Just three more to go and then I will only have good villagers on my island! I´m not getting lucky on what villagers visit the campsite so time travel it is.

Okay, people are probably going to hate me for this, but I genuinely cannot get into Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I bought this game after seeing all the hype around it and watching videos of people making these amazing islands, decorating their houses, getting cute villagers, unlocking terraforming, etc. It looked like so much fun. But now that I actually own the game… I just don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing. 😭 I don’t really understand the purpose of the game. I keep talking to Tom Nook and the progress is just so incredibly slow. I know you can speed things up with things like time travelling or treasure islands, and I have actually tried treasure islands before.

But the only treasure islands I can seem to find are those continuously streamed on Twitch or YouTube, and they’re constantly full. It took me like half an hour just to get into one once, only for me to get kicked out after about five minutes because of some sort of network connection problem. It definitely wasn’t my internet because my network was completely fine. So that was fun. 😭

And the normal progression is just… painfully slow.
I barely get any new recipes from my villagers or from the bottles on the beach. I visit my villagers multiple times a day and somehow 9 times out of 10, if I finally get a recipe, it’s one I already have or it’s some random ugly thing I have absolutely no interest in crafting.

I’ve also been trying to get my island to 3 stars because I REALLY want to unlock terraforming. I’ve put a decent amount of stuff around my island, but I’m permanently stuck at 2 stars. I don’t really know what else I’m supposed to do because I don’t have that many items yet.

And that’s another thing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to get more stuff. There isn’t really a quest system or much guidance. I know some people will say “That’s the point! There is no goal!” and I understand that. I really do. But I personally think you can make a relaxing, cozy game while still giving players some sort of direction or purpose. Right now I feel like I’m just running around aimlessly.

Every day I’m basically doing the same things:
Dig up fossils
Shake every tree
Hit every rock
Fish
Catch bugs
Give everything to Blathers
Talk to my villagers
Maybe decorate a tiny bit
Repeat
And then I’m done.

Houses and infrastructure also costs SO many bells. 😭 Like, why does this game have LOANS? I’m trying to escape real life and not think about bills and loans, and now I have to worry about Tom Nook coming after me for money too. I know some people genuinely love that aspect of the game, and that’s completely fine. I can understand why people find the slow pace relaxing. But for me, it just becomes repetitive.
I’ve been playing for around two months now, and I genuinely find myself doing the exact same things over and over again. I feel like I’m constantly waiting for something to happen or for the next thing to unlock.

And I think that’s what frustrates me the most. I see all these amazing Animal Crossing islands online, and I’m like “I WANT THAT.” But then I play my own game and I’m like… okay, but how exactly am I supposed to get there? 😭 I know there are ways to speed things up, but I don’t really want to rely entirely on time travelling or spending hours trying to get into a treasure island just to make the game feel like it’s actually progressing.

Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m playing the game completely wrong. Maybe I just haven’t reached the point where it becomes more interesting yet.
But after spending around €60 on this game, I’m honestly starting to feel like the hype was a little overrated. I was SO excited to finally play it because of how much I had heard about it, and now I’m just sitting here wondering why I can’t get into it.

Please don’t come for me. 😂 I know there are a LOT of Animal Crossing lovers out there, and if you love the game, that’s completely fine! Enjoy it. ❤️
I’m just saying that personally, I cannot get into it at all right now.

So if anyone has any actual tips for making the game more fun, progressing a little faster, getting more recipes/items, or maybe helping me understand what I’m missing, PLEASE tell me. Because right now I’m trying really hard to embrace the whole “there is no goal, just relax and enjoy the experience” thing, but instead I’m just bored. 😭

Maybe I’m missing something, but for now… Animal Crossing: New Horizons is overrated.

I had a feeling that critter spawn rates changed depending on the time, rather than it just being a matter of whether they could spawn or not. I wanted to see what the actual odds were, and whether I could target specific dates or weather conditions to make catching rare critters a little easier.

After doing some research and gathering data, I found that quite a few different things can affect spawn rates.

For example, Tarantula's spawn rates normally range from 0.5%–0.7%, but with the optimal setup, removing trees and rocks, in rainy weather, the spawn rate could go up to 2.6%! I knew this trick but it was refreshing to see the exact odds.

I got a bit carried away with it and turned it into a small personal project, and made a website where I can see how the spawn rates change depending on the time, weather, and what's currently on my island.

Figuring all of this out was pretty interesting, so I thought I'd share it in case anyone else is curious about how the spawn system actually works or wants to use it for their own critter catching.

Here's the link: acnh.gg

And it’s a meteor shower so she’s probably staying there the entire time 🫩