If you’ve never played an Animal Crossing game before, it might seem a bit overwhelming. Here are 13 important things you should know as you settle you island.
Deserted islands are usually rife with insects, and your new island adventure in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is no exception. Bugs can be found and caught all over the island at any point during the year. Bugs can be sold for money, given as gifts, donated to the museum, or displayed as furniture. What you do with them is up to you.
To catch a bug, approach it with your net equipped, taking care to hold down A to sneak up slowly. Once you’re within reach, release the A button and your net will spring forward to grab the critter. If you miss, you might be able to nab the bug by mashing the A button, but sometimes bugs will flee. It takes practice, so don’t be discouraged if you find that you’re scaring away more bugs than you’re catching at first.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a total of 80 insects, which is eight more than in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Below, we go over everything that can affect how and when bugs spawn. You’ll also find a table listing all the bugs we’ve caught so far in both the northern and southern hemispheres, their spawn locations and dates/times, and the number of Bells you get for selling them.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons wouldn’t be complete without Blathers the owl and his museum. Like in previous games, collecting every type of fossil, bug, and fish is a huge part of the gameplay in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so having a place to show off your collection is important. The museum fills in that role, showcasing every specimen you have donated in a spectacular way and allowing your villagers and other players to admire your contributions as well.
Below we detail the step-by-step process of building the museum on your island. If you’re curious about how to unlock other buildings, be sure to check out our Animal Crossing: New Horizons guide hub. Otherwise, be sure to read our review in progress.
How To Unlock The Museum
From day one you can start the process of unlocking the museum. On your first day on the island, after the tutorial section, Tom Nook will accept five different fish or bugs. He is gathering these in the hopes that the native flora and fauna on the island will be enough to entice Blathers to move to the island. It works, of course–after handing in the fifth specimen, Blathers will ring Tom Nook and agree to arrive on the island the next day.
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the first official building you can construct on your island is Nook’s Cranny, a small shop that provides more options than what is on sale inside the Resident Services tent. Here, Timmy and Tommy sell a number of different furniture, wallpaper, and flooring options that change every single day. Basic tools, DIY recipes, medicine, tree saplings, and flower seeds are also for sale.
Below we detail the step-by-step process of unlocking Nook’s Cranny on your island. If you’re curious about how to unlock other buildings, be sure to check out our Animal Crossing: New Horizons guide hub. Otherwise, be sure to read our review in progress.
How To Unlock Nook’s Cranny
On the second day you play the game, Tommy will ask you to help him and his brother build a general store on the island. To do so, you will need to collect a lot of natural resources: 30 wood, 30 softwood, 30 hardwood, and 30 iron. You can get all the wood types by hitting trees with a flimsy axe, which won’t cut down the trees, and you can hit rocks with either an axe or a shovel to get iron. We recommend using a shovel and digging two holes behind you before you start hitting the rock; you get more materials out of a rock if you hit it multiple times in quick succession, so bracing yourself beforehand will eliminate recoil and the need to readjust. You should be able to hit the rock eight times and get eight resources out of it if you do it right.
Fishing is one of the main pastimes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and living on an island presents many opportunities to catch a wide range of fish. Fish can be sold, handed into the museum, given as gifts to villagers, or displayed as furniture. What you do with them is up to you.
To catch a fish, find a fish-shaped shadow in the water around the island and equip any kind of fishing rod. While facing the water, press A to cast your line–though you will not cast properly if you are too far away from the edge of the water. Wait for your fishing rod’s floater to submerge under the surface of the water and quickly press A again to reel in the fish. Pressing the A button too quickly or too slowly can result in a failure, scaring away the fish.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a total of 80 fish–that’s eight more than Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Below, we’ve broken down everything that can affect how and when fish spawn. We also have a table listing every fish we’ve caught so far in both the northern and southern hemispheres, their spawn locations and dates/times, and the number of Bells you get for selling them.
The film, which was among the first video game movies ever, debuts on April 1, and no, this is not an April Fools joke. Here’s a silly message from Netflix announcing the addition of Mortal Kombat.
MORTAL KOMBAT* (on Netflix in the US on 4/1) *yes I said MORTAL KOMBAT (1995) is good, fight me pic.twitter.com/qMhsD7cY0U
Professional racing drivers are making a temporary jump to virtual racing as the motorsport world screeches to a halt while countries all over the globe attempt to limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Pro NASCAR, IMSA Sportscar Championship, and Australian Supercars drivers will be competing in a host of different events via iRacing.
iRacing is a subscription-based PC racing simulator that has existing partnerships with a long list of real-world motorsport organisations and is favoured by professionals as the best in its class.
NASCAR in action in iRacing.
NASCAR has announced a new invitational series dubbed the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. The series will feature competitors from the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series, as well as the truck series and other “NASCAR dignitaries.” NASCAR’s real events through until May 3 have currently been postponed.
“Until we have cars back on track, the entire NASCAR community has aligned to provide our passionate fans with a unique, fun, and competitive experience on race day,” said NASCAR vice president of racing development Ben Kennedy. “Our long-time partners at iRacing offer an incredible product and we are excited to see how many of our best drivers will stack up in the virtual domain of competitive racing.”
The series will feature Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Larson, and Christopher Bell and begins this Sunday, March 22 on the virtual version of Homestead-Miami Speedway. NASCAR notes the remaining race and broadcast details will be confirmed at a later date.
The 90-minute Sebring race will use GTLM class race cars.
In addition, North America’s International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) has similarly announced that it will be hosting a virtual 90-minute, single-class iRacing shootout this weekend to mark the 12 Hours of Sebring. The real 12 Hours of Sebring was supposed be held this weekend but has been postponed until November.
“IMSA is committed to delivering a realistic racing experience to our fans, competitors, and partners this weekend,” said IMSA president John Doonan. “Most IMSA drivers use iRacing or other simulators on a regular basis to sharpen their skills and prepare for upcoming races. This weekend, they will do it in front of an audience. We are grateful to iRacing and many of our other partners for creating this opportunity to entertain our loyal IMSA fans.”
The entrants will include WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge drivers and the race will be streamed on iRacing’s Twitch channel and the iRacing eSports Network on YouTube.
iRacing added the ZB Commodore and Mustang Supercars in December 2019.
Finally, Supercars Australia has revealed it too will run a virtual racing series to fill the gap for fans, also using iRacing (which was the platform for last year’s Supercars Eseries). The series will be broadcast live on Fox Sports, Kayo, and Supercars.com, as well as Supercars’ social media channels and Twitch.
The driver line-up is yet to be confirmed but Penrite Racing driver Anton De Pasquale is keen to get involved.
“I’ll definitely put my hand up and take part because it’s something I do a bit of now anyway,” De Pasquale told Supercars.com. “I’ve got a sim at home which I have a bit of fun on and hang out with some mates and do that kind of stuff, and then we have the one at Erebus too which we take a bit more seriously and use for development and training with myself.”
Supercars has pumped the brakes on the real series’ next three rounds (Tasmania, New Zealand, Western Australia) following the cancellation of last weekend’s Australian GP support races.
This isn’t the only virtual racing attracting real-life drivers, either. Last weekend’s ‘Not the AUS GP’ (hosted by Veloce Esports with Codemasters’ F1 2019) featured McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris and Mercedes Formula E driver Stoffel Vandoorne amongst others, and RaceRoom Racing Experience developer Sector3 also recently announced its upcoming online ‘VIP Race’. Sector3’s race will feature drivers from the World Touring Car Cup, the BTCC, the GT Masters, and the WEC. The race is being broadcast this Saturday via YouTube.
