Day 15: Keaton, Extreme Lag

At the museum today, Blathers informed me that the stegosaurus is now complete. I believe this is the first dinosaur I’ve completed so far.

The complete stegosaurus in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons museum.

Today’s bottle message contained a recipe for a mountain standee. But since these bottle messages seem to be showing up every day, I may stop mentioning them in the blog, unless they contain something particularly interesting. And someday, we’re going to have all the recipes and we’re just going to hate bottle messages. 😛

Keaton the eagle has officially moved in, so I welcomed him to the island.

Keaton: Oh, Jeff! Glad to see you. The Keaton Express has arrived on Forest!

While up on the mountain (and yes, I know it’s a cliff, but I enjoy calling it a mountain :P), I found a lost item! I didn’t realize these had carried over from New Leaf; or at least, it’s a feature I hadn’t even thought about.

I picked up a lost item!

I asked Shari about it, and she said it wasn’t hers. But she suggested that I ask Louie about it. So I did, and sure enough, it was his. I don’t know if that was just a coincidence or if Shari knew. But regardless, Louie gave me a clothesline pole for returning the item.

When I shot down a blue balloon present, I found a recipe for a cherry-blossom pond stone. It was my first cherry blossom recipe; I built one and put it outside of my house.

Louie was drinking on the bench outside of town hall. So I sat next to him and took a picture. 😛

Louie takes a drink while sitting on a bench in ACNH.
He was drinking one of Cranky Kong’s potions.

As for my town progress, Tom Nook informed me that Isabelle will now start keeping track of the island’s reputation. Forest only has one star (out of five) so far, and Isabelle said we need more residents. So Tom Nook sold (yes, sold) me a housing kit so that another villager could move in. I placed it on ground level, but north near the cliffs.

I redeemed some Nook Miles for a fountain, but it was just a recipe. And for some odd reason, I need a drinking fountain (along with 20 stones and 8 iron nuggets) in order to craft it. I’ll have to work on that another day.

Around 10 p.m., I opened my gate for Friday Night Forest. Ben, Patrick, Benji, Ros, T Zelda, Jesse, and Marlie came over for a visit. After an impromptu ocarina concert, we fell into holes from a new bench configuration. When I did this with eight spaces in a row, people on the far ends couldn’t see the other end. So this way, everyone should be able to see everyone else, and hopefully, get a good picture.

Eight players fall in holes.

I set up four stools in my house, because I want to test out merging. Everyone basically tries to fall in the center, and then goes back to their stools. The object is to get two or more people merged in the center. This worked in City Folk, but unfortunately, I was unable to reproduce it in New Horizons.

Four stools in Jeff's house.

Back outside, someone started shaking a tree and a branch fell. Then another, and another, and another. Tons of branches kept falling, and I didn’t realize you could get that many from one tree! That will be helpful when I need to craft more pitfall seeds!

Lots of branches fall from one tree.

Speaking of pitfall seeds, they came in handy when I decided to have a sumo tournament. Some of the players were placing bets on who they thought would win. 😛 In the first round, TZ beat Patrick, Jesse beat Ben, Ros beat Marlie, and Benji beat me. 😛

Before starting the 2nd round, TZ and I did a non-tournament match between City Folk veterans. 😛 To my surprise, I actually won my first sumo match in New Horizons. TZ left after that.

In the semifinals, Benji beat Jesse. Jorge arrived, so he took TZ’s place in the othersemifinal, beating Ros. In the finals, Frogboy (Jorge) slaughtered the Butcher (Benji). 😛 Congrats, Jorge! And good game, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the sumo tournament! 🙂

Jorge defeats Benji in the pitfall sumo finals.

After the game, I started to dig up the leftover pitfalls, and Jorge tried to pick up his prize winnings (mostly money bags). However, we began experiencing some major lag. I was spinning my shovel, Jorge was semi-hunched over and unable to pick up his bags, and others were frozen or repeatedly squatting.

But the lag got worse…much worse. When I went into Keaton’s house, the view stayed on the outside of the house. For literally a full minute, I could see Ros trying to enter Keaton’s house. Then, the screen went black…and stayed that way for over six minutes! Then, the loading icon showed up for another minute. And then I was finally in Keaton’s house…over 8 minutes after I entered his door!

Jesse left quietly and returned, which kind of reset us all back to the airport. However, the lag was still a problem. Look how far Shari was from me when she acknowledged that I spoke to her. 😀

Shari: How many times am I gonna bump into you today? Hang on.
Well, at least Shari is social distancing. 😛

We tried vaulting across the river repeatedly, and we often ran into invisible objects. Perhaps the game still thought someone was there, who had already crossed? I don’t know, but it was rather weird.

Ben left, and soon, we all got disconnected. I reopened, and I was joined by Benji, Ros, Jesse, Marlie, Patrick, Maria, and Red. I didn’t notice any lag this time. At Ros’ suggestion, we took a photo on the beach. It looked really nice with the cherry blossom trees in the background.

The Friday Night Forest crew.

Ros left, and Valentine joined in. Since we were able to move freely between rooms now, we played a few rounds of museum tag. But around 12:30 a.m., I ended the session. Thanks to all who came tonight, it was fun! 🙂

Earlier in the day, I posted a video about pitfall sumo. It shows what you need, how to set it up, how to play, and it shows a few battles that I recorded yesterday. Check it out if you’re looking for a good online game to play in New Horizons.

Have a great weekend, everyone! See you next time! 🙂

Day 14: First Camper

The campsite had its first camper today, Keaton the eagle.

Keaton: The name's Keaton. Glad to see I'm the first one using this campsite.
“I’m Batman.”

He’s not a villager that I’m very familiar with. I don’t really have a strong opinion about him either way. He asked if he should move into town, and the options were both yes, so I didn’t really have a choice. But that’s okay. 😛

Today’s message bottle contained a DIY recipe for a woodland wall. But I also found an egg message bottle! It contained a recipe for a Bunny Day vanity.

Jeff finds an egg message bottle on the beach in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Someone other than Shari finally taught me a new reaction: Agent S taught me aggravation today!

I learned the aggravation reaction! Arrrrggh!
Despite how my face looked, I was happy to learn the new emotion. 🙂

I invited Timo and Jorge over for some pitfall sumo this afternoon. This was my first time trying it out in New Horizons!

Jorge prepares for some sumo action in ACNH.

Jorge just got the samurai wig in a balloon this morning, so he wore it as part of his costume. For those who remember my ACCF videos, we often dressed up as characters and came up with nicknames for sumo battles. Jorge fought as “Pitfall-san.”

We played several one-on-one battles, and a couple of three-person battles as well. Jorge and Timo both played well and had some wins, and…well, I didn’t. 😛

Timo wins! Jeff and Jorge (Pitfall-san) struggle to get out of pitfalls after a game of pitfall sumo.

We hung out for a while, both outdoors and in my house. At one point, Timo and I were playing our ocarinas.

Jeff and Timo toot on ocarinas as Jorge looks on.
I also said hello to Jorge’s shirt.

After Jorge disconnected, I decided to end the session for the day.

Saharah was in town, so I bought a few things from her. I also accumulated enough “exchange tickets” to get a bonus. I didn’t end up keeping the rugs I bought, but I did decide to keep the dungeon wall and pyramid tile. I’ll show them at the end of this entry.

Tom Nook told me I could pick out a spot for Keaton’s new home. Since Keaton is an eagle, I thought he might enjoy living up on the mountain. I guess it’ll be interesting to see if/how he gets around, considering I don’t have any ramps yet. 😛

This spot reserved for Keaton's new home. -Nook Inc.

Over by town hall tonight, I spotted Celeste! This was her first appearance in Forest!

Celeste: It's lovely to meet you--I'm Celeste! Perhaps you've met my brother, Blathers? He's a museum curator.

She gave me a recipe for a star wand, but I did not make it yet.

Before wrapping up my night, I made sure to pay off my bridge.

Even though I didn’t see Zipper in town today, I still collected eggs and acquired several more Bunny Day recipes. There have been too many for me to name individually, so I’ll just share a picture of what I’ve crafted so far. You can also see the wallpaper and flooring I got from Saharah (even though it clearly doesn’t fit the Bunny Day theme, lol).

Jeff's back room.

See you (late) tomorrow night, after Friday Night Forest! 🙂

Day 13: Zipper

The Happy Home Academy sent me a rice cooker in the mail to celebrate the new addition to my house. I also got a letter from Gulliver, who sent me a lucky cat. In addition, Marlie sent me 10 pitfall seeds. Thank you, Marlie! 😀

At town hall, Tom Nook informed me that my new loan is 348,000 bells. I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to pay that one off. The campsite opened today, so I made sure to attend the completion ceremony. Wish me luck on my first camper! 😛

Party poppers fire off at the completion ceremony for the campsite.

April is here now, and so is cherry blossom season! While the number of cherry blossom petals is greatly reduced from previous games, you can now catch them with your net! I’ve heard you can craft things with them, but I haven’t received any recipes for them so far.

This cherry-blossom petal is so lovely! Pink is really its color!

Today is also the start of the lead-up to Bunny Day (Easter). Zipper T. Bunny was in town, but not where I expected. Instead of at the plaza, he was hiding up on the mountain! Well, the highest cliff.

Zipper: It's almost Bunny Day! Hop-hop-hooray! That's my favorite time to come out and play!
So come out of your costume and play!

Zipper told me there are six types of eggs around the island, and he gave me a recipe for a Bunny Day bed I can craft with the eggs I find. There are other DIY recipes hidden around the island.

That's an egg, not a fish! What should I do with it...

He also told me to bring the eggs back to him. However, nothing happened when I did. I tried eating one to see if there was a ticket inside (like in previous games), but it was empty. The only thing it did was increase my power…and I later accidentally destroyed today’s money rock because of it. 😀

He said if I find and craft all of the DIY recipes, I’ll get a super present from him. So I guess I have to craft them all, but that line about bringing the eggs back to him seems like a mistake at this point. Unless he needs them later on? This is just the first day (of twelve), so maybe more will be revealed later on.

The six types of eggs are water eggs (found by fishing), leaf eggs (shaken down from trees), stone eggs from banging rocks, earth eggs (buried underground), sky eggs (from balloon presents), and wood eggs (from chopping trees).

The fact that there are no deep sea eggs (as in New Leaf) seems to confirm that New Horizons doesn’t have any swimming or diving. 🙁 That’s rather disappointing, especially since the game takes place on an island.

I decided to add a bridge to town, but I was unable to put one in this spot.

I was unable to put a bridge here in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Perhaps I’ll have to wait until I can make changes to the land. I’ll just need to add one square of land for the bridge to fit there. 🙄 So for now, I put it further upstream. I just didn’t pay it off yet.

I got recipes for a Bunny Day stool and Bunny Day fence from balloon presents, and I later crafted them (and the bed recipe from Zipper). The fence is meant to be outdoors, so that’s why it’s just a generic fence icon when dropped indoors.

My first three crafted Bunny Day items.

Wisp was in town tonight, and I recovered his five spirits for him. In return, he gave me a white-brick wall.

Midge was enjoying a drink under a tree, but she had an itching problem. I solved the problem by catching my first flea.

Midge: Thanks for grabbit it! Feels like a weight's been lifted, tweedledee.
Midge had an itch.

I ran into Agent S with a curious wardrobe choice. She was wearing sunglasses over the visor on her helmet!

Agent S wears sunglasses over her helmet and visor in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH).

I finished off my night by crafting a barrel for Donkey Kong. I mean, Louie. In return, he gave me a parka dress? Maybe he doesn’t appreciate the D.K. references. So I left his house before he got out his coconut gun. (If he shoots ya, it’s gonna hurt!) 😛

Have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow! 🙂

Update: Here is my latest New Horizons video.