Who said it my island

You mean Ireland? Stephen : Yeah. It's mine. Hamish : You're a madman. Stephen : [nods and starts laughing, then Hamish does as well] I've come to the right place, then. Stephen : Fine speech. Now what do we do? William Wallace : Just be yourselves. Hamish : Where are you going? William Wallace : I'm going to pick a fight. Hamish : Well, we didn't get dressed up for nothing. Stephen : I didn't like him anyway.

He wasn't right in the head. Stephen : The Almighty says this must be a fashionable fight. It's drawn the finest people. Hamish : What the hell are the Irish doing fighting with the English? Stephen : I wouldn't worry about them.

Didn't I tell ya before? It's my island. William Wallace : Hamish, ride ahead to Edinburgh and assemble the council. Order it. Hamish : Right. William Wallace : Your island? Stephen : My island!

Lillian Goulston would know. Earlier this year, the mischievous Animal Crossing player found her island rating plateauing no matter what she did, but rather than giving up, she peeked behind the curtain.

Using a guide, she found out exactly how the game rates islands. Broadly speaking, New Horizons likes it when you have furniture spread across the island from a variety of different sources, from shopping to crafting.

Goulston decided to game the system. She ended up placing 50 campfires, 20 stone stools, 15 log stakes, and 10 streetlamps across her island. Then, she haphazardly put down cheap fencing in silly formations, because Isabelle is obsessed with fencing. Goulston topped all of this off by tapping into her storage, pulling out stuff that she knew she was never going to use. She got the coveted five stars and a golden watering can for her trouble. And her island looked horrible.

Implicit in this experiment, Goulston said, is the question of whether a video game can truly judge something as subjective as beauty. A mechanic that incentivizes checklist completion runs counter to the fun of the game. Nintendo Switch consoles are often sold out, but you can still pick up the handheld-only Switch Lite, which is perfect for portable gaming.

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A New Horizons player, Dylan, said he started the game using Facebook Groups to buy and sell turnips to turn huge profits. I did this too. And, indeed, this is true for a lot of players. So many of us have fallen into that trap, when the excitement and playful dread turns into something that feels more like work than play. Letting go of an island that brings up those emotions makes New Horizons something new. Malindy Hetfeld, a games writer and New Horizons player, told Polygon that returning to an in-progress island felt like a chore.

And so Hetfeld restarted. Losing those would be devastating, for some players with hundreds of hours worth of progress in building their collections. For that problem, clever Animal Crossing players with multiple Switch consoles have a solution. No one can make this decision for you, to restart or renovate. It depends on what New Horizons is to you. The joy of forever having new bugs to bring to the museum, or the joy of never having to go fishing again.