Throwing Out The Dice – A Villager Hunting In Animal Crossing New Horizons

In Animal Crossing New Horizons, the player populates a tropical island with human-like animals known as villagers. Alongside activities like fishing and bug catching, talking with these animals, and befriending them is one of the main aspects of Animal Crossing. There are currently nearly 400 villagers in New Horizons, with species ranging from octopuses to dogs and cats. With this variety, there are favorite(s) probably for everyone.

However, getting your favorite villager(s) to live on your tropical island is not the easiest thing to do. First of all, the island can populate at maximum ten villagers. Inhabitants can think about moving out but letting them move out is not easy as they can become player digital friends. However, if there is a place open on the island, you can try finding your favorite(s), which is called villager hunting. Now, after the basics, let’s go hunting.

Perhaps the most popular way of villager hunting in Animal Crossing New Horizons is the mystery tours. By two thousand Nook Miles, a currency obtained from performing various activities such as planting flowers or helping various visitors, the player can redeem Nook Miles Ticket. The Ticket can be then used at the airport, to travel to mystery tours. Mystery tours take the player to mystery islands, with for example more bugs to catch. The important thing from the perspective of villager hunting is that the mystery island contains animal if there is a space open on the player island, which can be invited to live on the island.

Which villager appears in the mystery island is, however, luck-based. The game chooses one species of the 35 available and then chooses one from that species. The number of villagers in different species also range as there are, for instance,  three octopuses, while there are 23 cats. Nevertheless, getting your favorite(s) from mystery islands is luck based as it can take anything from one to a technically infinite amount of tickets.

The next villager hunting method takes place in the player’s tropical island. After a little progression in the game, you can build a campsite, in which random villager can visit, although for two days after the previous visitor there is zero percent chance of a new one. The game follows the real clock, so there cannot be new a campsite visitor for at least two real days. The visitor can be invited to live on the island.

Campsite visitor is also luck based but in a different way. Outside of species, villagers can also be divided into eight personalities. These include for instance jock and normal. Jocks have a sporty lifestyle and normal on the comparison enjoy calm activities such as reading books and care a lot about the player. Campsite favors personalities, the player does have the smallest amount on the island. In comparison, while mystery islands contain animal only if there is space on the island, a campsite visitor can also come to the island, if the island is full. In this situation, the visitor tells a random inhabitant name from the island to change positions with. The name is random, although it can be changed by closing the game and starting it again, while the name is told. The campsite also has previously mentioned time aspect compared to the mystery islands (Although by time-traveling this can be avoided).

The third hunting method takes place in the real world. The player can purchase for about ten euros a pack of Animal Crossing amiibo cards (amiibo are Nintendo’s figures/ cards that use near field communication, to communicate with the game system and unlock for example new content). These packs contain two villagers-, and one special character card. These cards can be used to invite that animal to the campsite. However, the purchaser cannot see what cards are included, bringing the luck factor in. There are also four different series of amiibo cards with different villagers each, so the right series must be bought if a specific villager(s) is wanted. On the contrary, visitors invited by these cards allow to freely pick up any current island resident to change positions with.

At the same time, I like and do not like the randomness of getting villagers as it makes getting your favorite(s) both exciting and tedious. A less random option would be good, but I do not know, how it would work as the randomness of villagers feels like a core element of Animal Crossing. Nevertheless, based on my own experience and luck, I would recommend from the methods campsite or amiibo cards, as particularly through cards, I have gotten a couple of my favorites. Still, getting your favorite villager(s) to live on your island is challenging and luck-based whichever methods are used. Yet, I continue to purchase amiibo cards, wait for the campsite visitors, or visit mystery Islands. Though finding my favorite villagers may seem impossible, it is not.

 

Header image and first two pictures: Screenshots from the game, taken by the author.

Third picture: Picture of amiibo cards taken by the author.

 

Sources

Amount of villagers, species, octopuses and cats checked from:

Spear, R. (Updated on 25.12.2020). Animal Crossing: New Horizons – How many villagers are there and how many can I have on my island? Checked on 15.2.2021. From https://www.imore.com/animal-crossing-new-horizons-how-many-villagers-are-there-and-how-many-can-i-have-my-island

Campsite visitor mechanism checked from:

GameWith. (Updated on 9.2.2021). Campsite Villagers Guide – Getting Visitors To Move In. Checked on 15.2.2021. From https://gamewith.net/animal-crossing-new-horizons/article/show/16336

Campsite visitor percentages checked from:

Animal Crossing Wiki. Campsite (New Horizons). Checked on 15.2.2021 https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Campsite_(New_Horizons)

Info about Mystery islands villager mechanism  from:

Animal Crossing Wiki. Mystery tour. Checked on 15.2.2021 https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Mystery_tour

 

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