wanted to save the coolest acres for my favorites xP But it’s not like that, you could use the same acres over and over again I think…which doesn’t make much sense, but I guess there aren’t hundreds of acres.
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Ah yeah, it is a huge departure from the easygoing, do-what-you-want atmosphere from traditional AC games. And it kinda makes our mayor job seem tame in comparison; there’s many a day in New Leaf I don’t go into the town hall at all. 😛 I really enjoy it though, and have found it pretty addicting — I’m already formulating all these goals in my mind, like working for all the possible clients in the game, collecting all the furniture, going back to edit past clients’ homes for my liking.. xP But at the same time, with the huge focus on interior designing, which actually was never really my favorite part of AC (I prefer landscaping, gardening, town-building on a large scale, town-focused stuff), HHD could never really replace or match my enjoyment of a game like New Leaf. I’ll enjoy it for the fun little spin-off it is, though! And as for how the game changes/improves the longer that you play it, I think you’ll really enjoy building up Main Street and picking the facilities’ exteriors/architecture, and I could see you having fun putting together a coffee shop or something hehe x3 And things start to loosen up a bit once the game steps out of beginning/tutorial mode; you can choose to wander around Main Street or visit villagers’ homes before taking on the job for the day.
Argh this is what happens when I leave a comment at the end of my holidays right before real life starts again… Sorry for delayed reply ˃_˂ You didn’t spoil anything, because I’m the one who couldn’t help reading it 😛
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It’s a pity that the houses in the background don’t reflect real homes you’ve created, though I suppose that’d be pointless if you can’t walk between them anyway. It’s still a nice addition to set the atmosphere.
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I’m kinda glad you can re-use (supposedly; I’ve only just made Carrie’s house) the acres, because there’s a fair few that I’d probably never see myself using… I do love some of the ones with cozy spots like a nook between two cliffs or the one with a bridge leading to a mini-island, and the stranger ones that add a lot more character to the house/villager, like you used for Muffy and Moe.
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I did enjoy putting together the school, and looking forward to unlocking other facilities ^^ Before, I didn’t really know how limited our choices were for things like the school, and I practically expected them to have a set selection of school furniture and layout to choose from. But it turns out you could even design a medieval dungeon of a school if you wanted to (though I didn’t do that xP). After playing and unlocking a bit more, it is feeling more fun as you said 🙂 (I just hope one day these features will make it into a fully-fledged AC game!! x3)
Ahh that’s okay, time has been flying by for me, it didn’t feel like long at all xP
I agree, though having the background houses reflect the houses we’ve designed might end up looking kind of wild, like having the elegant castle I recently did for Julian next to some modern building next to a zen resort. 😛 Though something that also adds a nice atmosphere about that background with the houses is how it looks at night; it’s nice & cozy seeing all the lit windows in the distance 🙂
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Someone put together a compilation of all the house plot locations in case you want to look over them all next to each other or if you get tired of clicking. My favorites are probably the ones with lots of foliage in the background, like the second from the left on the top of that image, with all the cherry blossom trees in the background. I guess part of why that appeals to me is because you can never really get a background quite like that in AC:NL; the view doesn’t go that far, and trees can never get that mushed together.
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Aw I’m glad you’re enjoying it more, and had fun with the school 🙂 I bet you picked the red roof one ^^ I look forward to maybe seeing some of what you do in this game, if you choose to blog about it or post on miiverse or even just share your designs on the in-game Happy Home Network. For my facilities, I tend to be kind of boring because I don’t go for super creative themes like a haunted hospital, or a magical/out-of-the-ordinary school or whatever — I guess I just want my town to be somewhat realistic, and want my villagers to have access to functional facilities! 😛
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Btw, I got the new 3DS that’s AC:HHD themed, and if you’d like to be my first friend on my new system, my friend code for it is 0147-2476-1992 🙂
Haha I laughed out loud at your comment. You got me, I chose the school with a red roof xD It’s so pretty! >.< And yeah I felt the same way, I was slightly tempted by the possibilities, but ended up wanting just a normal sort of a school. Though I was picking and choosing for ages!
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Oooh sweet! Yay I would love to be your first New 3DS friend xP I've kinda been wanting a New 3DSXL but then my old XL's C-pad started cooperating again (it was getting stuck and just needed me to pull it out a bit each time) so now I'm just sitting on the fence. I'd bite if they ever released a plain white one in Oz like my current XL…though the newest AC plates for the regular sized 3DS are tempting too now 😛
Oh and thanks for the link to all the plots, it’s super handy!
I’m glad to see a post from you! HHD seems like such a fun and decorative game, especially since you can customize and design easier than in NL, but I probably won’t be getting it anytime soon 😦 Gosh, I love how you decorated some of the clients’ houses! Lottie’s and Muffy’s especially :’)
Oh, I’m looking forward to your summer update for Citalune 🙂 I’ve still been playing NL even though I haven’t been updating my blog, due to school and lack of motivation x( But also the fact that Tenshi is pretty much complete and the dream update for it is perfect as it is (though I might update it later) and I’ve been working on my second town. Hope to see what you do next 🙂
Aw thanks Tanachan, and I’m glad to hear from you again! I’m sorry for being so absent 😦 Aw, I hope you’ll be able to get HHD eventually if it sounds fun to you! And I’d love to see what you’d design in it! And thanks so much, I’m glad you like some of my humble little designs so far, I appreciate it x3
I look forward to reviewing some posts of yours on Tenshi that I might’ve missed! And I’m happy to hear you’re still active in AC:NL, and more than understand how difficult it can be to stay updating. Wow, congratulations on pretty much completing Tenshi! I’m envious, still have so much to do in Citalune before I can do my dream update — and even after this dream update, I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to call it finished or not. I look forward to checking out Tenshi’s dream address and seeing what you do in your new town! 😀
I’m never gonna be able to get this game.
Aww, well I really hope that’s not the case, if you’re interested in getting it one day! Good luck 🙂
Very good blog Amy. I wish we had this ability in ACNL (boy would i be still playing it if that happened). To be totally honest, your a good designer, and i mostly agree with what you said about each house you did. Digby and Goldie’s descriptions were my favourite part of the blog.
Keep it up! I’ll be reading more!
~AC97
Thank you! 🙂 Ah yes I wish we had some of these abilities in AC:NL too; recently I went back to room designing in AC:NL after playing Happy Home Designer for a while and it took me a while to get used to having to pick up furniture and drop it again and whatnot xP Thanks again, much appreciated! And sorry for the late reply 🙂
Yay! A new post! I was feeling bored so I went on to see if you had posted recently and you have! What amiibo cards did you get? I got Sheldon, Phil, K.K Slider and Tortimer. I don’t think there is a way to design you own home, unfortunately. I love Goldie’s house! You designed it very differently to how I did, you put some actually useful stuff but I just had three pieces of furniture that weren’t bookshelves, regretting that now. Too lazy to remodel it though. Can’t wait to see your DA update!
Yay, glad you were happy to find it 🙂 And now it’s been a few weeks lol, sorry for the late reply — been pretty busy. I got Digby as my first amiibo card, he came with my game. I recently bought a few set 1 booster packs though and now have: Bunnie(x2), Bella, Snake, Cyrano, Sheldon(x2), Winnie, Joan, Gigi, Kyle, Lottie, Flurry(x2), Punchy, Knox, and a second Digby.
Yeah, I figured that out eventually after doing a bit of research 😦 Seems like such a missed opportunity to not design your own house… I think I’m going to pretend that my character owns one of the shops, though.
Aw thank you! It’s fine to go all out with the theme and not make it a practical home. Sometimes it can get boring if you try to make each house practical and like a bedroom/living room and whatnot 🙂
I’ve been working hard on it whenever I can, glad you’re looking forward to it! And thanks for commenting 😀
Hi Amy, i visited Citàlune’s dream suite today and i couldn’t help but notice that your town was really different 😦 all your houses apart from Estel’s furniture was gone, Estel’s clothing changed and a few villagers have moved away… What happened? D: Did you give your game away? I dont mean to sound rude but i couldn’t help but notice :c
On the otherhand, I’m glad your enjoying HHD, i dont plan to get it yet but it looks fantasic, i LOVE Goldie’s house, WOW!
Urgh, unfortunately I think you found a hacked version of my town. 😦 Someone used my dream address to download my town onto their game, and then they hacked it and uploaded a new dream address. The only one that’s mine is 4800-2245-2005.
Thank you for trying to visit though 🙂 And thanks about my HHD post!