On the surface,Animal Crossingis a simple series, especially with the most recent entry,Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In it, players move to a new island, meet their neighbors, swap gifts, decorate homes, and pay off copious amounts of money to Tom Nook. However, once players have dug deep and sunk enough hours into the game, it becomes clear thatthere’s a lot more toNew Horizonsthan meets the eye. Planning for the future, picking out gifts, sorting through items, and collecting items can quickly become overwhelming. That’s where online resources can come in handy.

Dedicated players will run into issues with their game sooner or later, whether that’s finding their ideal Villagers, learning rare DIY recipes, or redesigning their island from the ground up. Thankfully,Animal Crossingis a series that has a thriving online community andplenty of fanmade websites to help with those common issues. Players who need assistance sprucing up their island or just tracking when exactly that one bug or fish will reappear in the wild will get a lot of use out of these five incredibly useful sites.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Museum cover

5Nookzaon Is All About Trades In ACNH

The Ultimate Stop For All Things Trading

Nookazonis the very first stop everyNew Horizonsplayer needs to make. Like its name implies, the site is the Amazon ofNew Horizonstrading.Any item, DIY recipe, and Villager can be procured on Nookazon, though often for a pretty penny. Nookazon is primarily a trading auction site, where players can list items and sell them off to whoever provides the best offer. This style of trading often produces a slightly difficult market for more casual players, since prices can get high and the currency of choice isn’tbells, but Nook Mile Tickets.

These NMTs allow players to visit deserted mystery islands and, with good luck, find a Dreamie Villager camping there. Since this is the only way to hunt for Villagers without relying on luck at the Campsite, NMTs are incredibly valuable. However, there areplenty of sales on Nookazon that ask for reasonable tradesor even give away more common items. Any player looking to source a specific chair to finish off their dining room or learn their favorite food from a DIY recipe, Nookazon is the best bet.

Animal Crossing New Horizons

The convenient structure of the site, which allows for multiple saved wishlists, makes it incrediblyeasy to find wanted items and to make offers other users might want. Five years on from the release ofAnimal Crossing: New Horizons, the site is still fairly active, which makes it a great resource to find anything players might still need.

4Nook Plaza Makes Life So Much Easier

Keep Track Of Every Villager And Every Season

Keeping track of everyone and everything inNew Horizonsis somewhat of a daunting task, especially when trying to complete themuseum by catching seasonal fishand bugs or achieve a five-star island rating. That’s whereNook Plazacomes in to make life a little bit easier. This simple site allows users to generate outfit ideas, predict in-game weather, spot fake art from Redd’s, calculate island ratings, and pick out the best gifts for every Villager, which is a great way to eventuallyearn their framed photo.

Nook Plaza also allows players tosort through and search for every item in the game, from furniture to fossils, which is especially useful for fish and bugs. Each entry conveniently shows which months each creature is available to be caught, which makes it easy to plan ahead. For Villagers, Nook Plaza provides an exceptionally cool feature: a move-out calculator.

By entering information on each Villager, like what level of friendship they’re at and if their birthday was recent, the website willcalculate who is the most likely to bring up moving out next. Since trading Villagers is still such an important part of theNew Horizonscommunity, being able to tell ahead of time which Villager might be ready to leave next is an incredible resource.

3AC Patterns Is A Go-To Source For Decorating

Customize Your Island With Thousands Of Options

Animal Crossing: New Horizonsis a game that encourages customization and creativity, which is whyAC Patternsisa fantastic source for decorating an island. InNew Horizons, players can design their own patterns or design to place on flags, shirts, signs, or even on the ground. While creating unique designs can be fun, it can also be time-consuming. That’s where AC Patterns, a site where users can discover thousands of designs to use in their game, comes in handy.

There are over 500,000 unique designs uploaded to the site, which means plenty of options to choose from.

As the front page of the site boasts,there are over 500,000 unique designs uploaded to the site, which means plenty of options to choose from. Custom patterns are an important part of decorating an island, particularly for outdoor designs like paths. WhileNew Horizonsdoes have standard paths to add to the ground, they’re completely straight and, for aesthetic purposes, a little boring. Adding a custom winding path to the ground can add a lot of character to an island.

Even small details, like “apples for sale” signs in an orchard or “no running” in a poolside area, can completely upgrade a standard area. AC Patterns isa great place to browse for sets of patterns like this, since practically every island theme one could think of can be found on the site.

2Happy Island Designer Is The Ideal ACNH Site

Pre-planning Can Save Hours Of Terraforming Time

For players most interested in designing the perfect island,Happy Island Designeris the ideal website. This island planning websitegives players a 2D view of their island, which includes every river-inlet variant available in the game. From there, players can place buildings, paths, trees, shrubs, bridges, and more to plan out exactly how they want their island to look. Happy Island Designer is especially simple to use and lets users save multiple layouts to their computer, so experimenting with different designs is straightforward and easy.

SinceNew Horizonshas so many structures, with eleven homes (for ten Villagers and one player), a few shops, a museum, and a rather large resident service building, figuring out where to place them can be aggravating, especially since only one can move a day. Using a site like thiscan be a massive time-saver, especially when razing an entire island. Rather than spending hours terraforming a cliff just to discover it doesn’t mesh well with the mouth of the river, players can pre-plan their island well before they need to break out a shovel and a hard hat.

1r/NoFeeAC Is An Excellent Subreddit

The Facebook Markerplace Of Animal Crossing

A resource like Reddit can be a little hit or miss depending on what’s been recently posted, but the subredditr/NoFeeACis definitely one to keep in mind when playingNew Horizons. This subreddit is based entirelyon giveaways and free items between players, without the baggage of NMTs or large Bell payments. During the early days ofNew Horizons, prices on trading websites could get astronomically high, especially forhighly sought-after Villagers like Raymond.

r/NoFeeAC was created to get away from what many felt was an increasingly ridiculous environment in the fandom andallow players to trade items for the love of the game. If players are looking for any specific items and don’t have a massive fund to pay for them, then checking out this subreddit is a good way to find it. Users post every day with new items that others online might want or could swap for, so checking in on the subreddit every once in a while is a great way to find something new.