Random: Fans Create 'Nuzlocke-Style' Mode For Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I understand the concept op a nuzlocke, but considering the mess it became with Pokémon games I wonder if this is a good idea.

I don't like the idea of Hard Mode as it looks like you are a masochist, likes to being tortured to enjoy the stuffs.

Interesting way to play, just very much not for me. Nuzlockes are cool, though I've never done one myself, but imposing all these rules on a chill game like Animal Crossing seems like it'd just make everything a slog.

I'm all for a challenge but how about just pacing yourself, no time travelling and play the game as if there is no internet... you know the way it was played on the Gamecube and Wii (does New Leaf support internet play? Not sure, never played it).

That's what I've been doing since I lost my first island and I'm really enjoying it so far.

They should have had a couple more huge DLC packs on the same scale as the last one. $20 each, so a lot of people would have essentially bought the game twice with another $60 worth of content, and interest wouldn't have died off, and it would easily be the best Animal Crossing ever instead of half of the users who voted on this site's recent poll still picking New Leaf as their favorite for reasons I can't criticize them for. All I know is that I shouldn't be jealous of the dumb smartphone game's countless awesome items we never got in the console game, after spending $80 there shouldn't be a string of code related to this series that's being withheld from me just to make gotcha mechanics more tantalizing for the people that choose to play the watered down experience.

If it were a Nuzlocke, then you could only keep the first fish/bug you encounter and then you would have to release all the rest.

Animal crossing is by design already a game about doing tasks that get tedious and samey for me very fast instead of deriving much relaxation from me, but goodness this just sounds like it'd make the entire game a slog to start up every day. I like pokemon nuzlockes because the games are way too dang easy, but since AC doesn't have that issue this feels a bit needless.

No, no, no, no ... not by any chance !
I´ve put so much work on my island and I am very glad with the results, I wouldn´t dare to do it all over again,
Instead, I still play once in a while to get the few achievements that are stil left.

Sounds interesting but I feel like AC is about doing whatever you want, so following "rules" is out of the question for me personally.

In almost three years, I’ve never time traveled. I have every achievement and have 100%ed the catalogue including color variations, besides a few more of the Flick/CJ models and about 8 more item variants from Gulliver. I think I’ve been successfully playing hard mode from the beginning.

@SlowPokemon Congrats! Yes you have. But for majority of players, it was about rushing to gain millions of bells through the online turnip market, completing their catalogue with Nookazon and time travel just so they can design their dream islands.

If it isn’t for that, not as many would have gotten bored even with the 2.0 update and moan about the lack of furnitures and stuff to do. Everyone rushed to the end and forgot ACNH is much about the journey.

With the rise of Treasure Islands, the content creation community tried modding as a way to keep making content to only get the Big N after some of them. With the “hard’ more, they have found a new way to create a continuous stream of new content… when they could have just played the game as it was designed from the get go.

But then how would one create all those design videos to showcase all the themes everyone was making? 😁

The beauty of Animal Crossing is there are infinite ways to play. A rigid set of rules making it more tedious isn’t going to be for everyone, but to each their own.

If anyone resets an island they’ve worked hard on for years, only to bail on this challenge after a few weeks, I’m sorry... 😅

The only rule I think could be fun is having to allow villagers to move when they ask to, or at least after getting their photo. They’re video game characters, but letting them experience “new horizons” seems on brand.

Nuzlocks became popular because it's an easy set of rules to understand.

This is honestly a mess of arbitrary rules that doesn't really even make the game harder, it just takes longer to grind.

No way nada negatory! I’m not getting rid of my island and even then I would not do this “challenge” because why would you want to make a relaxing life sim more frustrating?

"the fact that Nintendo appears to have ceased support for this wildly popular and impactful entry into the beloved Animal Crossing series is baffling"

Genuinely curious, but what more could Nintendo put in the game that would drive people to come back? Like, I don't see it as easy as Mario Kart with plopping a bunch of tracks 3 times a year. I'm not trying to be snarky or stand-offish, but what can be added that isn't already present and could entice somebody new to play?

How is anyone supposed to keep 'all' of these rules in their head?

Just say no to time traveling and pace yourself. Every single person I know who plays Animal Crossing and is bored with it already time traveled the fun out of the game. Beautiful islands and bursting with inventory, but at what cost?

AC games are all about enjoying each day without fussing about the next. Yes, the game doesn't prohibit time-traveling, but not all things allowed are beneficial.

This method sounds incredibly tedious, I'm sure there's more rewarding ways to play the game.

For better or for worse, my New Horizons island is a time capsule (or maybe a monument) of the first year and a half of the pandemic. I turn it on only sparingly these days, and the music alone makes my eyes well up thinking about the 2,000+ hours I spent here, building it up from nothing, populating it with villagers and becoming attached to them, having friends over for what were essentially old-school phone calls with emoji or zooms I didn't have to clean up for.
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I have a handful of unfinished or unstarted projects (upgrading my small park to a full-size amusement park; a tiny city of doll houses and server towers for the kaiju and hero statues to fight over; earn that last achievement stamp for helping out villagers), let alone Happy Home Paradise, which I only made about a 1/3 of the way through before fading interest.

It's hard to fathom these projects will ever be completed (HHP possibly, since it's more of its own thing), because any changes I make to my island now will feel unconnected to the time this place meant the most to me. But nuking the island to start over with an arbitrary and honor-system-based hard mode is obviously a non-starter.

I haven't rushed or time traveled, so this mode wouldn't add much for me as I have been pacing myself.

'Hardcore' seems a weird label therefore - as if there was any way to 'win' the game?

To play is to have fun. So I wish everyone a lot of fun now that this mode encourages you to play with a new perspective.

OR... you can just start playing by those rules without restarting your island.

Not a fan of nuzlockes in general, especially with Animal Crossing where I feel the whole point of the game is ruined if you make rules like this. Randomizers, though, are awesome.

Speaking of which, I wish Nintendo was more open to any kind of modding of their wonderful games because there are some absolutely incredible fan creations out there. Getting to try the Super Mario 64 PC port especially, with Render 96 and ray tracing, was one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in my entire life.