The Bardic Unicorn

Soooo….about that update….. That title is NOT clickbait. We weren’t trying to make you think there was ANOTHER update. Sadly, we all know that 2.0 was the last update for ACNH. Nintendo gave us a beautiful update but it was bittersweet because they also dashed our dreams for the future.

We got really hyped and started playing ACNH a bunch again after the update. And then….ran out of new things to do and got pulled into games that were still giving us new content. Until recently, when I picked the game back up and started playing again and Flurpy and I realized that we had a BUNCH of draft posts about the 2.0 update that we never published….

So without further adieu, here’s a post that’s maybe relevant if you’re late the the ACNH game? Hopefully there’s something helpful in here.

After a long dry spell of no new content, Nintendo has finally blessed us with an update for ACNH. Like with the game itself, there’s a lot that’s not really explained fully as you play. So we’ve collected everything you need to know into one place!

If you’re anything like me, this update might have prompted you to log in for the first time in a very long time…

…which means that your house is probably infested with some six-legged nightmares. And they might not be as easy to get rid of as you first believe! (Check out this post to make sure you catch them all!)

Without further ado, let’s talk about all the shiny new additions to our beautiful–and trashy, if you’re Flurpy–islands!

Ordinances

There are several new ordinances that you can now enact on your island to help improve your experience. The main island resident will have to talk to Isabelle to enact an ordinance and it will cost you 20,000 bells. Isabelle isn’t as helpful as she could be, and will only give you vague descriptions of what each ordinance means. Here’s a breakdown on the specifics:

• Beautiful Island – If you want to keep your island clean but you don’t like picking weeds or picking up sticks and seashells, this ordinance is for you! Your island residents will pitch in with island cleanup and will even water your flowers. So does this meant that you’ll never need to pick another weed? Probably not.
• Early Bird – If you’re a weirdo morning person, this is the ordinance for you. The hours of your shop and when your villagers are out and about will adjust to an early morning lifestyle. Able Sister’s will be open 8AM-9PM and Nook’s Cranny will be open 7AM-10PM.
• Night Owl – If you’re like me, this is the good stuff. The exact opposite of the Early Bird ordinance, this will shift island life to a being active a little bit later. Shops will close an hour later and residents will stay active later in the evening. Able Sister’s will now be open 9AM-10PM and Nook’s Cranny will be open 8AM- 11PM.
• Bell Boom – For those of you that are more capitally focused, the Bell Boom ordinance will impact the prices of items bought and sold on your island.

Cooking

The term “Recipes” now makes sense because we can actually cook! Along with your existing DIY Recipes, there will now be cooking recipes for you to master! You can get the DIY for a Stonework Kitchen in exchange for Nook Miles in Resident Services, but if you don’t have the miles, don’t fret! You can use your existing kitchen pieces to cook!

These new cooking recipes will use some familiar food items such as your various fruits and pumpkins and even some fish! But you’ll also see recipes for sugar and flour, which require ingredients we haven’t seen before, like sugar cane and wheat. No explanation is offered on how to obtain these new ingredients, so I ventured out with a hunch!

Originally, to get non-native fruit trees, I had to go island hopping. Logic dictated that that must be the way forward. I hopped a ride with Kapp’n (more on him later) and found a Tomato island! You can pick the crops if you don’t want to be a farmer yourself. Or you can dig them up to bring home and create your own endless supply of noms! Stay tuned for a future post all about Dynamo’s new farm!

Harv’s Island

Our buddy Harv has upgraded his island. The photo studio is fun, and some people made some truly incredible things by taking advantage of the open catalog to place and customize unlimited items and stage scenes with their favorite villagers. Soon, you’ll have whole plaza of stalls to shop in over at Harv’s island. There’s enough going on over there that we’ll talk about that it all in another post later. For now, here are the essentials you need to know.

The startup fee for each stall, or co-op as Harv calls them, is 100,000 bells that you’ll donate to Loid. Once you’ve fully funded a co-op, you’ll be told that the it’ll be ready the next day. The game does not warn you, but you can only build one co-op a day. This means that once you’ve fully funded a co-op, the other Loid’s won’t accept any more bells or even tell you which co-op belongs in an empty plot! That means that if your heart is set on a particular NPC shop you want first, choose wisely!

Brewster & The Roost

For those of you that have played other Animal Crossing games, you already know who Brewster is and have been asking for The Roost for some time. After downloading the update, visit Blathers to talk about the idea to add a cafe to the Museum. Brewster won’t be on your island just yet, but Blathers will give you a photo so you know what he looks like. He will also let you know that Brewster is interested in Gyroids and might be out on the islands that Kapp’n visits.

Brewster will be on the first island you visit with Kapp’n if you’ve already talk to Blathers. All you have to do is talk to him and let him know of Blathers’ idea to add a cafe to the Museum. No special requests or hoops to jump through. When you get back to your island, just let Blathers know that you found Brewster. This will trigger Blathers to “get ready” for Brewster. Your museum will be closed the next day, and the day after that, the museum will reopen and Brewster and The Roost will be available!

Island Tours

Another familiar face to long-time AC fans, Kapp’n the sea-faring turtle will now be waiting on your dock. If you’ve done a lot of Mystery Island tours via Dodo Airlines, you’ve probably seen all the same islands over and over. These island tours will give you a fresh set of randomized mystery islands that will not only vary by type but even by time of day or season!

Instead of finding fossils on these islands, digging up holes will reward you with Gyroid fragments to bring home. (More on Gyroids later!) Just like with Dodo airlines, you can go to Kapp’n for extra tools or use the simple workbench on the island to make tools if yours break.

Truly the best part of these island tours? The songs that Kapp’n sings to and from the island. You can sit in his boat while he serenades you with wholesome songs about life and family. In the middle of each song, he’ll stop singing to share a thought with you, most of which are pretty uplifting. Kapp’n is wholesome goodness all around and I WILL go to war for him.

Pro-tip: If you press the ‘A’ button while on the boat, you can clap along! The ‘Y’ button performs the scared/shocked reaction, and the ‘X’ button laughs!

Gyroids: Loid’s Revenge

So, if you’ve watched our stream or read previous articles, you’ll know that Flurpy and I are not huge fans of the gyrating abomination that is Loid. The fact that his gyrating gets faster as you get closer just makes him all the more disturbing. With how cute everything else in this game is, Loid just always seemed weirdly out of place to us, though I know that Gyroids have been a thing in past AC games.

This part of the update wasn’t something I was hyped for, but it is at least another task/objective and I’m nothing if not objective-oriented in my gaming. I have to collect everything. My museum is nearly completed–art and fossils are done, critters are SO CLOSE–so at least this gives me more goals to work my way through. And I’ll admit that I am intrigued by the fact that they each make different sounds.

What the game DOESN’T tell you is what to do with the Gyroid fragments that you find on the island tours. There’s mention of burying and watering them, but no details on what happens next. You don’t “plant” them like flowers or crops. You need to dig a hole and then bury them. After burying them, water the hole and you’ll see steam puff up from the hole periodically. I had no idea how long they had to be buried so I just checked the next morning and found that the holes were no longer steaming. I decided to take a chance and dig one up. Sure enough, it was a fully formed gyroid! If this holds true to pattern, you just need to water them and leave them overnight!

I guess this is the end. I don’t know if I had more planned here. Like I said, this post was originally written when the 2.0 update came out. If you stuck it out to the end, thanks for reading. If your love for ACNH is still going strong, stay tuned for all the other content we left to rot in draft status for a year.