Quick Tips for first time Animal Crossing Players

*No spoilers, just quick tips so you can be most effective when first starting your new game.

Rocks:

Successful Rock Hitting

You have six rocks on your island. Five resource rocks and one money rock. These can be farmed once a day. Each rock can give you a total of eight items (so eight resources each or eight bell drops for a total of 16k bells).

There are a few things you need to know to be the most efficient when mining your rocks.

1. There is a time limit from the first hit of the rock until you run out of time to get all eight of your items from the rock. (I will explain how to be efficient with your time)

2. Pick up or move anything that is in the immediate vicinity of the rock (ex. Sticks, flowers, fruit, etc…). If there is an item next to your rock and you begin your mining the rock item will have nowhere to land and you will miss out on an item.

3. Island tours have more rocks you can mine.

4. You can destroy your rocks if you do not like its location by eating a fruit before hitting the rock with your shovel. **Be warned though, that only one rock will re-spawn a day. So it is best to only destroy one rock a day (and only after you got the resources from it).

When you hit a rock you are recoiled and pushed back from the rock. This wastes valuable time to be able to spam hit your rock for its eight items. There are a few ways to make sure you wont be recoiled back.

1. The two hole methods: Dig up two holes directly behind you so you are now between the holes and the rock. If you line yourself up right, the holes will prevent you from being pushed back. See video tutorial here: Two Hole Method

2. Diagonal Hole method. Dig two holes behind you in a more diagonal way. In this method you can jump from the opposite side of the holes and it will perfectly line you up between the holes and the rock to ensure no recoil. See video tutorial here: Diagonal hole method

3. Cliff and/or River Method: In this method you will place yourself between a cliff edge or a river and the rock. This isn’t a perfect method because if you do not line yourself up right you can slide when hitting the rock. See video tutorial here: River or Cliff Method

4. Tree and Hole Method: This method is similar to the two holes method but you use one hole next to a tree. Same concept as the two hole method. It is not perfect because if not lined up right you may slide on each hit. See video tutorial here: The tree & hole method.

Trees & Wasps:

Getting the most from your trees can be very important for your game play, especially if you will be working to 100% your catalog (and even if that isn’t your goal…. who doesn’t like free stuff?)

Daily tree Spawns:

1. Five wasps will spawn in your trees daily (we will discuss the best method to catch these and not be stung under “Tree Shaking”).

2. Two items can be found daily in your trees by shaking them. (And one item per Mystery Island Tour)

3. Daily you can chop three pieces of wood per tree. *Do not eat a fruit before chopping your trees for wood or you will instantly chop them down.

4. Bells and sticks can fall from trees as well.

Tree shaking to prevent wasp stings:

If you always shake a tree from the front (your character’s back towards you) while holding your net you will be prepared when a wasp nest falls. The game will automatically face your character towards the wasps, then all you have to do is quickly catch them with your net. If you are anywhere else around the tree your net will likely smack the tree and miss the swarm before they sting you. Why would you want to catch the wasps? Besides donating one to the museum, wasps sell for a good amount of bells. Example video here: Wasp Catching

*Fruit trees do not spawn wasps.

Daily money tree:

Once a day you will find a little glow spot you can dig up with your shovel to find a 1k bag of bells. You have the option to just plant the free 1k bag back in the hole (must be holding your shovel to do this) this will grow a tree with 3k bells on it (not bad! But you could do better!). OR you have two more options to get the most bang for your bells.

Your two best options:

1. Plant 10k bells in the hole. This method guarantees you will get 30k bells when the tree is fully grown.

2. Plant 30k bells in the hole. This is slightly more “risky.” You won’t lose bells but there is a chance you won’t gain any bells either. There is a percent chance the tree when fully grown will produce 90k bells for you, but if it doesn’t you will at least make your 30k back. (This is the method I use when I have the bells to spare, because I am not out anything either way).

*Each money tree will only spawn money ONE time. So once you harvest your money tree, you can chop it down if you would like to.

An example tree planting video can be seen here: Daily Money Tree

Now, obviously you can choose any amount of money you want to plant and hope for the best. The two best options I explained above are just the best way to get the most back from your tree without losing bells in the process.

Easy Daily DIYs:

Sprocket Building in his house

There are a few ways to get your daily DIYs.

1. From balloons. This is not exactly a reliable way because there are a few things that can be found in the balloon drop pool. However, popping balloons gets you free stuff… So why not try it. (Balloon pool options: DIYs, Bells, Resources, Items).

2. One bottle washes up on your beach daily and will contain a DIY recipe.

3. Going to mystery islands has a chance of having a bottle on the beach too.

4. At different times throughout the day a total of three of your villagers will be in their homes building something at their work bench. Usually a few hours pass before they stop building and a different villager starts building something.

5. If you visit other people’s islands while one of their villagers is building you can talk to that villager and they will give you the recipe too.

6. If you have amiibo cards you can invite one villager a day to your campsite and they will ask you to build them something. If what they ask you to build is a recipe you do not currently have, they will supply you with a DIY card.

None of these options guarantees you get a new DIY recipe, but there is always the chance you will. You can always sell the duplicates to the Nooklings, offer them to friends who need them, or sometimes people on Reddit will want to buy them from you. (The Iron Wood recipes are a big hit)

DIY Bottle

Thank you for stopping by and I hope some of these tips help get started on your island!

Please let me know if these tips and tutorial videos were helpful for you! Feedback is appreciated.

If they were helpful make sure you pass them along to all your Animal Crossing friends so they can learn the ropes too!

If you have any questions about my tips (or even just about AC in general) please let me know ❤

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