SIX YEARS LATER???

poqu, iki, and i celebrating iki's birthday in HD

I don’t know what compelled me to come back to this blog. Blogspot feels like a relic of the past to me, like a timecapsule meant only for my eyes. It felt that way in 2019, and even more so now. But for some reason I wanted to come back to it to give my island the love it deserves! 

It’s been 6 years since New Horizons came out and we just got hit with the 3.0.0 update. I initially made this blog back in 2019 to celebrate my time playing New Leaf, with the intention of documenting the beginnings of island life in 2020. That obviously never happened! I did post my ACNH adventures in other pockets of the internet, but with this update maybe it’s finally time to “immortalize” my island in my very own personal timecapsule as well. 

I started my island called Tansan on launch, March 20, 2020. Tan, referring to my name, and san meaning mountain. I had no direction for the island, no plans. I just wanted my ideas for it to develop as I played and have it somewhat inspired by my life. 6 years later, I still have the same island and 5 out of 10 of my original villagers (as usual, I get attached to my originals easily). It’s definitely my happy place that feels natural to come back to, and one I can’t see myself abandoning, at least until the new title is launched!

Like my other posts about my New Leaf towns, I want to post my island's final version in its entirety… eventually. But for now, I wanted to share my thoughts on the game overall, accompanied by random snippets of what life was like on the island since 2020, in no particular order. Who knows, maybe I will start using this blog again just to share daily snap shots and throwbacks. 

If you want to see what Tansan looks like now (very different from what you'll see in this post), please visit at DA-0488-2098-9558! 

Tinytree Dream Town: Walkthrough

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On the 25th of January I completely demolished my autumn town and started again from scratch, giving it a tropical makeover that was fuelled by the hype of AC New Horizons. 3 days before release I was finally able to finish this town and update it to the dream database one last time! This post will be a walkthrough of Tinytree in its updated dream town form. It doesn't have a story like Borei's horror town so there's no deep meaning behind it. Just enjoy the sights and have a relaxing time in a tropical paradise! Don't mind my shoddily mashed together blend above... I took them at different times and I'm too lazy to retake it, haha :'-)

Tinytree House Tours: Louie

I finally finished Louie's house 3 days before ACNH! That means Tinytree is now 100% complete! I didn't think I could do it, but here I am. Louie's character is a reincarnation of Charlie, who I had to delete for plot resetting purposes. He is in charge of Tinytree's community centre, similar to Charlie's role but now with a tropical-ish theme! It features a gift shop and bike rental, Tinytree historical museum, birthday party event room, Real Estate office, Public library, and my "Goodbye ACNL room" in the basement! It's the first house that doesn't feature a bedroom for my character.

Tinytree House Tours: Mayor Jules

The next house tour for Tinytree is Mayor Jules! Like in most AC games I've played, my "main town" character usually resembles myself in real life. I also try to design the interior of my main characters to reflect my own. Jules' house is very special to me because the interior does very closely resemble my first house when I lived in Korea. I did change a few items here and there to fit the island theme more closely, but now that I think about it, I live in a tropical country now and my furniture replacements aren't too far off from what I own in my current house! Jules' house is not fully upgraded like the others. It has a living room with a kitchen, a bathroom, bedroom, and a basement art studio! This house is my happy place so I'm glad to share it here!

Tropical Makeover Pt 7: Jules, Pudge and Campsite

I finished the landscaping around Mayor Jules and Pudge's house pretty early on but I only just got the dirt paths to set in after many days of vigorous running around. Thankfully this area is such a small part of town and the only area that I cared about dirt paths forming since the rest of Tinytree is covered in paths. This post will also cover the campsite and Tinytree's "tourist spot" that essentially took over my old character Charlie's house.

Tinytree House Tours: Eggs

The next house tour is Tinytree's small business owner, Eggs! He runs a cafe, antique shop, flower shop, grocer, and restaurant. He also has a room for himself on the top floor. His house is located right next to Re-Tail in Tinytree's "shop district". Also, I don't remember why I called him Eggs. He doesn't even have any egg-themed furniture in his house... 

Tropical Makeover Pt 6: Tinytree's Colourful Beaches!

Tinytree's beaches were the last part of my landscaping for my makeover that I had to fix up. While everything else in town was finished, I felt really discouraged by all the mess and chaos on my beaches because they were being used as storage during the redesign. During all the ACNH island hype I somehow managed to work on rearranging my flowers and making it nice and presentable! After all, Tinytree is now a tropical town, so it definitely needs a welcoming beach!

Tinytree House Tours: Mei

Now that my landscaping is complete, I'm going to be focusing more on tweaking up some of my character's houses and posting their house tours much like I did for Borei (while I work on Tinytree’s dirt paths) Tinytree's houses are complete for the most part, but they could use a few changes to suit the tropical theme better. Mei's house had little to fix up and had a tropical feel already. She runs Tinytree's Bed&Breakfast called "Mom and Mei B&B" for visitors who come for a holiday!

After this post I am likely going to take a short break from ACNL and post about my thoughts on ACNH coming up especially since the ACNH Direct is happening tomorrow! I will continue working on Tinytree until the new game comes out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IKI!

Yesterday was a very special day! It was my friend IKI's birthday! I had planned a small birthday get-together for IKI, Poqu, and I in my town Tinytree. I wanted to surprise her with a birthday-themed room in my new character Louie's house. In preparation for the day, I got us all bunny balloons, tweeters, and hammers so we can run around and enjoy the summer evening with some tweets and bonks. Before our ACNL party we also had a Splatoon party for her at midnight. So much celebration, yay!!! It's crazy to think that we will be spending our next birthdays on our Islands! Please enjoy the photos from our little party <:o)

Tropical Makeover Pt 5: Chief, Hazel, Tangy & Freckles

Making some more steady progress on my town's tropical makeover! This time I finished the landscaping for my villagers Chief, Hazel, Tangy, and Freckles. These are all original Tinytree residents, so a lot of their landscaping look quite similar to their older versions except for maybe the pathing being wider and differently styled. Some of my villagers definitely have more "expensive" front lawns compared to others, especially after rearranging a few of them allowed for a lot more space for PWPs. Some just lucked out with real estate during the makeover!