Be Excellent To Each Other

tri-force!

Pikmin plants.

1. Hit every rock in your town with a shovel or axe. Each day, one random rock spills out thousands of Bells when you strike it, and another contains a precious piece of ore.

2. For maximum Bells per rock, dig some holes behind you to create a buffer that will stop you being pushed backwards from the ricochet of your shovel. This will slow you and enable you to get even more Bells out of the rock per day.

3. Shake every tree, every day. Some contain Bells, some have furniture jammed in their branches, and others hide rare insects. Watch out for bees, though: hide in a house if you knock down a nest.

4. You'll be randomly assigned a default fruit when you start. This domestic fruit goes for 100 Bells a pop. Foreign fruit, meanwhile, is worth 500, and tropical fruit sells for 250. So...

5. If a neighbour gives you a fruit (or if you bring back fruit from the island), don't sell it. And definitely don't eat it. Instead, bury it to plant a tree that will yield more foreign fruit every few days.

6. A good place to find new tropical fruit is during the island tours. Take a break from your current objective and borrow some fruit from the nearby trees. Remember that you must plant bananas and coconuts on the beach.

7. And if a friend is playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf, too, offer to trade fruit.

8. Each village will grow perfect fruit, which look like gold and are worth loads in the shop. Make sure to plant it to grow a perfect fruit tree, but always plant one of the resulting fruits. This is because perfect trees will die after a few shakes.

9. You can stack fruit into groups of nine. Just drag identical pieces of fruit on top of each other in your inventory.

10. Like their daddy Tom Nook, Timmy and Tommy will upgrade their pokey little Nookling Junction shop if you become a frequent customer. Buy a bunch of items or spend a load of Bells and it will turn into a convenience store.

11. Buy Fortune Cookies from the Nooks every day, as they contain special Nintendo-themed items. You'll need two play coins (you earn one of these for every 100 steps you take while your 3DS is in your pocket) for them.

12. Re-Tail buys items for about 20 percent more Bells than other shops, so don't bother trading your items with the Nook siblings.

13. Read the sign outside Re-Tail. It lists two items that are worth a premium on that day. If they're easier to find, go find them and sell them.

14. You can use the locker in the train station to store stuff until you buy a cabinet (or wardrobe or chest of drawers) in your home. That's especially useful when you're stuck living in a tent.

15. Once you are officially made mayor, you can spend 20,000 to enact city ordinances. You might want to make shops open earlier or later to match your playing schedule.

16. There's also the Bell Boom ordinance to consider. This forces shops to give you more Bells for stuff to boost the economy. This also makes items more expensive, but you can counteract this by buying stuff in a friend's village.

17. The quickest way to build up your mayoral approval rating is by donating to the museum. Fossils, insects, fish, and paintings are all worth a lot to the community.

18. Your first public works project should be a bridge. This will help you traverse your small island more quickly by adding a much-needed extra route across the river.

19. Ask Isabelle for advice, and she'll sell you useful equipment (like a watering can or fishing rod) and give you free items. This is a good place to find your first piece of foreign fruit.

20. Another way to get the watering can is to wait for the gardening shop to open. For this to happen, you'll need to be mayor for five days and plant a tree or flower.

21. If you want a tree to grow, don't plant it in the shadows or too close to another tree. Also, some fruit trees only grow on sand (bananas, for example), while others must be rooted in grass.

22. You can make hybrid flowers, which are worth more in the shop. To do this, put two flowers of the same genus but of different colour (such as two roses) in the spaces next to each other.

23. Every Sunday, Joan will visit your town and sell you batches of ten turnips at a random price. From Monday to Saturday, you can then sell them at Re-Tail. The buying price changes every day, though, so you'll have to check in daily. Turnips go rotten in a week, so don't wait too long.

24. Take any fossils you dig up to the museum and get them appraised. You can then donate the ones the museum doesn't have, and sell any duplicates.

25. Different types of fish live in the river, the ocean, and the small holding ponds around the village. The ocean is your best bet for finding animals that are worth loads of cash.

26. Pay off your first house loan as soon as possible to get access to the island. The island is the best place to make money. It's buzzing with rare insects, fish, and deep sea critters that will make you a fortune back home.

27. The only place to find a wetsuit is in the shop on the island. It's not there every day, and you'll have to pay in medals, so keep checking and keep playing the tours (the mini-games).

28. You can use the D-pad to quickly change tools. By pressing left and right, you can cycle through your equipment. Hit down to unequip your current item. Handy.

29. Equipment will be removed from your inventory while you are holding it. So, you can make space by putting on your wetsuit and holding one of your tools.

30. If you want to find people in the town quickly, whip out the megaphone, hold 'A', and say the name of the inhabitant you want to find. If that inhabitant is relatively close by, she'll shout back.

31. If you're invited to do something by a villager, do not turn her down. She'll be upset if you do.

32. Talk to Sable, the Able sister who is using the sewing machine in the clothes shop, every day to coax her out of her shyness. This will eventually enable you to unlock some new items and features.

33. Take screenshots by pressing the left and right shoulder buttons at the same time. Your snaps will be saved to your device or SD card, depending on how you set up the 3DS photo app.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf was released last Friday and it's brilliant (you can read our review here), but for many the first few days are filled with aimless wandering around and wondering what's going on, especially if you're new to the series.
Why is my high street so empty? How do I make money? How can I get a wet suit? Why do bees keep stinging me? Is this really all there is to it?
With these questions in mind we've put together 30 handy tips to keep you on the right track as you begin your Animal Crossing adventure. We'll start with the basics and move on to more detailed advice. Oh, and just one more warning: this game is deceptively massive, as you'll soon see.
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1) Don't run if you can help it
It's all too tempting to tape the B button down and leg it round your town at all times, but running has some drawbacks.

If you run near rivers or trees you're likely to scare away any fish or bugs before you can get close enough to catch them. More importantly, the more you run, the more the grass in your town wears away.
When this happens, the only way you can grow it back is by planting trees or flowers in the barren areas, and growing grass this way can take an extremely long time.
We recommend making paths fairly early on and running across those, since it doesn't affect the grass underneath. Here's a brilliant selection of paths you can add once you unlock the QR code reading feature. More on that in a bit.
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2) Learn the daily routine
Every day there are certain things that happen without fail, so be sure to put some time aside each day to sweep through town and take care of them.
First of all, you should water all the flowers in your town to make sure they don't dry up. We've put all our flowers in one area to make this job easier. Then, start shaking trees. As well as the random chance of a coin falling out, each day five trees contain a beehive (not necessarily a bad thing, but we'll get to that) and two trees contain a random piece of furniture.
Also keep an eye out for cracks in the ground - use your shovel to dig them out because there are around five randomly dotted around every day and usually they contain fossils for the museum. Finally, each day one rock will contain Bells and another breakable rock is added containing a gem. Time to explain this in more detail...

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3) Get goodies from rocks
Every day a random rock in your town will spit out Bells when you hit it with your shovel. Once you hit it and the first coin comes out, you then have a limited time to hit it again, much like a multiple coin block in a Super Mario Bros game. Every time one appears it's worth more Bells, up to a total of seven times for 8100 Bells.

If you're not very good at lining up your strikes (every time you hit the rock the recoil forces you back), stand in front of the rock and dig a hole right behind you. Then, when you hit the rock, you won't recoil because the hole blocks you.
As well as the random Bell rock, each day a new rock is added to your town containing a gemstone. When you hit this rock with your shovel it'll shatter, leaving the gem behind. These can either be sold for a few thousand Bells at the Re-Tail shop, or given to Cyrus at Re-Tail (the one who should still be sleeping at this point in your game) along with a piece of customisable furniture so he can make you gem-coloured furniture.
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4) Take everything new to the museum
This may seem like an obvious one to Animal Crossing veterans but it's something many people forget to do in the early stages of the game, especially those new to Animal Crossing.

Every time you catch a brand new species, take it to the museum and donate it, no matter how rare and valuable it is. You can tell it's a brand new species because your character will wonder out loud what their encyclopaedia says about it.
If you make sure to donate every new species as you catch it, it'll avoid annoying moments a year from now where you're comparing the museum exhibit list with your encyclopaedia to figure out what still needs to be donated. You can also unlock special tools and house designs if you donate a certain number of creatures.
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5) Get a closet
You can decorate your house however you like, to the extent that you don't even need to have a bed in there if you don't want one (after all, you never need to sleep, you can just pause and choose 'Save and Exit' to end).

Despite this, we do strongly recommend you put at least one closet in there. There are plenty of different styles, so you should eventually be able to find one that matches your house's vibe, but they're very important when it comes to storing stuff temporarily.
A closet can hold up to 180 extra items, making it easy to store different outfits depending on your mood, store extra furniture, or keep a hold of items you want to sell temporarily if Re-Tail is closed. Your closet is also linked to other storage lockers in the town (a bit like Resident Evil's item boxes), including the ones at the main gate and the ones on the second floor of the museum (once it's built).
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6) Change shop hours with Ordinances
Once you get your mayoral powers (you should have them by now if you bought the game on launch day), you can build Public Works Projects and enact Ordinances (laws).

You can only choose one Ordinance to be active at any time, but we recommend going with either the Early Bird or Night Owl ones, depending on when you play the game. The former opens all the shops three hours earlier than usual (they close at the same time), whereas the latter keeps them open for three hours longer.
Ordinances are useful, then, if your day starts with an early commute, or if you tend to play in bed at night.
Alternatively, the Beautiful Town ordinance is perfect for lazier types who still want a nice town, because it makes your fellow villagers water your plants for you and ensures you never get weeds or cockroaches.
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7) Be patient, the High Street will evolve
If you bought the game on Friday chances are your High Street still looks a bit barren. Animal Crossing isn't designed for speed-running, just play the game as normal and everything will eventually improve.

Each improvement is based on a number of set criteria. If you want to find out what's next, here's how to unlock each shop in the rough order they should appear. (If you want to discover each new addition for yourself, please ignore the text below and move onto the next tip).
• T&T Mart: The Nookling Junction shop upgrades to T&T Mart after you upgrade your tent to a house and either spend 12,000 Bells or buy 15 items from Nookling Junction, whichever comes first.
• Club LOL: A day after T&T Mart opens, Dr Shrunk will be seen wandering around your town. He'll ask you if he can build Club LOL, and give you a petition that requires six signatures from other villagers. Get the signatures and give the list to Dr Shrunk and he'll build the club.
• Garden Shop: Once T&T Mart appears, perform 30 gardening tasks (watering flowers, planting trees or pulling weeds) and Leif's Garden Shop will open next to it.
• Kicks: This shoe shop (shoes are a first for Animal Crossing, incidentally) will open after you've been Mayor for 10 days and have spent 8000 Bells at the Able Sisters' shop. It takes an unusually long three days to build once the construction site goes up, so don't worry if it seems to be taking a while.

• Super T&T: Spend 25,000 Bells in total at T&T Mart and have both the T&T Mart and the Garden Shop in your town for ten days, and the Mart will upgrade to the bigger Super T&T shop.
• Shampoodle: Once Kicks has appeared, spend another 7000 Bells in total at either Kicks or the Able Sisters' shop. Once you do that (and once Kicks has been open for more than a week), the door upstairs from the Able Sisters' shop will open and the Shampoodle salon will be open for business.
• TIY: The fourth version of the Nooklings' shop appears when you spend 50,000 Bells in total at Super T&T and have it in your town for at least 21 days.
• T&T Emporium: After TIY is built, Gracie will start showing up in the High Street every now and then. Impress her four times, spend 100,000 Bells in TIY and have TIY on the High Street for at least 30 days, and it'll finally become the massive multi-level Emporium, the biggest shop in the game.
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Use the Catalogue
Once the Nookling Junction shop is upgraded to the T&T Mart, you'll have access to a catalogue service (the red ATM-looking machine in the corner). This is useful for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it's a helpful list of every piece of furniture, wall, floor, clothing, note paper, song, gyroid and fossil you've ever had in your possession. If you're an Animal Crossing completionist, the catalogue acts as your Pokédex and will let you double-check to see if you've owned a particular item before buying it from a shop.

Secondly, if you no longer have an item and you wish you had it back, or your friend's visited your town and really wants your Regal Couch, you can order anything in the catalogue at its standard cost and it'll be delivered to your mailbox the next day.
Not all items can be bought from the catalogue though (some rarer stuff and trophies are only there for reference, for example), so be sure to keep hold of these rarer goodies, or store them in your closet, because you may struggle to get them back.
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9) The ABD machine isn't completely useless
The Post Office has an ABD (Automatic Bell Dispenser) cash machine in it where you can deposit Bells. At first glance this may seem like a waste of time since most of your Bells will either be going to Tom Nook for house upgrades or funding Public Works Projects, but it's still worth putting spare cash in there when you can because it pays off in the long run.
Every time your balance hits a certain milestone you'll be sent a rare and unique gift. Here's the list of what you get:

• 100,000 Bells - Tissue Box
• 500,000 Bells - Letter Set
• 1 million Bells - Piggy Bank
• 5 million Bells - Aluminum Case
• 10 million Bells - Post Office Poster
• 20 million Bells - Safe
• 50 million Bells - Deliveryman Cap
• 100 million Bells - ATM
On top of this, you'll receive 0.5% interest on the first of every month, meaning if you eventually reach that 100 million balance you'll get 500,000 Bells for free at the start of every month. So you see, it's worth investing in the long run.
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10) Don't trust Redd
Crazy Redd is a sneaky fox who pitches up a tent in your town square one day every week and sells four pieces of rare artwork.

There are two catches - the first is that you can only buy one piece of artwork from him, and the second is that most of them are fake. If you get a real one you can take it to the museum and donate it (or sell it for loads of Bells), but if you get a fake one it's worthless.
You can spot fake ones because they have slight differences from the real-life works of art, but if you aren't much of an art fan here's a handy guide to spotting the fakes from the real thing.
11) Turnips aren't so important any more
Back in the early days of Animal Crossing, the Stalk Market was a complex but important way to earn loads of Bells. It's back once again in New Leaf, but it's not quite as necessary.

Here's how it works. Every Sunday between 6am and noon, Joan (a boar) can be found wandering the town. She'll sell you turnips at a price between 90 and 110 Bells each. You can buy as many turnips as you like. You can then sell these turnips to Re-Tail, but the price you'll get for each turnip changes twice every day - once when Re-Tail opens, and again at noon.
Sometimes the price will be more than you paid, and sometimes it'll be less. The trick is to sell your turnips for more than you paid for them, but if you don't sell them by the following Sunday they'll all rot and you'll have to pay to get rid of them.
The stalk market isn't really too important this time because you'll need to spend an awful lot of Bells to be in with a chance of any sort of real profit, and even then you're risking not getting that profit at all. The new island area is a much better way to make Bells, which brings us neatly to...
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12) The island (it's awesome)
After you get rid of your tent and Tom Nook sorts you out with a house, he'll ask you to pay a mortgage of 39,800 Bells. Once you pay that off you'll trigger access to the island, which you can reach by heading to the dock on the beach and paying Kapp'n 1000 Bells.

The island gives you access to a number of 'tours', which are mini-games that give you medals as a reward. You can then spend these medals on the various beach-related items on sale in the island shop, including wetsuits (which then let you go diving in your own town's sea).
The main reason for going to the island however is for fishing and bug hunting. Talk to the Gyroid on the island and he'll loan you any tools you want, letting you catch any bugs or fish you can find. Rarer (and more expensive) creatures are far more common on the island, and if you're selective about which you keep and which you release you can catch anything from 100,000 to 400,000 Bells' worth of creatures in around an hour and a half. You can then put them in the Drop-Off Box in the island, collect them from the dock when you get back to your town, and sell them at Re-Tail.
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13) How to catch rarer fish and bugs
We've had many followers on Twitter asking us how to catch the more valuable fish and bugs, especially on the island, so here are our helpful tips.
For fish, we recommend turning the volume up because it's easier to catch them by pressing A as soon as you hear the deep 'sploosh' than by pressing it when you see the lure go under. You can react to the sound quicker than the animation, you see.

It's so much easier to catch based on the sound that as long as your lure catches its attention you can literally catch the biggest, rarest fish with your eyes closed with a bit of practice.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the fish will tap the lure up to four times before biting so if it's already tapped it four times then the fifth is a guaranteed bite.
While each size of fish shadow has its own selection of rare fish (big shadows sometimes get you a Blue Marlin, worth 10,000 Bells) and common ones (the bloody Sea Bass is only worth 200), it's important to try to catch every finned fish you see because the least valuable one (the Ocean Sunfish) is still worth a respectable 4000 Bells, whereas the most valuable one (the Shark) is worth a whopping 15,000 Bells.

As for bugs, you probably already know that you can slowly creep with the net by holding the A button, and let go to catch the bug.
For some of the rarest tree-climbing ones (like the Golden Stag and Horned Hercules), that still isn't enough and you may be frustrated when you creep towards a bug, only for it to still fly off before you reach it.
The answer is simple - creeping isn't the slowest you can move. Hold the A button but edge slowly toward the bug by slowly nudging the Circle Pad forwards. Eventually, you'll be able to get close enough that the edge of your net will hit it when you let go.
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14) Register your friends as Best Friends
When your gates are open, anyone on your 3DS Friends List can come and visit while you're playing. The problem is, the people you have registered on there may also be the sort of people who like wrecking Animal Crossing towns, and you may find yourself with trampled flowers, chopped down trees and stolen furniture.

To prevent this you should invite over a friend you trust, tap the friends icon on the bottom-left screen and mark them as a Best Friend by tapping the heart icon next to their name.The next time you open your gate you can choose to open it to Best Friends only, meaning other ne'er-do-wells can't get in.
Another benefit of having Best Friends is that if they add you as a Best Friend too, you can have text chats with them in-game without even having to visit their town. Just tap the heart icon on the touchscreen, tap your friend's name (if they're online) and you can send them a message which appears on-screen in their game.
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15) Build the most useful Public Works Projects
As the mayor, you're in charge of making the town look better by starting and funding Public Works Projects. While most of these are purely decorative like benches, signs and clocks, you'll occasionally get the chance to fund buildings that actually serve a purpose and don't just look pretty.

Here's a full list of the Public Works Projects that add something unique to your town, and how to get them added to your list of potential projects.
• Dream Suite: A week after unlocking the Public Works Projects option, ensure you've built at least one Project and have connected online at least once (either to visit someone or check for a DLC present at the Post Office). When you go into the mayor's office you may find Isabelle sleeping. Talk to her and she'll add the Dream Suite to the Public Works Projects list. The Dream Suite lets you visit towns from all over the world while 'sleeping', meaning you can do whatever you want in them (i.e. wreck them) and it won't affect their town in real life (visit our town, Bumtown, with the Dream Address 7700-2062-2633).
• House of Fortune: Once a week, Katrina the psychic will pitch a tent in the town square and offer to read your fortune. If you get your fortune read 20 times she'll ask you if she can get a House of Fortune added to the high street. It'll then be added to the Public Works Projects list.
• Museum Second Floor: Donate 20 items to the museum (at least one of which has to be a fish, bug, deep-sea creature, fossil and artwork from Redd), and talk to Blathers at least once on 14 different days. He'll then ask you if you can add a second floor to the museum, at which point it'll be added to the Projects list.

• Café: After building the second floor of the museum, seven days later (assuming you've donated at least 40 items) Blathers will recommend you build a café. The café initially seems useless (you can only buy coffee from it) but after buying coffee for 14 days you'll be asked if you want to work there, taking orders from customers. Get their orders right regularly and you'll earn Bells and special café furniture for your house.
• Police Station: There's no set way to trigger this, it gets suggested at random when you're talking to fellow villagers. When it opens (you can choose from either a modern or classic one - choose carefully, since you can only have one and can't demolish it), the police dog inside will tell you if any special visitors are currently in your town, and will also let you take any free goodies from the Lost and Found.
• Manhole: This is Mr Resetti's new home. When you turn the game off without saving, Resetti will appear when you next play and moan about it. He'll then say times are hard and he won't hassle you again... unless you build him a new surveillance manhole. It'll then be added to the Projects list.
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16) Unlock the furniture design feature
If you're still in the early stages of your Animal Crossing adventure you may have noticed that Cyrus, the blue alpaca in the Re-Tail shop, has been sleeping for a long time and shows no signs of waking up. Don't worry, he does eventually wake after seven days.

When he does, you'll need to meet three requirements before you can use his service. You'll need to have owned at least 50 pieces of furniture, you'll need to have owned at least 10 tops, and you'll need to have had total transactions of over 100,000 Bells with Reese at Re-Tail (be it from buying or selling).
After doing all that, Cyrus will let you bring furniture to him to customise. There are a few hundred types of furniture that can be changed (usually standard furniture like couches, beds and the like), and some can be combined with gems you collect to make special gem-coloured furniture.
Some even let you add your own designs, or designs other people have created (after you scan their QR codes). What's that, you ask? QR codes? Ah, right...
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17) Unlock the QR code feature
You may have already seen the numerous QR codes doing the rounds from Japanese gamers who've been playing New Leaf since it came out there last November. You may also be wondering how you can read and scan your own QR codes. The answer is you can't... well, not just yet.

To unlock it you have to talk to Sable, the moody Able Sister who sits at the sewing machine at the left-hand side of the shop. At first she won't say much to you, but keep talking to her every day and she'll get more and more chatty.
After ten days she'll finally let you use her sewing machine, which lets you read QR codes and create your own with your custom designs. We'll potentially be posting up some QR codes some time in the near future, but to test it out when you get it, here's a QR code for a Celtic football shirt, because we're nice like that.
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18) Upgrading your house
By the time you read this you'll probably be out of your tent and will be in a small house. You may even have already asked Tom Nook for your first expansion. By now you might be wondering how big your house will end up when it's all done. Here's the full process.

Starting from the tent, there are a total of nineteen loans to be paid. Your house initially starts with a 4x4 room. This can then be upgraded to 6x6 and finally 8x8. Once you do this you can then add a second floor, with another 4x4 room.
At this point you then get the choice to add extra rooms or expand the ones you already have up to 8x8. This eventually results in the biggest possible house with an 8x8 room on the second floor, four 8x8 rooms on the first floor and an 8x8 basement. The total cost for all this: 7,595,800 Bells.
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19) How to catch bees
For some, there's nothing more annoying than shaking a tree, only for a beehive to drop and an inevitable beesting to follow. For others, it's a welcome challenge. You see, it's tricky, but it's possible to catch bees before they get a chance to sting you.
To do it, get into the habit of selecting your tools with the D-pad. Every tool in your inventory can be toggled by pressing left and right on the D-pad, while pressing down puts the tool away. Before shaking a tree, make sure you're holding the net, then put it away.
Shake the tree from the side, because it means if a beehive drops, it'll drop on the other side. If it does, quickly run in the opposite direction at a slightly upwards angle, so the bees are temporarily trapped behind the tree trunk. After running a couple of screens' distance away, quickly tap left or right on the D-pad to bring out the net, hold A and face the direction the bees will be coming from. Let go at the right time and you'll catch the bees.

What's the point, you may ask? Well, bees are worth a healthy 2500 Bells and the beehive itself (don't forget to pick it up!) will net you an extra 500. Considering there are five beehives every day, that's 15,000 Bells a day if you get the hang of it, so practice.
If you absolutely despise bees and can't catch them for love nor money, open the gate to your town. For some reason, beehives won't appear when you do this.
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20) Find the silver and gold tools
Animal Crossing pros will know that each tool has a silver and gold equivalent, each of which is more efficient than the generic default one. Getting them all requires a completely different process now, though, so if you've already buried a shovel in the hopes of getting a silver shovel then you should probably dig it up again because that isn't how it's done this time. Here's how to get every special tool.

• Silver shovel: After building the second floor of the museum and donating 15 fossils, you can buy it from the museum shop. When you strike a money rock with the silver shovel, it sometimes produces ores instead of Bells.
• Gold shovel: Buy 50 fertilisers from the Garden Shop then talk to Leif to be given the gold shovel. It can be used to plant money trees.
• Silver axe: You can buy this from the island shop for eight medals, but it only appears on rare occasions. It's more durable than a normal axe and always creates a rare stump pattern when you cut down a tree.
• Gold axe: Buy 50 tree saplings from the Garden Shop then talk to Leif to be given the gold axe. It never breaks and can cut down trees faster.
• Silver net: Buy it from the second floor of the museum after donating 30 bugs. It's got a wider capture range than a normal net.
• Gold net:Talk to the bug catching tournament host after catching every bug type in the game. It's got an even wider capture range.

• Silver fishing rod: Buy it from the second floor of the museum after donating 30 fish. Fish are more likely to bite with it and will bite for longer.
• Gold fishing rod: Talk to the fishing tournament host after catching every bug type in the game. Fish are even more likely to bite and bite for even longer.
• Silver watering can: Buy 50 flower seeds from the Garden Shop then talk to Leif to be given the silver watering can. It's got a wider watering range than the normal one.
• Gold watering can: Talk to Isabelle after keeping 'perfect town' status for 15 days. It's got an even wider watering range.
• Silver slingshot: On rare occasions you'll see a balloon floating by with two silver balloons attached. Shoot it down with the slingshot to get the silver one, which fires two shots at once.
• Gold slingshot: After getting the silver one, on rare occasions you'll see a balloon floating by with three gold balloons attached. Shoot it down to get the gold slingshot, which fires three shots at once.
21) Look out for special sets
There are some furniture sets that can't be found in the shops and can only be earned through other means.

Some of these are 'event' furniture and are given out by special characters (you may have already received some bug-themed furniture by taking part in last weekend's Bug-off tournament, or you may have found Gulliver on the island, who'll give you a landmark statue if you answer a question right), while others can be found at any time by doing certain things.
Floating balloons, for example, can be shot down with the slingshot and usually give you balloon-themed furniture. Meanwhile, if you go diving in your town while Pascal is around and you find a scallop, he'll ask you to give him it in return for a piece of pirate-themed furniture. Mermaid furniture can only be bought at the island shop with medals earned from mini-games.
Getting one or two of each piece is nice but you should really strive to get full sets to ensure a higher Happy Home Academy score. Which brings us neatly to...
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22) The Happy Home Academy
Early every morning, without you noticing, the Happy Home Academy checks out your house and gives you a score based on how impressive the furniture in it is. Yes, it's sinister.
Though the general rule of thumb is that more is better, the type and placement of furniture is often just as important as how much stuff you have. Landmark statues (earned from Gulliver) are worth a lot of points on their own, whereas full sets of themed furniture will get you lots of bonus points (especially if you have the matching wallpaper and carpet too).

There are two reasons for building a high HHA score. The first is purely for bragging rights - when you StreetPass with someone your HHA score is presented alongside your house.
The second is more important - every time you hit a certain milestone score you'll be sent a rare item in the post that can't be earned any other way. If you speak to Lyle at the Nook's Homes shop (he appears after you pay off your first loan) he'll tell you what your current score is and give you specific advice on which furniture rates particularly highly for you and how you can improve.
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23) Put rarely-used tools in letters
Your pockets only have limited space, and that space is limited further when you're packing a fishing rod, watering can, net, shovel, slingshot and megaphone.

Some of these tools (particularly the last two) are rarely used but you'll still feel inclined to take them because if you don't have a slingshot when you see a floating balloon you're stumped and unable to get it.
To save some space, write a letter to yourself, save it in your letters pocket (which is a separate ten-space inventory) and attach the tool to it as a present.
Then, when you need to use it, simply go into your letters pocket and un-attach the present to get it back instantly.
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24) Learn emotions from Dr Shrunk
The villager character's constant maniacal grin has become something of an in-joke ever since he was revealed to be a character in the upcoming Smash Bros. game, but your character is capable of a lot more emotion. They just may not have access to it yet.

Once the Club LOL nightclub has been built (see tip 7 to see how to get it), pop in during the day before the club has officially opened and you'll see failed comedian Dr Shrunk cleaning up.
Give him some fruit (it doesn't matter which kind, so give him some of your own town's fruit since it's worth less) and he'll tell you a bad joke, teaching you a new emotion. You can then trigger that emotion any time you like through a new menu on the touch screen. This makes playing with friends more entertaining, and also lets you set the mood for any screenshots you take.
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25) Buy a Mii mask
If you can't be bothered with your villager's appearance and want to play as someone who looks a bit more like you, there's one easy solution.
Once the Shampoodle salon has been bought (see tip 7 to find out how to get it), head in there and get a makeover. When you're given the option of either hair, eyes or makeup treatment, choose makeup and you'll be given the option to buy a Mii mask for 3000 Bells.
It acts like headwear, so you can't put any other hats or glasses on top of it. You can also only buy one a day, so don't accidentally remove it five minutes later because it'll disappear and you'll need to wait until tomorrow to buy another.

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26) Visit the Dream Suite
If you don't have anyone in your Friends List, you can use the Dream Suite to visit random players' towns from all over the world, get inspiration on town design and even take back some of their custom patterns for use in your own town.

What's more, you'll also be given your own Dream Address, which other players can use to specifically visit your town in the Dream Suite. This is useful in two ways - firstly, it means you don't need to load up the game and open your gates any time a friend wants to see your town.
Secondly, since nothing that happens in the Dream Suite is permanent, you can give your Dream Address to people you don't trust or don't know so well and even if they go around chopping down all your tress and writing defamatory comments on your town noticeboard, your real village will be untouched.
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27) Use StreetPass to fill your catalogue
StreetPass functionality is something very few 3DS games make proper use of, so it'd be understandable if you dismissed the StreetPass functionality of New Leaf. You really shouldn't.

Any time you StreetPass someone with Animal Crossing New Leaf, their house will appear in the Happy Home Showcase at the top of the High Street. This means you can wander around their house and see how they've laid it out but, more importantly, if they have any furniture you don't have yet you can order it and have it sent to your mailbox (as long as it isn't rare or custom furniture).
This is great for completionists who want to fill their catalogue or are looking for that final piece to complete a set.

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28) Set up exhibitions at the museum
At first the museum is only used for donating bugs, fish, fossils and art, but once you add the second floor to it (see tip 15) you'll also be able to create up to four exhibitions.
Each exhibition essentially acts like a large room in your house so you can store whatever you like in it. We've used an exhibition to store all the Nintendo goodies you get with fortune cookies, since they don't rate too highly in the Happy Home Academy and therefore they take up space in our house (we've blurred the pic below to avoid spoilers).

You may want to have a clock exhibition so people think you're Doc from Back To The Future, or just fill a room with gyroids, or even completely random stuff. It's up to you. It's a nice way of displaying interesting furniture that you may not necessarily want in your house.
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29) Save designs with the Able Sisters
You'll quickly realise that only having ten custom designs to pick from at any time is greatly limiting. While there are thankfully some things that can be customised and don't take up one of these slots (such as the town flag and museum exhibition posters), others like floor tiles will change if you alter a design.

This becomes a greater problem if you like creating Pro designs (the more detailed outfits), but there are a couple of solutions. You can display up to eight of your own designs in the Able Sisters shop, and these don't count towards your eight custom designs in your inventory, essentially giving you a total of 18 designs.
Finally, if you talk to Mabel Able, she'll give you the option to save designs with her, up to a total of 72 designs. This means, in theory, you can have up to 90 designs saved in various locations in the game.

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30) How to get Badges
This will be the last thing you complete in the game, years from now. Animal Crossing: New Leaf actually has achievements but it keeps quiet about them.
Every time you reach a certain milestone, a sealion called Phineas turns up and wanders around the town until you talk to him, at which point he'll give you a badge. There are 24 badge types in total, each available in bronze, silver and gold varieties for a total of 72 achievements.

Some of them may seem extremely daunting, but don't forget this is a game that some people end up playing for years. Here's how to get them all.
• Catch 500 / 2000 / 5000 fish
• Catch 500 / 2000 / 5000 bugs
• Catch 100 / 200 / 1000 sea creatures (by diving)
• Catch 50% / 80% / 100% of fish types
• Catch 50% / 80% / 100% of bug types
• Catch 50% / 80% / 100% of sea creature types
• Pop 300 / 1500 / 5000 balloons
• Plant 100 / 250 / 500 flowers or trees
• Pull 500 / 2000 / 5000 weeds

• Put 1 million / 10 million / 100 million Bells into the ABD
• Make 500,000 / 3 million / 10 million Bells on the Stalk Market
• Spend 500,000 / 2 million / 5 million Bells in shops
• Have Cyrus redesign 30 / 100 / 200 things
• Complete 20% / 50% / 80% of the catalogue
• Get 50,000 / 100,000 / 150,000 points from the Happy Home Academy
• See KK Slider live 20 / 50 / 100 times
• Fulfil 50 / 100 / 200 villager requests
• Send 50 / 100 / 200 letters
• StreetPass 100 / 300 / 1000 times
• Visit other towns 100 / 250 / 500 times
• Be visited by others 50 / 200 / 500 times
• Visit 50 / 200 / 500 Dream Towns
• Play for 50 / 200 / 500 hours