All About Animal Crossing: City Folk

My kids and I love this game. I thought I'd post a little beginner guide. I know there are a lot of guides and walk-throughs out there, but this one should be simpler and tells what I wish I had known at the beginning.

Choose your house carefully. You can't move after you've chosen. You can change the interior of the house, but not it's location!

Do your job for Nook. There's no getting out of it. The tree that you plant will not give fruit (just so you know), but it may give bells or furniture. Keep track of where you plant it so you can shake it daily.

Buy the flowers that Nook has every day. At some point you're probably going to want a Perfect Town, and that requires a lot of flowers. If you don't want to plant them, then store them- in your house either on the floor (although the HRA will take points away) or in your dresser, or just drop them on the ground around the town.

If you chose to plant them, try to keep each of the four types of flowers together (roses with roses, for example) so that they are able to hybridize. Check them each day and water them if they wilt (turn brown). We prefer to plant them along our path through town so that they're easy to see and water.

Be sure not to step on the flowers as it will kill them. Unwilted flowers can easily be moved if you change your mind on where you'd like to plant them. Just press B to pick up flowers and add them to your pocket.

You can even add flowers to your house as decoration!

Write letters to characters in your town. It makes them happy. Rumor has it that if you include the word "fruit" in your letter and add one of your town's fruits as a present, they may send back a foreign fruit. Since my town now has all of the exotic fruits, I usually write a letter something like this:
"Thanks for everything. Here's a present for you."
The engine seems to recognize the words thanks and present. Most of the time, I get some sort of present in return including furniture, wallpaper, rugs, and clothes.

Each person in your town should have a full set of equipment. This includes (at the very least) a watering can, slingshot, net, fishing rod, and shovel. At first, you may need to share until everyone gets a chance to buy their set from Nook's.

Make a golden shovel. Once your town has two shovels, bury one. When you dig it up the next day, it will be golden. The main advantage of using a golden shovel is that fruit you plant is more likely to grow.

Gather fruit, collect shells, catch insects, catch fish and sell them to Nooks to earn bells. Special note: the first insect and fish that you catch of each kind should be donated to the museum.

A little higher up, I mentioned exotic fruit. Let me explain. Native fruit is worth 100 bells when you sell it to Nook (a full load is 1500 bells). Exotic fruit sold to Nook is worth 500 bells (a full load is 7500 bells). The types of fruit are oranges, apples, cherries, peaches, pears, and coconuts. Coconuts wash up on the shore and are exotic in all towns.

When you get an exotic fruit, it's really tempting to sell it to Nook for easy bells, but here's a long term plan:
Use an axe to cut down a non-fruit baring tree. Dig up the stump. WITHOUT MOVING, plant an exotic fruit from your pocket (I think the exact command is bury). Water the sapling. Because you replaced an existing tree, the tree will grow. NOTE: coconut trees will only grow down by the ocean beaches. When your trees start to give fruit (they should fruit every third day), try to plant two and sell one so that you balance your need for income with future growth of the town.

I probably should note here that axes will only cut down 15 trees before they break. I highly suggest that you buy every axe that becomes available at Nook's until your renovations are complete or you are able to get a gold or silver axe (both are unbreakable).

If I was going to start my town over this would be my game plan for trees:

1. Replace the non fruit bearing trees with exotic fruit.
2. Replace native fruit trees with exotic fruit, with the exception or 3 or 4 trees near the front gates (for visitors or going visiting).
3. Plant a row of cedar trees near the top wall (trees need at least one digging square space on each side of them) for shaking and a festive look for Christmas.

Lay down a path for your town. Each town in Animal Crossing has a unique layout. The topography is different, the houses are in different places, the stores are in different places. Make it easy to find your way around town by laying down a pattern to create a path to each store, by the rivers and beaches, and to each player's house. If you can manage to walk only on the path you will minimize the grass (or snow in the winter) wear that happens when you walk or run in your town.