my personal animal crossing hard mode rules

​With the hype surrounding nintentalk‘s animal crossing hard mode challenge and a recent itch to hang with some virtual animals again, I knew I had to jump on the bandwagon.

I’m not following the official hard mode rules but I am using quite a lot of them for my personal gameplay and wanted to keep track of them somewhere so here we go!

p.s. I share my island updates sometimes on twitter and instagram if you want to see how my progress is going :)

p.p.s. please show all the love and support to the hard mode challenge creator nintentalk for getting the animal crossing community excited about the game again!

getting started

• island name must be generated by a random name generator
• you may only re-roll your map options one time
• starting villagers must have their tents placed where they ask you to

daily rules

• only can time travel by changing time from am to pm or vice versa :)
• tools have to be crafted, not bought
• must complete all five nookmile+ tasks daily
• only one mystery island, happy home paradise project, or the kapp’n island per day (with the exception of villager hunts)
• must purchase one thing from nook’s and one thing from able’s every day
• must participate in daily stretching every day until all relevant nook mile achievements are complete
• must get coffee at brewster’s every day until all relevant nook mile achievements are complete
• must complete the daily npc quests
• must give a scallop to pascal daily until all relevant diys are collected

villager rules

• you must get each villagers photo before they are allowed to leave your island
• once you have a villager's photo and they ask to move, you must let them leave
• once a villager’s house is placed/a new villager moves into an existing plot, you may not move it again until you have the villager’s photo
• max 10 nmt per villager hunt
• you may only gift one villager a day in person but if you send them gifts via letter you can gift the remaining villagers daily
• sanrio villagers can only be scanned in to replace a villager that you have a photo of already

​economy rules

• no trading except to get the three fruits you cannot get on your own
• you may only play the turnip market (buy + sell) on your own island
• you may only sell bugs + fish to flick and cj
• weeds can only be sold to leif
• you may only sell crafted items and natural resources + items (fossils, gyroids, seashells, wasp nests, fruit, flowers, sea creatures, etc.) to nook’s shop
• no more than two of each fruit tree and six coconut trees allowed on the island.
• unwanted furniture, flooring, wallpaper, and clothing can be sold at the donation box or gifted to villagers
• you may only grow 6 of each type of crop on the island
• money trees can only be planted with the 1,000 bells you dig up from the gold spot
• your villagers are responsible for opening the stalls at harv’s island completely through their donations (minus you initially opening them with the minimum donation)
• all new art/bugs/fish/fossils must be donated before selling duplicates

design rules

• you must make your own island flag and town tune
• you must display clothing designs that you made yourself at able’s for your villagers to wear
• you can use other creator’s qr codes :)

I will probably update some of these limitations as my island progresses, but here’s what I’m sticking to for now.

Oh, and if you started a hard mode island, how is it going so far??