poqu, iki, and i celebrating iki's birthday in HD
I don’t know what compelled me to come back to this blog. It feels like a relic of the past to me, like a timecapsule meant only for my eyes. But for some reason I wanted to come back to it to give my island the love it deserves! 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! 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.
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!
btw if you found this blog through my dream address - hi!
Looking through my old posts here on Two Trees hit me with a wave of nostalgia. I was first introduced to the series through Wild World when I was in high school, where I’d ditch school during study hall and sneak off with my best friend to play in a cafe together. New Leaf came about when I was in college and it was a near perfect game to me. It cemented my love for the series and it introduced me to a world of other online players where we were somehow able to “make our own fun” without doing much at all. For a long time, AC to me was simply a backdrop to hang out in another virtual world with my friends.
Tansan's first halloween decorations
I was not that interested in the decorating aspect of the game until the Welcome Amiibo update came out, after which I completely overhauled both saves I had, even though I was already content with the base game before. To think that we only had a few PWPs to choose from to place outside, to building literal mountain scapes and castles on New Horizons!
New Horizons definitely felt like a completely different game to me because it placed a greater importance on designing, something not everyone needed to prioritize previously. Online play in NH, in the beginning, felt largely transactional to accommodate for the craze in building up everyone’s dream island with dream villagers. We were also in the throes of COVID-19, which introduced a whole new wave of players that kept a newly created in-game economy and mentality going.
"Tansan falls" when Tansan was more nature than beach town
I think this aspect of “online” intimidated me a bit at first. I remember mostly going online to trade for what I needed, and then returning to do my own thing. But this nervousness I felt was mostly due to the fact that I was just not ready for the amount of visitors that I would be welcoming compared to the NL days. Eventually after I got used to it, I really enjoyed showing around new faces who stuck around after trades, or came over to do tourneys together and events.
I feel like my positive early experience playing with others was also because my decision not to time travel at the beginning. Back then I wasn't rushed to build the best thing ever so I really appreciate those innocent and unpolished days that resulted in some unintentional hilarious moments, some of which I've posted in this blog post. I had started New Horizons after the high of finishing and designing my New Leaf towns, so the desire to rush and catalog everything and jump head first into things was definitely tugging at me.
I'm not sure when I broke my no-time travel streak (not that I was that strict about it). I eventually moved on to obsessively redoing my whole island theme (many times over!) because I finally had the items and vision to do so. I wanted to make my island nice precisely to host my friends and show them around, while also keeping things true to Tansan's humble beginnings.
While I loved what I created on the island, I do remember always comparing the two games as a veteran to the series — missing certain things from New Leaf, feeling some aspect of the charm to be missing etc. I blame that mostly on nostalgia though. I’m sure if I were to dig up my old 3DS and boot up my old towns, I may not be able to connect with that magic again unless I started from the very beginning. However, as a player with huge expectations for the game, I was definitely a bit upset that NH's focus was so heavy on customization and designing yet failed to give players options that were even available to us in New Leaf, such as customizing public building exteriors or upgrading shops. It just felt like a bit of an oversight that was never addressed in subsequent updates.
it's time for work!
Anyways as much as I can yap about things I would have wanted, obviously it was not that important in the end knowing just how many hours I sunk into New Horizons! My enjoyment out of the game was through being able to craft my own silly stories with my friends (previously featured in this blog!) and the villagers I grew to love in the new iteration of the game, which has always been my playstyle anyways. Even to this day, my friends and I still send each other letters through the mail as the least we can do.
I can’t visit or host at the moment unfortunately, due to my game being hit with the dreaded “cannot connect to other consoles” affliction (weird, because all other P2P games work). I’ll get it working again eventually.
celebrating scoot's birthday on the lazy river
I’m also glad that I was mostly immune to the burnout other players may have faced due to the over saturation of ACNH content, inspiration photos, and dream addresses. I welcomed inspiration and spent hours visiting dream addresses that inspired me. I’m happy with what I’ve created because it represents exactly how I like to play and what I like to return to, even if it's just logging on to create tiny scenes in Photopia for a villager's birthday (reminiscent of my amiibo camera days! I was obsesseddd with amiibo camera)
my besties come for summer holiday
New Horizons also has a special place in my heart because I was able to experience hosting my actual real life best friends in the game, when previously Animal Crossing had been a solitary hobby that I shared with online friends. This game coming up during COVID was extremely timely for ACNH. It launched during a time when I made a big change in my life to move to back to my home country, leaving all my friends and my business of 5 years behind. Then COVID struck, and it would eventually be years until I could be reunited with them. To even think I could gather 4 of my actual friends in the AC world because the series became popular enough? I would have never imagined that. Through our islands, we were able to all reunite and go on many random excursions like we would in real life, which filled the void until I could see them again.
I also met my amazing boyfriend towards the end of lockdowns in my country. While my animal crossing games previously were only occupied by me and my made-up side characters, my New Horizons island saw the move in of my boyfriend’s avatar. We decorated an apartment and a restaurant together, our musings of the future translated into tiny pixels on my game screen. Now I am in my 30s and I am happy to share my long time interest with my loved ones, especially because I truly believe Animal Crossing was a big part of my life and probably will continue to be. When you literally grow up with a series through different periods of your life, little things like that really make you feel emotional.
Even my beloved beagle, Louie, who had passed away a year ago, has a place on Tansan. I moved Maddie onto my island a few years back because I knew I wanted a memory of my best girl to live on my island with me even when she's gone. There's something so heart warming about seeing Maddie zooming around in the background as I go about my day. Tabby, who was one of my original villagers to move in, also reminds me of my kitty, Ameow. The two of them were the best buddies.
We miss you, Louie!
the cutest celebration cut scenes. i loved playing through HHP so much
the first halloween
While making this post and going through a treasure trove of photos, it really sparked its own nostalgia of the “early days” of NH spent with my friends and my villagers. For some friends, it was a continuation of what we always did in past games. For others, it was a whole new world we could experience together. It’s been long enough now that when I reminisce about the Animal Crossing series as a whole, I think back to my time on New Horizons the most fondly. New Horizons is the series I got to enjoy with so many important people in my life, that nostalgia from other games no longer compares.
i was quite diligent with the bulletin board drawings
I might write more about those early days when (IF) I finally get around to documenting the completed Tansan, and share a few proper before-and-afters along the way. But for now, I hope you enjoy these throwback photos... and if I were to remember Tansan as anything, not even the polished version I see today, I’d like to remember it exactly as it was through the years, in all its versions and all its little quirks!
Aaand here are a few more for good measure! Again, not in any particular order, but mostly from 2020-2021 when I was the most active. What a time to be alive.
I had planned a gnome wedding to coincide with the inauguration of town hall.
Back when I decided to take up a gazillion pattern spaces for this floor artwork intended to be seen by visitors as they arrived by seaplane...
I was superrr excited for the farming update! I cleared out a whole area the night before to get ready.
Ken, guarding the gates to his village, I guess.
The neighborhood playground and the neighborhood rascals. The gates with the death spikes existed in the same universe as this playground, by the way.
Having drinks after the tabby fan convention.
When my room mate from college came to visit! We got our cards read.
The gnomes had brief control over the island at some point and built a quarry.
My villagers that stuck with me until 2020~2023 when I began to make big changes and said goodbye to Freya and Erik.
My absolute favorite time of the year! Summer fireworks!
When the gnome's quarry eventually expanded into a railroad build...
...And I built them a sercret hide out.
I had turned 30 at some point. 👶
There was always room at the table at my house.
There are many more photos I could share from my early island days, that it's almost a shame that I never followed through with my idea of posting daily blogs. But I’ll close this post here for now. Thank you for taking this little trip back in time with me... however you found your way here!
