10 Animal Crossing New Horizons tips for beginners

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the most popular games for the Nintendo Switch, Switch OLED and Switch Lite. You might have played it yourself already. If you haven’t tried it out yet, you’re missing a treat. Despite the cartoonish look, the game can be incredibly addictive. You may find yourself getting seriously invested in upgrading your home and developing your island.

If you’re thinking about giving Animal Crossing: New Horizons a try, you may be looking for some useful tips and tricks for beginners. If so, we’re here to help. Here are 10 tips for Animal Crossing: New Horizons if you’re just starting out.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

A cute island to make your own and the ability to welcome and visit your friends.

1 Choose your starting map wisely

Make sure you have plenty of space to explore

Nintendo

When you first start Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you will be given a choice between four randomly generated maps as your island home. If you don’t like the look of them, you can quit the game, restart and see if there are different options on offer.

We suggest you choose one with at least one large, open area next to the sea, as not everywhere will be accessible to you when you start. You will need to craft a vaulting pole to get over rivers, for example, and a ladder to reach higher ground.

If family members plan to play using the same Switch, they should have a say too, as they will also be stuck in the same location. You can only have one island per Switch, even though multiple players can settle there. This is true even if you’re using separate accounts.

If you don’t like the look of the island layout after you have explored a little, you can restart the game before the tutorial missions are complete (at the end of the first day) and choose again. When naming your island, you need to remember that you will not be able to change it afterward, so choose wisely.

2 Make sure tents are spaced out

You’re going to need a lot more space in the future

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When you have finally reached your island, Tom Nook will give you a tent and basic supplies, and you need to find a suitable plot of land on which to place it. Your tent will eventually become your house and garden, so you need to make sure you have plenty of room to expand.

You will then be asked to find plots of land for a couple of neighbors and later, you’ll need to decide where to place the museum, Nook’s Cranny shop, and the visitor center. When placing each plot, try to imagine how it will look when much larger than just a tent.

For example, don’t (as we did) place the museum tent directly in front of your own home. Once fully constructed, it is one of the largest buildings and will obscure the view of your house. You can place any of the starter tents on top of trees, so you don’t need to find a natural clearing. And, once you have the ability to craft a proper (not flimsy) axe, you’ll be able to chop down trees that are in the way.

3 Collect everything since new resources appear daily

If you see something, pick it up as more may appear tomorrow

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One of the initial tasks in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is to pay back a loan for your tent and relocation. This loan is in Nook Miles, a new form of currency that is effectively awarded to you for every action you perform on the island.

Once you have paid back the first loan, you will need to repay a heftier one for your first house (and other, gradually more expensive amounts for each further step up the property ladder). These later loans will need to be paid back in Bells rather than Nook Miles.

Thankfully, Timmy and Tommy Nook are more than happy to give you cold, hard cash for anything you bring to them. The easy way to make cash quickly is to note down the items they pay most for and seek those out more often.

4 Donate every unique item and sell everything else

Stock that museum by keeping hold of one of everything

When you are looking for items to sell, you should save at least one of every fossil you dig up, or new bug or fish you catch. Blathers in the museum won’t give you money for them, but they will look great on display. Fossil holes, which are shown by jagged crosses on the ground, appear once a day. The fossils you find can raise a pretty penny or just look cool on the mantelpiece in your own home.

The only other exception to selling items is keeping them for crafting. Wood, sticks, stones, iron nuggets, clay and other resources found around the island might not be needed for the handful of DIY recipes you start with, but some could become essential down the line.

5 Manage your “pockets” inventory wisely

Make sure you have plenty of space if you visit other islands

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When you start New Horizons you will just have a few tools available, so the number of inventory slots in your “pockets” are ample. However, as your crafting skills improve, or if you visit other islands, you need to ensure you have enough empty slots for anything new you might find.

Luckily, items dropped around your own island will remain there indefinitely, so you can always pick them up later. Once you progress from a tent to a house, you get storage in your home for anything you don’t want to carry around with you.

6 Look for guest visitors and listen out for surprise packages

You may earn some excellent rewards

As well as Nook, his nephews and a couple of fellow settlers, you will occasionally happen upon some guests who will give you simple fetch quests. It is well worth seeking these out as they always reward you with items for the home or clothing. You should also ensure you talk to your neighbors often as they sometimes have items for you too.

Flying packages arrive regularly, often several in one day. You need to listen out for them, as a whooshing wind sound indicates that a gift box tied to a balloon is somewhere in the vicinity. You need a slingshot to pop the balloon and send the package crashing to the earth.

7 Visit other islands using Nook Miles

Find new resources by island hopping

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Some resources remain elusive on your own island. However, you can travel to other randomly generated islands to find items instead. Just exchange 2,000 Nook Miles for a ticket and head to the airport. You will be transported to a similar island to your own, where you can plunder new resources you might not find on your island.

We advise clearing your pockets of anything not needed before traveling, as you’ll likely want to stuff them full of new insects or fish. Make sure you grab plenty of fruit off the trees when visiting another island, as they are likely to be different to the ones currently available to you. It’s also handy to have a friend with Animal Crossing: New Horizons too, as you can visit their island after you’ve progressed a fair bit and collect new items there.

8 Plant fruit you find or receive

You reap what you sow

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One of the reasons to ensure you gather as much fruit as possible on other islands is that you can use them to grow specific trees on your own. For example, you can grow coconut-laden palm trees on your beach. All you need to do is dig a hole, plant one of the fruit types you’ve gathered and three or so days later you’ll see a new, fully grown tree bearing the same fruit you returned with.

Then, you can gather fruit from those new trees and plant them elsewhere on the island, if you want to have more of them dotted around.

9 Don’t leave any stone unturned and eat fruit to become more powerful

Fruit will literally have you tearing up trees

Sometimes, resources and creepy crawlies can be found in the most peculiar places. Centipedes, for example, will only appear if you bash a rock with your axe. You can sometimes be surprised by what appears on the end of your fishing line, too. A boot, say, or tin can, which can be used in crafting.

Eating fruit also gives you superhuman strength. If you eat some fruit, you are able to dig up an entire tree using your shovel, or break a rock. This is possible once per piece of fruit eaten, however.

10 Watch out for spiders and wasps

Getting stung is not a good look

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Not everything on your island is cute and friendly. Shake too many trees, and you might just loosen a wasp nest, leading to a nasty sting and a rush for medicine to make you better. You might also be amused by tarantulas scuttling around at night, only to find them lunging at you and giving you a nasty shock. Make sure you have your net handy during a spider encounter.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a superb game with so much depth that our handy hints above are only the tip of the iceberg; there is still plenty for you to discover for yourself. Hopefully, though, they will give you a guiding hand as you start the game. The rest is up to you.