Your Guide to Animal Crossing: New Leaf

• The first ever Animal Crossing game was called Animal Forest. It was a Japan only released on Nintendo 64 on April 14th, 2001. This game was remade into Animal Crossing and released worldwide on Gamecube from 2002 onward.
• There exists an Animal Crossing film. It's called Doubutsu No Mori, or Animal Crossing: The Movie. I'm not saying it's adorable... but it's adorable. It was released on DVD and, surprisingly, on a DS video card. But, only in Japan.
• Gyroids have appeared in every Animal Crossing game, but not always as a mechanism for saving, which was their initial use in Animal Crossing.
• In New Leaf, on top of using the Surveillance Center as a parody of real world events, Nintendo also used it as a way to completely eradicate Resetti from the game because he made younger players cry. In Europe's City Folk game, there is actually a section in their manual that tells parents they ought to tell their child to save if they don't want their kid being yelled at by Resetti.
• There are three characters who dislike their jobs: Phyllis, who only works the night shift to protect Pelly; Lyle, who apparently prefers being sleazy to having a real job; and Zipper T. Bunny, who is someone dressed up as a bunny and hating every moment of it. Of these characters, only Phyllis and Zipper T. mutter under their breath. Lyle has a unique speaking style with lots of sentence fragments and lots of the word "Bang".

Actually, that's the funny thing-- in the game, you actually really don't want to run the town. You're just going to live there, but after you step off the train, Isabelle (your secretary, a yellow dog) actually knows your name and refers to you as Mayor. You can do nothing to stop it (otherwise would there be a game? Nope!) and so of course, you become mayor. But then the next day you get a creepy letter in the mail about how this person legitimately burdened you with responsibility and is now off to do bigger and better things. Long time players might blame Tortimer, the old tortoise mayor, except he shows up near your house later on in the game and talks about how he's retired. So whomever this unknown sender is... you're creepy, man.

Like in all Animal Crossing games, it begins with you traveling to your new town... somehow. In this game, you're on a train with Rover, a blue cat with red eyes known for his roaming. He asks about gender and helps determine the player's face with a series of questions-- which are almost always about where you're headed. Rover also determines what time it is (he uses the system clock on the DS, so technically you can change the date if you want) before he leaves and is never seen or heard from again.

After that, the similarities between the old and the new start to part ways. Of course you'll see old favorites-- The museum is still run by the nocturnal Blathers, Crazy Redd is still CRAAAAAAAZY-- but there's a lot of new, too. For example, there are new personality types for the villagers, new items in the stores, old characters have new jobs, and probably most fun, you can personally design your town. You! All by yourself (somewhat).

You can have a total of 10 villagers (plus 1 if you have the campsite, but that villager never leaves their tent) living in your town at once, though you can't choose where they live. You can, however, nudge them into living in specific areas by putting town works projects in your town. Since villagers can't live in a certain radius of those projects, you can use them to prevent villagers from living in specific places. The objects you place in town can even be used (some of them, anyway).

Your town does start out with four important areas. The first is the plaza, which is where all town events, like the Bug Catching Contest, occur. Special visitors who have a store, like Crazy Redd and Katrina, will set up shop in the plaza as well. The second is the Town Hall, where you do your mayoral duties with the help of Isabelle. Here you can start projects, put town ordinances into effect, and even get your villagers to change their clothes or greetings and catchphrases. The third is the train station, with a gate you can use to let people, local or faraway, visit your town. And the last is Re-Tail, the furniture refurbishing and recycling center of your town, run by love llamas Reese and Cyrus.

That being said, you also have a Main Street. Initially, there's the Nooklings Junction, which is Tom Nook's old store now run by his nephews Timmy and Tommy, which is next to some open space. In the same area, you'll also see the Able Sisters, the fashion headquarters of your town and home to Mabel, Sable, and Labelle, hedgehog sisters. Mable and Sable can be found behind the door with the shirt and Labelle behind the door with the bow. Opposite them, on the other side of Main Street, you'll find the Post Office, where Pelly and Phyllis can be found, Nook's Homes, where Nook is currently residing and taking all of your money, a photo booth for your ID card (important for leaving town!) and the museum, where Blathers is normally sleeping. There's also a large abandoned building there. It's actually really fun to watch Main Street grow, but know that you'll be sinking thousands of Bells into this growth.

Even Tortimer makes an appearance with his new Tortimer Island, where Kapp'n and his family live. You can visit for the Cabana and Mermaid series items, some pirate themed items, and all the tropical bugs and fish that can fit in 40 spaces of inventory (hint: the answer is 40.) Play games with your friends to get medals and get a wicked tan-- the island is a great multiplayer destination.

So how do you entice your friends to leave their little towns and visit your sprawling metropolis? Well, you might want to earn a lot of Bells and upgrade Main Street! I'll cover that, and as a bonus, I'll teach you the essentials of tanning and time travel and teach you enough about fashion to keep the fashionista Gracie impressed!

Want to know when you'll get those sweet, sweet upgrades? Here you go:

Nookling Item Shop Upgrades

• Convenience Store: Pay Tom Nook 10,000 Bells and get a house instead of a tent. Then, buy at least 12,000 bells worth of items or 15 items. 10 days must've passed since you created your town.
• Supermarket: Spend 25,000 bells in store (the 12,000 from before doesn't roll over). The garden center must have been open for 10 days. The convenience store must've been open for 10 days.
• T.I.Y: Spend 50,000 bells in store. The supermarket must've been open for 21 days.
• Department Store: Pass Gracie's fashion check at least four times. Spend 100,000 bells in store. T.I.Y. must have been open for 30 days.

Garden Center

Pull weeds, water flowers, plant trees, or plant flowers at least 30 times. Isabelle must have gotten the 100% approval rating.

Happy Home Academy

Pay off your first loan and Lyle will open up shop in Nook's Homes.

Museum Shop

Donate 20 items to the museum, one from each category. Talk to Blathers every day until he's thinking when you walk in. He'll give you the museum shop upgrade, but remember you need to talk to Isabelle to start this upgrade.

Club LOL

One random day, Dr Shrunk will visit your town, asking about making a club. You need to have the convenience store and the 100% approval rating from Isabelle. Shrunk wants six signatures to assure no one will complain about the noise... and you'll have the Club.

Kicks

Spend 8000 bells at the Able Sisters. The town must have been created for at least 10 days.

Shampoodle's

Spend 10,000 bells in either Kicks or the Able Sisters. Kicks must have been open for at least 10 days.

QR Code Machine

Talk to Sable for seven days in a row. Every player character must do this separately. (In other words, if you have a mayor character and a citizen character, even if the Mayor's unlocked the machine, the citizen can't use it until they unlock it themselves.

Dream Suite

If you've been mayor for seven days, visit the town hall often. One day, you'll find Isabelle asleep, unlocking the Dream Suite project.

Fortune Teller's House

Katrina visits your town randomly from time to time. If you (and your other player characters and friends) get a total of 20 fortunes told, she'll approach you about making a store in town.

Are you not original enough? Is your character too pasty? Have you being lying in the sun, dreaming of the day when you're that warm, toasty color and nothing seems to work? You might be a vampire. Or, you might not know how to tan. No worries! I've got you covered! But first, what you can't do.

1. You can't tan if it isn't summer. The summer months, during the day time, is the only time when you can tan. However. It is eternally summer on Tortimer Island. You can visit there to get a tan in the winter.
2. You can't tan if it's raining or cloudy. Direct sunlight is the only way to tan. When I say cloudy, I mean if the sky is overcast or if you can't see any blue when you look up. Tanning is then impossible.
3. You can't tan with a wide-brimmed hat or a helmet. I know, maybe you're just going for that legs only tan. But you can't do that, you only tan if your face is completely visible. Also, for the record, you can't tan if you're holding an umbrella.
4. You can't tan via time travel. Tanning in New Leaf takes time. Do not time travel if you're trying to tan. It can reverse your tanning.
5. You can tan (but not quickly) if you're wearing long sleeves. Show some skin or prepare to wait for a long time.
6. You can't tan in buildings. Which is obvious, but sometimes you've gotta state the obvious. If you spend a long time indoors, you tend to lose the tan.
7. You can't tan if you don't play. Tanning takes about a week to do. If you stop playing you lose your tan a bit every day.
8. You can't tan if your 3DS isn't open. I know, I know. That's terrible. But if the system is closed, it doesn't matter if you've been in the sun. You don't tan.

That being said, how can you tan? Well...

1. Go outside for an hour every day in direct sunlight. 3PM works best.
2. To tan in your town, do it between July 16th and September 15th. After that, you have to visit Tortimer Island (try visiting in the morning, though).
3. Be patient. There are seven levels and the first three or four are nearly indistinguishable.
4. Keep busy. The easiest way to tan is to do it without realizing it. If you buy a timer, see if you can spend an hour fishing for new fish or finding new bugs. Invite your friends over and stand around chatting about nonsense. Open your DS when you're doing something non-Animal Crossing related. The hour doesn't have to be an hour straight, but it's a lot easier to make sure you've gotten the hour in that way.

What if you want to maintain a tan? That's pretty easy too!

1. Spend 15 minutes outside everyday in direct sunlight.
2. Use an umbrella sparingly. For example, if you spend 15 minutes outside and then use an umbrella for the rest of the day, you'll be okay, but that can still cause you to lose a level in tan. If you're going to use an umbrella, try not to have it constantly equipped.

But what if you're tired of the exotic island native look you've been sporting and you're trying to get a more...pale look? How do you remove a tan?

1. Use. Umbrellas. Like all the time. You can also wear a wide-brimmed hat or a helmet.
2. Time travel. But I don't recommend it if you don't have Shampoodle's, because you might get bedhead.
3. Spend an hour indoors. Although, if you also spend an hour outdoors, prepare to still have this tan.
4. Be patient. Like gaining a tan, removing a tan takes time.

Man, all of this sounds exhaustingly long. How do I get a tan I can have on and remove in seconds? That's impossible... unless you have a Mii Mask.

A Mii Mask makes your player into a Mii saved on your 3DS system, costs 3000 bells and requires that you have Shampoodle's, meaning that it's not going to happen for a little while in game. But when you get it, it's an instant tan!

Thinking about having an all golden house to show your villagers just how rich they aren't? Well, lofty dreams require heavy bells, so let's make sure you're on the right track to making all that sweet, sweet Tom Nook money.

1. Get the Bell Boom Ordinance. I know this sounds counter productive, because the Bell Boom raises your in-town prices by 20%. But I promise you, this is worth it. You sell items for 20% more and Tom Nook's prices (and the town project prices) don't change. You will influence growth in your town faster, meaning you'll have a shorter period of time in which you'll be spending money in stores to upgrade them all the way.
2. Shake those trees. Your town has a fruit that goes for next to nothing (100 bells) at your Re-Tail. But you do have perfect fruit. Perfect fruit sells for 600 Bells in your town, but a whopping 3000 in a friend's town (who does not have the same fruit as you). You can only get them if you shake trees a lot... so get to shaking.
3. Visit other people's towns. Sell your fruit in other towns. You're bound to get more money.
4. Catch beetles like it's your job. Every night, go to Tortimer Island and fill your box with beetles. It's the quickest route to paying off your loan in about two days. Tortimer Island always costs 1000 bells to visit, and you catch beetles from 6PM to 6AM. The tropical tree beetles (banana tree, coconut tree) sell for the most, but know that the Giant Stag and the Rainbow Stag, found on regular trees, are also very expensive.
5. Fish for sharks. If you see a fin in the water, catch that guy. Sharks are rare and pretty expensive!
6. Find the money rock. Every day, one rock has money in it, although why is uncertain. Just... do your best to find it and hit it. To make sure you get all the money you can, dig a hole behind you and one to each side of you before you start hitting the rock to prevent yourself from bouncing too far away from the rock. It works like the bricks from Super Mario-- the fast you hit it in succession, the more bells you make.
7. Destroy the fake rock. Every day, a fake rock shows up in your town. These rocks contain ore, which you can sell or use for custom furniture.
8. Shake trees. You'll find bells and items in trees. Also bees. You should catch those and sell them. If you're not in the mood for bee catching, open your gate. You can't have bees in town if the gate's open! Every day there are five trees with bells and two with items. These are free items and most of them are actually expensive items. Ah, but if you see the item leaf on the ground, that's a walking leaf, not an item. You can catch it with your net, but they don't go for much money.
9. Listen to Katrina. Katrina tells you all about a good luck item. If you wear it, trees start dropping more money, the money rock starts dropping crazy amounts of money, and your villagers suddenly feel wicked generous! Katrina's good luck wears off at 11PM.
10. Build a police station and sell, sell, sell. The police station contains the lost and found. Sell the items you get there (usually pitfall seeds and letters).
11. Send gifts with your letters. You should write a (actually, 4, because letter paper comes in packs of 4) letter every day. The length doesn't matter, but try to keep your letters spellchecked, not all caps, and without any bad words in them. Your villagers will respond by writing back. If you send a gift (the town fruit works best) your villagers will often send a way more expensive gift in return. You can sell those!
12. Feng Shui your life. Make sure your house is arranged so that you get maximum luck. The money side of your house is the left. Yellow items go there. The item side is the right. Red items go there. The luck side is the front. Green items go there.
13. Plant fruit trees from other towns in your town. Need quick Bells? Selling other fruits in your town nets you more cash.
14. Saving money at the ATM. Monthly, the Post Office will pay you interest. Have plenty of bells stored up, and you can get higher interest rates.
15. Get the downloadable item. A free item that gives you extra feng shui points? Yes. But also, you can buy this item in the catalog if you decide you don't need it at the moment, but can see yourself using it in the future. So you can sell it now and buy it back when you're rich!
16. Flea Market like crazy. Reese will always give you a starter price when you enter an item into the flea market. Double her price. Going to high makes your villagers upset, but too low makes you no money.
17. Buy fortune cookies (to furnish your home). The fortune cookies sold in the Nookling's store all give you Nintendo themed items. You can dress up as Samus, Link, or Mario, fill your home with bricks, ?-Blocks, and coins, own the Master Sword, and a variety of other amazing little objects. But these items also tend to give you tons of feng shui points. Items like the Triforce, Samus' entire costume (placed on the Mannequin item), the ?-Block, the Fire Flower, and the Coin all give you massive feng shui points.
18. Talk to your villagers. Your villagers give you free items, great advice, and amazing discounts. Talk to as many as you can every day you're in game.
19. Try for a perfect town. Getting a perfect town is difficult, but it's worth it because your villagers are happy. If they're happy, you'll get better items and discounts from them. This means that you should have lots of flowers in your town and a nice museum to boot.
20. Dig. Fossils, Gyroids, and pitfall seeds are all your friends. Remember to have Blathers assess your fossils, too.
21. Check your billboard. By the trainstation, there's a board where you'll hear about events and birthdays (and sales at the Nookling's store). New messages are denoted by birds in the morning and owls at night. Make sure you check so that you don't miss out on face time with your villagers or sales in stores.

It's also helpful, but not always to...

1. Play the Stalk Market. That's all luck based. It's hard to say whether it's worth it unless you're having good luck. I recommend staying away until Katrina comes around.
2. Shoot down balloon presents. They only contain balloon furniture (unless there are two silver balloons or three gold balloons), which you can sell in Re-Tail. But again, I'm not sure if that's worth it. I'd keep a slingshot on me at all times anyway. The silver balloons have the silver slingshot, which I would sell if you have the gold slingshot, which comes in the golden balloon present. You can get multiples of each of the slingshots, but they're rare. It's not worth it as concrete way of making money, even with a luck bonus.
3. Check the high-price item at Re-Tail. This is based on your street passes. Common items will be more prevalent if you have lots of street passes, and rare items will be prevalent otherwise although Reese will sometimes have a common item when you don't have any street passes and so on. If you have the Bell Boom ordinance, this is helpful because you have two high-price items instead of one... but even still, unless she's got beetles on there, it's kind of not worth it.
4. Buying fortune cookies (to sell the items). The fortune cookies cost play coins, which are gained by walking around with your DS. Buying them isn't really that big of a deal, every ten or so steps you gain one play coin. But the items you get from the fortune cookies don't sell for much... and they're all pretty rare, so they'll net you huge feng shui point increases to your home. If I were you, I'd save them to share with friends or use a bunch to up the feng shui in your rooms.
5. Make a money tree. You need a golden shovel and by that point you're probably already rich. You can't get the golden shovel without Resetti either, so if you don't want the reset center, this is a useless endeavor. Also you have to actually care for this tree, as in if you step on it, it'll probably die. Other trees can survive after being stepped on... so this would be a waste of a lot of money if you don't take good care of it.
6. Have tree stumps in town. Tree stumps have the offchance of growing mushrooms around them. However, you need the rare and very rare patterns to make a lot of bells in one fell swoop. It's worth it for the museum bugs-- there are two bugs that can only be found on stumps-- but otherwise it's just a luck of the draw kind of thing.
7. Fish. To be honest, bug catching is better for money. Fishing is chance based and you're very likely to keep getting crappy fish. Save that until you're already so rich it doesn't matter if you sell Reese terrible fish.
8. Sell furniture to Reese. Always flea market it unless it can't be sold in the flea market. Items that can't be sold in the flea market are grayed out in your inventory if you talk to Reese about the flea market.
9. Sell your fruit in your town. Unless you're trying to make the 1000 bells to get to the island, the fruit in your town is better used as gifts to your neighbors. You only get 100 bells for each of your native fruit, it's better to go elsewhere or trade up for the fruit.
10. Don't use the ATM. It can help to know how much money you have at all times, but you can only carry 99,000 before you have to put money into bags. That means you won't have any room in your inventory. You can save it in your storage, but you won't get the interest from the bank AND you won't have room in your storage. It seems like something people wouldn't do, but if you get money, use the ATM. It's only going to help you. I'd suggest not using the ATM only if you're trying to quickly power through upgrades via time travel, as going to the ATM takes up one more loading screen than necessary.
11. Ignore the medals on Toritmer Island. Beetle hunting is important. But remember to play the games on the island too, every now and then. The medals are an easy way to get rare furniture that sell for a lot. What items you see in the store there are randomly picked, but they usually are items your villagers will pay you to get. However, for the most part, you can ignore them. With the Bell Boom ordinance you earn more medals with each game you play so if there's an item you really want, just play a lot until you get the medals required for it (and leave a space open in your inventory to go home with it). It's just a luxury and not important for gaining bells.
12. Blow off your villagers. There are times when your villagers will ask for items in your inventory. It's perfectly fine (and reasonable, financially) to tell them no, especially when they try to con you out of items for less than 20% of it's actual worth. You should say no as often as you can, but try not to do it constantly. Keeping them friends with you benefits you.
13. Work on public works projects right away. Always have a grace period to earn up a little money between projects. That way, if a villager thinks up a new project they want (like perhaps they want to have a new type of bridge put in) you have time to view these things before you engage building again. It helps keep your town in order.
14. Fill up your catalog. It's kind of hard to do this if you're saving bells, but filling your catalog makes it possible for you to be able to quickly fulfill villager requests (or Gracie requests) as well as get Katrina's good luck item. If you're not that well off yet, don't bother with this. If you're pretty set, this is a good option for you.

I know what you're thinking. You want to skip ahead a few days, see what's going down in the Nookling's store, check out that festival you've been hearing about, have your birthday a little early... I get it. But are you ready for it? Before you time travel...

1. Have Shampoodle's and 3000 bells, because if you get bedhead, no one will let you hear the end of it.
2. Don't have ongoing requests. If you buried a time capsule that day, forget about time traveling backwards (or forwards, but sometimes it works out okay if you do that.)
3. Don't be in the middle of trying to tan. It won't work unless you skip forwards one day at a time.
4. Don't expect to have a nice, clean house. The further forward you go, the more likely it is that you'll have cockroaches. You should put on the Beautiful Town Ordinance... but that costs 20,000 bells.
5. Have T.I.Y. Lief will weed your town for you if you ask him to. Only for if you're skipping one or two days ahead though.
6. Be prepared to have a drop in villagers. Skipping over huge periods of time means your villagers might leave. if you save your game, even when you go back in time, those villagers will be gone.
7. Be prepared to have weeding until the end of time. Unless you have the Beautiful Town Ordinance, you will never, ever see the end of weeding if you make a drastic skip.
8. You can downgrade things permanently... making it so that you have to re-earn the money to upgrade it. This is from traveling backwards in time.
9. You will skip spotlight items. If you have a big enough item store, (T.I.Y. and up) you'll sometimes get spotlight items, which are hard to find items that are relatively rare even though they can be considered "common". You could time travel forward one day at a time to make sure you get the spotlight item... but that's a bit tedious. Sometimes it isn't worth it, too.

By far the hardest to please is the city slicker herself, Gracie. This Fashionista will visit your town and critique your clothes. Prepare yourself by listening carefully to the Able Sisters and Kicks, all of whom will tell you about the theme of the clothes and accessories in their stores.

Gracie has ten themes: Sporty, Flashy, Iconic, Rock, Cute, Basic, Modern, Ornate, Official, and Historical. From what I can tell, she always starts you off with Modern, because Modern can mix and match with any of the themes (but then, neither does Iconic, cute, historical or ornate). Here's how you fail, though.

During the course of your time in town, you'll amass a good number of clothes. However, don't approach Gracie while wearing:

• Official and Sporty items. These two themes are self-explanatory. Any sporty item will look like it came from a sport, like the boxing headgear. Official items are prim, well put together items. Sailor items, school items, and so forth count as official items. They'd clash in real life too... so try not to wear them together.
• Official and Rock items. Rock items have a dark theme to them, and can be confused for flashy items. In general, if it looks even slightly like a gothic type of clothing, don't wear it with official clothes. Because an item is black does not make it a Rock item.
• Official and Flashy items. Flashy items are plain insane. Official items are conservative. They don't work together.
• Rock and Basic items. The basic items are normally single colored every day items. Rock items have a lot of pizzazz to them. If you have to put together a Rock outfit, ditch the conservative and monochrome and throw a lot of crazy items together.
• Flashy and Basic items. It sounds like you would balance out the insanity with stability, but when Gracie wants insane, she wants insane. Give it everything you've got and ditch the stable, everyday items.

Socks are unnecessary items that Gracie will factor in if you're wearing them. So remember to take off your socks!

Umbrellas are not accessories and don't count at all, ever.

You must have on shoes and an accessory to be rated. Also, clothes. But that goes without saying.

It falls to you, mayor, to make the town perfect. And I know you're thinking about how awesome you are and since you live in the town it must be perfect, but there IS a way to make your town THE PERFECT TOWN, which is as spiffy as it sounds.

Why, exactly would you want a perfect town? Well, there are two reasons off the top of my head...

• The Golden Watering Can: For those people who need all their tools as blinged out as possible and love those hybrid flowers (or want golden roses)
• Jacob's Ladder: A special flower that helps you make hybrid flowers

Now. The problem here is, how do you get your town to be perfect? Well, there's a total of three things you need to do. The first thing you need to do is get rid of trash and weeds.

Trash and Weed Removal

Far be it from me to teach you how to rid yourself of trash. If you find something on the ground, you need to put it in a trashcan or, surprisingly, sell it to Reese. I don't recommend the Reese option because a trashcan is far simpler a solution. There are a total of three trashcans in game that are interactive. Two are furniture items. One is a public works project. I suggest you get one of the furniture items.

Somethings aren't considered trash. For example, fossils and literally anything buried isn't trash. Fallen fruit? Seashells? Not trash. But you might as well pick them up to be sure you've got everything.

Have you ever shot one of the presents down and then not picked up the present itself? That's trash. Do your villagers have lost items on the ground? That's trash. Do you leave furniture, clothing, or even equipment on the ground? ALL TRASH. On top of that, there's actual trash, like cans and tires and don't you dare throw that back into the water, litterer. Make sure to dump all of the real trash out. And for the love of all things holy, don't leave rotten fruit lying around. I mean, that's just disgusting.

As you know, turnips go bad weekly and you might drop one or two to get the elusive fly and ant for your insect dictionary, but remember to pick those bad boys up.

Weeds spawn in your town everyday. Dandelions count as flowers, but I'd still get rid of them because they don't seem to up the flower count. Clovers are weeds, but they don't seem to count negatively. I'd still get rid of them. You'll get three or four weeds per day. If you're not sure if you've picked them all and you have T.I.Y. ask Leif to weed. He'll let you know if you're in the clear.

If you don't clean up the weeds, you get a disgusting flower... the rafflesia. In our world, that plant literally smells like garbage, so you can imagine that it doesn't help you with the perfect town thing. My advice is to spend your time when you start up the game weeding and taking care of flowers, just to be sure.

Got all that trash? Great. The next thing you need to do is make sure you've got the flora to match the fauna.

Foliage

First, if you have enough animals in your town, you'll notice they wander around with their own tools, ruining the beauty of your town by planting flowers and trying to be useful. Fortunately, they're doing you a favor. Unfortunately, they don't do all the work for you.

You need flowers and trees to make your town the best town ever, but if any of you have visited the island, you might also be aware of shrubs, so here's a secret for you- shrubs == trees in the foliage portion of this quest.

Now. To have a perfectly perfect town (that is perfect), you need lots of flowers. If you're wondering "When do I have enough?" you can check with Isabelle, though if you don't have enough trees, she's not going to be of much help. It's actually a lot easier if you buy all the seeds for your flowers from Leif.

Leif will give you a silver watering can after you buy 50 flower seeds from him. This has two advantages for you. Number one, it puts you well into the acceptable number of flowers for your town. Number two, the watering can he gives you waters multiple flowers in one go. Double whammy. You can also go on a tour on the island and take all the flowers from the tour (I suggest the easy bug catching tour) but then you'll still have the regular watering can and you'll be wandering around watering flowers all day. This is a pretty good task for when you're trying to tan, though.

Now, 50 flowers isn't enough, but here's the reason why going with Leif is the best way, in my opinion. This will take a while (25 days total), but the silver watering can helps you make hybrid flowers. You get your standard flower colors, and then you get your not so standard flower colors. The only way to get the not-so-standard ones is to hybridize. And there's a straightforward way to do it, so let me teach you really quick.

• Plant flowers of the same type near each other.
• Always leave space (at least three) by plants planted next to each other.
• Water your flowers everyday. Even if it's raining.
• Use fertilizer (if you have the department store).
• Water your flowers with the silver watering can.

When you have 70 to 75 flowers in your town (along with the right amount of trees and no weeds), Isabelle will no longer tell you you need more greenery.

As far as trees go, you might try to replace all of your regular trees with fruit trees, which is all well and good, but let me give you a few ideas for your town as well.

• Low on space? Plant banana and coconut trees on the beach.
• Want to create a fence? You can chain shrubs and trees (seventeen plants long) before a plant will die.
• Don't start planting perfect fruit trees in the middle of the perfect town quest. They die.
• Probably leave some regular trees around. You need them for the acorn festival. In the spring, they magically become cheery blossom trees (even though they're supposed to be oaks). The Evergreens won't grow near the coast (and mostly do well in the top half of your town, I've noticed) and generally do nothing... but during Christmas they get lights! So it might be worth it to keep some around for just a bit.

The number of trees you need for a perfect town is in the hundreds, which is why if you'd rather not have trees everywhere, you should invest in some shrubs. In my town, I have 115 trees (counting shrubs) and Isabelle stopped bugging me about the greenery. So I guess I'd say at the very least, have 115 trees. They're finicky about where they'll grow, but as long as you don't try to plant them right smack dab next to one another, you should be fine. Oh! And they won't grow on the riverbank.

How is it looking? Do you have all the glorious flora you need for a perfect town? Let's jump right into the public works projects portion!

Public Works Projects

You're the mayor and you have duties. One of which is to make the town a sightseeing destination. And the easiest way to do that is with some public works projects. But I noticed in my quest to make my town perfect that some projects don't seem to help your town. So let's talk about pollution.

In the real world, we have things such as light pollution, garbage, noise pollution, and so on. Consider this true as well for the Animal Crossing universe. As such there are items that you build that work against you.

If you want a perfect town, you need ten public works projects (not counting Main Street Upgrades and Additions or Upgrades to your Town Hall and Train Station). IF YOU'RE ONLY TRYING TO BUILD TEN ITEMS IN YOUR TOWN, then the following is going to help you immensely. If you're going to build more than ten, leverage the damage the following items will do by adding in good items, which I'll explain after the bad items.

Try not to include any illuminated objects, like the Projector or the Traffic Light. As a rule of thumb, if it's something that lights up but is not a streetlight, consider it a contributor to light pollution. Just so you know, the illuminated clock DOES count as an illuminated item that contributes to light pollution.

Thinking about garbage, you don't want a garbage can in your town as a public works project. It seems counter intuitive, but imagine that the garbage can smells gross and you're pretty much set as to why the town docks points for it. For whatever reason, the picnic sheet is the same way.

When thinking about noise pollution, you might notice that some idiot in your town might've wanted an oil rig. It goes without saying that this docks points. Also, there's some tires that apparently you can play on, and those are bad for you too (though they aren't noise pollution related). The pile of pipes aren't good for your town either, don't do that right off the bat.

In the flowers section, I mentioned that 50 flowers isn't enough for a town to get a perfect rating, to which some of you might've said "Pshaw". Well, as it turns out, your public works projects can affect your flora points. And some of the things that affect your flora points positively affects your public works points negatively, but you can even that out with flowers. That being said, the tower reduces flora points, but overall isn't bad for your town. The Stadium Lights are bad for flora points and good for your town as well (go figure). But the garbage can is just bad all around and in general, I'd say don't make it.

For the most positive points as far as public works is concerned, build the campground. After that, solar panels, bridges, benches, and any of the streetlights are really good to build. But remember, you need ten total items.The Windmill is good for flora and the public works points, as is the wind turbine. Both of those are good items to make. Art and monuments are helpful (but expensive) so I'd stick with the cheap alternatives. If you're in a pinch and you want to spice things up, a fire hydrant, the lighthouse, the hot springs, any fountain, and the water well are good additions to your town.

Remember that you need to keep your town spic and span for two weeks (and one day). The easiest way to do this is to turn on the Beautiful Town Ordinance, but that's Bell consuming. Second easiest way is to have the silver watering can. Finally, if you're worried about whether or not your town is perfect, look for the Jacob's ladder. You can see them growing on the cliffs sometimes, but they will also randomly spawn in your town. If you see one, you're golden. Just keep it up.

Jacob's Ladder are special plants that help you hybridize. So if you're really into hybrid plants, use a combination of the silver/gold watering can, Jacob's Ladder, and fertilizer. You'll be making hybrids before you know it!

Sure, you've seen MY town, and it's fantastic and amazing, but let's see yours! Post photos of your town in the comment section! You can also post your Dream Codes, which allow others to play in your town without ruining your town any (I don't have a dream code, even though I have the Dream Suite.)

The Dream Suite is an interesting way for you and random people around the world to share your designs. If you're willing to put all your items on display, I'd recommend it! If you're like me and you prefer using QR codes, check back for a QR code section, if enough people feel like sharing their QR codes here!