Before I had Tinytree and Borei, there was Kenka! Kenka was the very first ACNL town I created back in 2013 when I first got the game. It was the 2nd AC game I played after ACWW. I remember being knee deep in finals and learning that a new AC game had already been out for almost a year. I played ACWW in high school, and when I got NL I was already about to graduate college. I ordered the game right in the middle of my college finals and spent a week procrastinating on my projects because I was so engrossed in the game :'-) I recently found a folder of old pictures from this town so this post is going to commemorate all my happy memories in it! This post is a probably going to be a bit more text heavy than usual.
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| Dizzy was my mascot, haha |
The town name "Kenka" was actually named after an Izakaya nearby my apartment when I lived in NYC. Even though I was greatly anticipating the game, I had no idea what to expect or what to name it. I realised the game arrived at my place after I had just come home from Kenka, so a drunken me decided that it would be the perfect name for my town!
Villagers
Here's a few of them celebrating the windmill PWP near my mayor's house! As you can tell by the pictures already, my mayor had questionable outfits :-P Soleil in this picture was an earlier villager that was one of the first to move out!
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| Shari and Mac! |
Kenka was famously known for its many jock villagers. Mac was the one and only villager I have "bought" (with forum currency). I was so excited to have him in town but his house was located in a really bad spot (this was before the easy plot resetting days and I had no patience for that). When he asked to leave I stopped him many times before actually deciding to let him go. He was replaced by Goose! One of my favourite jock villagers of all time!
Here's Baabara by the police station. I hated my police station placement so much. This walk way was also really weird and awkward. The villagers loved that stump though!
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| Bye Stinky ;_; |
I remember one of my most devastating moments playing this town was losing Stinky due to a silly time travel error during the Fishing tourney. I didn't know that villagers don't "ping" you during the tourney even though he was thinking of moving out! I was too crazy about time travelling to grow bushes and trees after getting bit by the landscaping bug. I wasn't even good at it back then!
Look at those random QR paths that don't even go well together! Thankfully I was able to get both Stinky and Dizzy back in Tinytree!
Marshall was also one of my earlier villagers. His house was near the area that lead to Fauna and Genji's house. I eventually traded him for Elise who reminded me of my best friend because of her big round glasses! The cedar stump had a little bear face on it, so after he moved out I kept the stump there in his memory.
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| On a date with Elise! |
Here's Elise in the picnic spot in Kenka. It was right in front of Maple's house. Elise's house was also near Retail, which was a good placement for her because at least the colour scheme matches a little! I had little luck with plots in Kenka but hers was a good one. That whole section of town had park like PWPs and a lot of illuminated PWPs.
Here's what Marshall's house area looked like after he moved out! I placed the wisteria trellis where his house used to be. The path through it lead to Fauna's house and the path to the left lead to Genji's house. This was one of the areas of my town I was most proud of. Some place to the right of this area right along the cliff was Goose's house!
Here's a picture of at area during the Cherry Blossoms. I remember my last Dream Update was taken during this time.
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| Cherry Blossoms at night |
Maple's departure!!! Maple was one of my starters for this town and my favourite little bears. I took a hiatus away from ACNL and when I returned, I was already working on a new town on a separate digital file. Around that time the WA Update randomly dropped and made me even more motivated to play. I hadn't gone on Kenka in a while, and when I finally logged on, Maple had moved out randomly.
I knew I wanted to make a new town to explore the possibilities of the update. I learned that villagers move out after longer periods with the update and that there were a few more "quality of life" changes to plot resetting. There were just too many reasons for me. Maple moving out definitely made it a lot easier, because the town already felt so different with her gone.
My House
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| This is my Shrunk look :-P |
I couldn't locate my town's map picture, but I remember my house was on the south side near a nook by the river. Despite choosing the first map I was offered by Rover, I still think it was a pretty decent map. My newer towns have always felt a bit smaller in comparison to Kenka.
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| My neighbour Benjamin! |
Right next to my house was Benjamin's house! This was before I knew about plot resetting and he put his house in a terrible spot in front of my bridge that lead straight to town hall. He was too cute to kick out so I think I either demolished the bridge or just worked with it. We had an orange/black theme going on!
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| My full sized kitchen! |
I wasn't all that into interior decorating back then so Kenka only had my mayor's house and no other alternative characters. Even though I thought I sucked at it, looking back at them they are actually kind of endearing. I started to get really into it after the WA Update and when HHD came out!
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| Which animal pooped in my bathroom |
My very questionably designed bathroom. I think I liked the general feel of this with the wallpaper and the jelly lamp but I have no idea what is happening with the rest of it.
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| Lol Dizzy's photo |
Here's a preview of my main room. Again, I probably had a hard time designing this one. Yes, I used sand as my flooring, ahhh. Dizzy is judging me so hard in this picture. I had a "backroom" made but I just didn't feel like designing it as it didn't interest me so I just put a cabana dresser blocking the way and he actually commented on it when he came over! There's not really any other rooms to show from Kenka because I probably didn't even finish making them. This house definitely taught me that I rather have "smaller" houses with no extra side rooms to design. To me, it feels more like a cozy house with just the right amount of rooms. Good thing I enjoy designing now and actually put some effort them! I should honestly thank HHD for that.
Other pics around town!
Funny Moments
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| Everyone saw. |
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| Out of context dirty pictures |
By my current standards, Kenka was a mess of a town! But a beautiful mess filled with happy memories! I had no sense of path design or layout and laid them everywhere even if they clashed. The main reason I reset the town was because I became cursed with knowledge of all the things I could have done from the beginning, like choosing a better map (literally just chose the first map rover gave me). While I wasn't that keen on interior designing, the WA update made me want to try it out properly after I fell in love with all the new items. Resetting wasn't all bad though. I learned that I didn't like QR paths anymore and wanted my next town to be only dirt paths (Tinytree) and if I did have paths, it would be my own (Borei). I learned about plot resetting and initial map resetting as well. I learned a lot from Kenka and I'm so happy for it :-)
