The world might be crumbling into a full-on apocalyptic nightmare, but luckily Nintendo has delivered the latest edition of their social sim/”communication game” series, Animal Crossing. Its cute & colorful world of fishing, crafts, and zero-interest home loans is exactly the kind of stress-free diversion we all need right now. And the relaxing virtual world actually gives you a way to visit friends when physically doing so is completely out of the question.

Truly, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is The Game of 2020. So let’s keep calm and shovel on.

Now I’ve followed Animal Crossing since the first US release in 2002—I even described it as perfectly capturing the vibe of living in a rural Japanese village back in 2011—but I realize that New Horizons is the first introduction that many, many, many people will have to this wild world. So I’d like to share a few tips & tricks that will hopefully prove useful as you lazily stroll through this laidback island life simulator.

Money Trees

Each day you can find one golden glowy spot on the ground, where by using your shovel you can dig up a bag of 1,000 Bells. Now, instead of simply pocketing that money, you can put it right back into that golden hole in the ground, burying it to produce a Money Tree sprout. In about three days or so, the fully grown tree will bear fruit; three bags of cash for you to collect.

Turns out that delayed gratification triples your money!

But here’s the kicker: Each of the money bags your Money Tree produces will be equal to the amount of Bells you buried, up to 10,000. So to maximize your return, you should always bury more money in the ground than that original 1,000 Bells. But never bury more than 10,000 Bells, because everything over 10k will be wasted. If you don’t have 10,000 in your pockets, wait until you can collect more money that day before digging up the golden opportunity.

By the way, Money Trees only bear fruit—by which I mean cash—one time. So after shaking the Bells free, I generally like to chop my Money Trees down.

Hitting up rocks

While you could hit rocks with your shovel in previous Animal Crossing games, it wasn’t nearly as important as it is in New Horizon. Each day, one rock on your island will produce Bells when hit, which is a nice monetary treat. But since crafting is now a thing and—you need raw materials to make stuff—the non-money rocks are arguably more important. Hitting rocks fast enough will grant you up to eight items, which will be some random assortment of Iron nuggets, Clay, Stone, and rarer Gold nuggets.

In order to get the most out of your rocks, you’ll want to make sure to…

Strategically arrange a couple obstacles to prevent yourself from being knocked back, and...
That all eight squares around the rock are completely clear.

See, any objects sitting alongside your rock will take up a space that an Iron nugget or whatever could fall onto, thus limiting its output. This includes a stone already lying there, a stick, or even weeds and flowers, so just clear the space out beforehand. (This is also true when shaking fruit from trees. Do lose your stuff in the brush!)

For the strategically arranged obstacles, a couple of holes made by your shovel should do the trick. But if you’re planning ahead, you can always plant a tree in an opportune spot, or place two pieces of fencing just one plot away from the rock.

Digging up fossils

There are four fossils for you to track down and dig up each day, and this should be one of the daily chores you always do. If you want your town’s museum to flourish, you can donate newly found fossils there. On the other hand, if you don’t really care about the museum, you can just sell all the fossils (after you have Blathers assess them).

Even if you donate all new fossils diligently, you will eventually find that the museum has most (or all) the fossils you find on a given day. This means you’ll quickly be cashing in either way.

Crafting tips

Crafting is a new feature in ACNH, and you’re going to find yourself crafting a lot. It’s unfortunately a bit of awkward process, as the game doesn’t let you craft items in bulk or access any materials you aren’t literally carrying in your pockets. (Seriously Nintendo, why can’t you just access stuff from storage when you’re crafting in your own house?!) But here are a few things I recommend for making crafting as smooth as possible.

Mash that A Button the speed up the crafting animation.

Double-craft tools

Did you have a tool break? Craft two of that sucker!

Much like Zelda BOTW, Nintendo has made it so that all tools in New Horizons will eventually break. (Yes, even the Golden tools!) Alas, such is life. Even in this idyllic, conflict-free, safe space, all things are impermanent—whether it’s a shovel or every person you’ve ever loved. Anyhoo…

You need your tools, and it can be a real pain to suddenly be without one. So each time one breaks and you have collected the materials to craft a new one, craft two! Leave one in storage, or drop it on the ground just outside your house, and you’ll have a replacement ready at a moment’s notice.

Carry a crafting table with you

Depending on what you’ve got going on, coming back to your house every time you want to craft something can be a pain. I’ve found this is especially true when you’re putting up fencing on some far-flung part of the island. On those occasions, just throw a crafting table (plus some materials) into your pocket and take it with you.

A similar option to this is to generally leave crafting tables at key points around your island. Personally, I’ve had one set up outside of my house for most of the game, because I’ve often had wood and iron in my pockets and could craft new tools without going inside to access my storage. But hey, whatever works for you.

Get more crafting recipes

Crafting is important not just for making tools, but also for making furniture that you won’t be able to buy. In order to do this though, you’ll first need to get your hands new crafting recipes.

The most obvious source of recipes is from Message Bottles—one of which will wash up on the shore each day, so be sure to find it! Sometimes the presents you can get by popping a balloon with your slingshot will contain a recipe. And another source of recipes is from Tom Nook directly, and redeeming Nook Miles for them.

By the way, another daily chore you should probably try to accomplish each day is doing the five Nook+ activities which provide bonus miles. These are often things you might already be doing, but sometimes they are stupidly quick and easy to do. “Take a Photo” for example, can be done in a snap. “Use a Wardrobe to Change Your Look” takes no time at all…assuming you have a wardrobe-type item in your house. “Talk to Three Villagers” involves seeking out your animal pals, but is trivially easy. Be sure to do each of these things and then immediately pull up the Nook Miles phone app to collect your points.

Back to crafting, there is one other way to get new recipes worth mentioning. At any point in the day, one of your animal villagers is likely in their home, working on their crafting table. If you visit a villager’s house and catch them crafting, talk to them and they will give you a crafting recipe.

Here’s the best part, apparently you can do this up to three times a day: in the morning, afternoon, and night. If you play a little in the morning, find the crafting villager to get a recipe. Then, if you come back and play again in the evening, find the crafting villager now to get another recipe. This is a great way get more recipes much faster.

Shaking trees

Did you know that the original Japanese name for this game is “Animal Forest” (どうぶつの森)? And as such, I feel that trees have always been rather important to Animal Crossing. Ever since the original, you could grab ahold of trees and shake them, whether to get fruit to fall, or just because you were having a hard day.

And in New Horizons, you can still do the arbor shake to your heart’s content.

Obviously shaking a fruit tree will bring the fruit down, but shaking other trees can also produce interesting results. You can shake branches loose, which can then be used for crafting tools. Sometimes a little money will fall out of a tree. But sometimes—at least once a day—a piece of furniture will fall out. What a find!

Pro tip: Hold a net when you go shaking trees. Every now and then a wasp’s nest will fall and, if you’re not prepared, you’ll get stung. But the wasps aren’t too fast to attack in this game, so if you already have your net in hand, you can easily catch those little bastards before they have a chance to sting you.

Non-wasp bugs might also appear when you shake a tree, so having the net ready makes it simpler to catch those critters as well.

Chop trees with a Stone Axe

Wood is common crafting ingredient—appearing as regular Wood, Soft Wood, or Hard Wood—which you can get by chopping trees. Hit a tree three times with a metal axe though, and you’ll chop it down, leaving only a stump behind. To avoid accidentally felling your precious foliage, I recommend forging for wood by swinging a Stone Axe.

The Stone Axe will last much longer than a Flimsy Axe, but unlike its iron counterpart, it won’t ever chop anything down. This will allow you to harvest three pieces of wood from each tree and leave everything intact. This works the same way Bamboo as well. So if you want to save the tree, use a Stone Axe.

Buy new K.K. Slider tunes

Ok, this one might be more personal preference than pro-tip, but I recommend getting as much K.K. Slider tracks as you possibly can. Not only will you acquire more options to play through speakers in your house, but I think this might be a key part of completing Tom Nook’s mission to bring the Canine Crooner to your island.

One K.K. Slider song should be available through Nook Shopping everyday. Anytime you see a track that’s not already part of your collection, I recommend purchasing it. There are really great tunes in there, like Bubblegum, K.K. Jazz, K.K. House, Two Days Ago…the list goes on!

Once the Terrier Troubadour visits your island, he will return every Saturday, and anytime after 6 PM he will play whatever song you request. After playing his first tune, he’ll even give you a copy to take home. So if you request a new song from him directly, it’s another way to fill out your virtual vinyl collection.

Now please note: when making a song request from K.K. Slider, you have to spell the title 100% correctly, or he won’t know what you’re asking for. That means making sure you have the periods in there, as in “Go K.K. Rider” and not “Go KK Rider”.

Make an orchard (with non-native fruit)

You can shake fruit free from trees and sell for a small profit, but doing that with your starting fruit—whether it’s apples, oranges, cherries, pears, or peaches—will only take you so far. Your native fruit sells for 100 Bells each, but non-native fruit will sell for 500! (And coconuts are a middle ground, selling for 250 Bells each, but they only come in pairs.) The thing to do is first to collect some foreign fruit—whether through touring through random islands, trading with friends, or getting fruit in a letter from your Mom—did that only happen to me?—and then plant them to create your own orchard.

Now call me old school, but I very much enjoy the task of planting my various fruit trees around the island and the daily harvest thereafter. There’s something super tranquil about farming like this in Animal Crossing, and it never really feels like a chore to me.

There are definitely other ways to make more money much faster, like decimating a random tour island at night to make it spawn some tarantulas. (Speaking of which, if you save those arachnids to sell to Flick when he’s in town, you will make a very nice profit!) You could also use time traveling to rack up a ton of interest in your bank account, but those shady shenanigans kind of miss the point of this game altogether.

Animal Crossing is generally slow, and New Horizons in particular tends to spoon-feed you features at a downright glacial rate. But that slow pace is intentional; the chill “do whatevs—no pressure” style is key to what makes the game enjoyable. It is the ritual of it all—in combination with the seemingly endless opportunities for self-expression—that make Animal Crossing fun to play.

The journey was the destination all along!