Tropical Makeover Pt 4: Cafe, Retail, Town hall

With Opal's move out, I was finally able to fill in my 3-square path and landscape around town hall. In my earlier version the town hall was one of the hardest areas for me to visualise for some reason, maybe because I was trying to incorporate natural paths in that area even though it was an awkward oval shape. The old cafe version was one of my favourites, so it was a challenge to come up with something equally good to replace it with. I'm glad to say that I finally came up with a solution for these areas and I'm very pleased with the result!

Before: Cafe, Retail Town hall Old Version

The main difference for this side of town in the older version was that instead of the new windmill plaza taking up a big chunk of space, everything used to be trees and dirt paths so it looked like a lush forest. I had so many trees that for 4 years I had never reached perfect town status until recently when I rebuilt everything. There were also a lot more 1sq dirt paths rather than thicker 2sq paths, making a lot of the walk walks very small and thin. The road to the cafe was one of the thin ones. It cut straight through the old hot spring forest and all the way up to the cafe. While it did look magical at times, without dirt paths the town always looked really cramped and sometimes even claustrophobic. It was easy for me because I memorised my walkways, but I remember a lot of my visitors getting lost in this area :'-D That's the only real reason I'm happy with my rebuild for this area, because it's so much easier to move around and would work with or without dirt paths.

The original layout had a horizontal 2sq dirt path going straight to Retail. There was a drinking fountain near Retail. In the new version, this path is no longer there and instead you have to go through the windmill area to get to Retail. The cafe also didn't have a direct PWP nearby, but in the new version I moved the drinking fountain there.

In the old version, Retail's main feature was the windmill and it was placed in between Eggs' house and Retail. It was also directly behind Chief's house. I loved this windmill placement so much that I even made a similar "windmill near Retail" design for Borei. I still like the windmill as a PWP to complement Retail but in Tinytree's new version it is placed further down, seen here.

Town hall's landscaping was always tricky for me in this map. The landscaping area was very rectangular but I only had a 2sq path that looped around it and into O'Hare's residence. It was a very awkward flow that I would often forget to run that area, leaving it the only part of town with no dirt path leading through it. Because I thought the path was necessary, I thought I only had room to place 1 tiny drinking fountain and a statue fountain in this area. I'm a lot happier with the new version of Tinytree's town hall, especially because my older version didn't have its exterior updated, but the new version does! I actually prefer the original town hall look for this town, and I am keeping my original train station as well (no need for 100 visits for this town, oh my god) but I did not like my brown town hall roof.

Here's the dirt path that lead towards Stinky's house. In the new version, I moved Opal out and made it into a 3square path. You can't see Opal's house in these pictures, but she used to live in the right side by the cliff.

After: New Cafe, Retail, and Town hall  

Cafe

Aaand the newer versions! Here's the cafe. As you can see, no more horizontal path going to Retail. I made an alternating path/clover walk way that links to the main path where June lives as well as the windmill plaza. 

The path also links to the main path to a 3square path to the train station. 

Here's a view of the cafe from the path that links to the windmill area! There's a dumb rock in the way that I had to work around, so the path might not feel super natural to cut across into the cafe area from here. But it's visible enough to make it accessible. 

I was very happy to finally incorporate the blue trash can in my town with this tropical version because the colours do not clash! The trashcan is SO useful because I always have crap in my pockets that I'm too lazy to sell. 

Here's another view similar to the view posted above in the "before" section. At first I thought that paths next to paths only separated by trees might look too much (which is why I added the clovers)... I'm usually used to seeing the plain cobble stone plaza and dirt paths which is very simple and pleasing no matter what. But I've already grown to love this new version too!

Retail 

Here's the new Retail! I used the square topiary and the tulip topiary in this area. I don't like using the circle one even though it looks nice because of the awkward spacing. I also noticed that Chief hasn't changed out of that heart shirt in quite some time. 

This road is from the wind mill. 

Here's a view of the "Retail pond" surrounded by flowers. There's a small 1sq path that goes to the right and leads straight to the train station. 

The 1sq path to the train station is actually made for easy trading/selling access for visitors. It's the route I also take when I go to sell things because it's the closest road from my house. Otherwise, you can also take the main road from the wind mill. 

Another view of the area with Chief's house nearby. 

This area here is the exact location of one of the Before pictures posted above. The tulip topiary is in the exact same place as where the old wind mill used to be. The path leading up to Eggs' house is now changed to a 2sq path rather than a 1sq dirt path. 

Town hall

First off, here's the town hall with my favourite remodel version: the zen exterior! 

There's two ways to get to town hall. If you are dreaming of Tinytree and start at the plaza, you will most likely see town hall first if you go down and take a left. First you'll see the police station, and then town hall! The next is the 3sq pathway seen on the right. It is right in front of Stinky's house and leads you to the main areas of town such as Retail and the Cafe. 

Here's a view of the end of the 3sq path. I love how open this area is not compared to the previous version's town hall. 

And finally, here's what it looks like in front of town hall! No more tiny underwhelming drinking fountain. I replaced it with the regular fountain and of course, lots of colour! 

The only areas I have left to work on are the "campsite" area where Charlie used to live, the landscaping around my mayor's house and Mei's house. There's still a lot to do!