Top 10 Things Animal Crossing: New Horizons Doesn't Tell You

Walking along the beach is already on your daily “to do” list of course, but if collecting seashells and going fishing are the only sub points on there, then you’re missing something super helpful! Every single day a message in a bottle will spawn somewhere on the shore delivering you a new DIY recipe to build something new. The more DIY recipes, the better your island life! Sometimes you'll even spot Gulliver washed up on your shore! Make sure to help him out if you do!

First of all, you'll have up to 8 chances to hit a rock with your shovel or axe and earn either minerals or, if you’re hitting your one Money Rock for the day, bells. However, each time you hit the rock, you'll get knocked back, and the rocks are on a timer, so if you don’t hit them all 8 times within the time, better luck next time. So to maximize the numbers of successful swings you can take, stand diagonally from the rock and dig two holes right behind where you would normally be knocked back. Now you should have zero problem getting eight hits every time.

Yup, you heard that right. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, each time you eat a fruit, a little counter will appear confirming how many you’ve eaten. Now, if you’re expecting that when you eat 10 you’ll go Super Saiyan or something, sadly you’ll be wrong, but what it does do is: each fruit you eat will allow you to do one thing that requires a ton of strength to do, like completely destroying a rock or digging up an entire full-grown tree like you’ve been training for a Caber Toss all your life. So if you don’t want to destroy a rock but you’re armed and ready to do so, you can use a toilet to "poop" out the extra fruit. Orange you glad you know that now. I’m sorry. Oranges are my native fruit-- I had to it to ‘em.

You know how you have to wait until you see the right animation before you can catch a fish? Well, for those rare fish that let go of the line way too quickly, try hitting “A” when you hear the fish bite rather than seeing it. Scientifically, your ears have greater reaction time than your eyes. And if you're still struggling, you can try catching them while playing in Handheld Mode as some TV's have minor latency that can reduce reaction time. You’ve got this! Or should I say… “You caught this”.

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the land you’re dealing with this time around is your own personal island. An island that’ll always have a beach around these three edges. But, did you know that some maps also have a small north facing beach? If you’re not sure whether you have one or not, just pop up your map and check if there’s a small sandy area at the top. Usually, they’ll be hidden behind cliffs, so you might need a ladder to access it. If you’re lucky enough to have one and need to get away from the rest of your getaway island, change the camera angle and enjoy the view.

Trying to make some extra bells and wish there was some sort of stock market in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Well there is! For Turnips! If you get a turnip, don’t waste it by eating it, sell it! Turnip prices have one value before noon and another after. Turnip value will either slowly rise to a bit above 200 over the course of a few days or have a random spike above 500 for one of those periods. Also, avoid selling on Saturdays. Prices rarely go above 200 bells.

This one’s plain and simple. Managing the storage space you have, especially earlier on or the more stuff you make, buy, and collect (which is the whole point of the game), can be super frustrating. Our advice: Don't put off paying off Tom Nook's debt. Just upgrading from a tent to a house is a big help, but the more rooms you have in your house, the more storage you'll have. So if you’re low on space, keep that in mind and keep working on giving Tom Nook what he wants!

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, money does grow on trees! As you probably already know, when you see a glowing spot on the ground, you can dig it up and find a bag of 1,000 bells. If you rebury it or throw in an amount of your choice, a Money Tree will grow in a few days. Something to keep in mind when planting bells in a golden slot is that you can plant up to 10,000 bells for three times that amount. You can add more but you won't get more than 30,000… usually. Some have reported making a bit extra, but this seems to be purely by chance so don't count on it.

While Gold Nuggets can be valuable to sell early on, you'll want to consider hanging on to them. Not only because they’re rare to find in the first place, but because you'll be able to craft Gold Tools with them. Gold Tools last way longer than your average tool. Obtaining the DIYs to be able to upgrade your tools is already quite a bit of effort in the first place, so the last thing you’ll want, after all that, is to have to hunt Gold Nuggets down.

Tarantulas and Scorpions sell for a whopping 8,000 Bells each, so how can you find more of them faster? Buy a Nook Miles Ticket and shovel down some fruit, cause we’re going on a journey to destroy absolutely everything! There actually is a chance of landing on a “Tarantula Island”, but the odds are pretty slim, so the landscape of certain Mystery Islands can allow you to spawn a greater number of Tarantulas or Scorpions. After 7:00 PM, head over to Dodo Airlines and take a Mystery Island Tour. Clear the island of all trees, stumps, rocks and flowers (you can ignore the weeds), place things on the beach if needed, and make sure to scare away any other bugs on the island. Once everything is clear, the spawn rates for the deadly insects will greatly increase. Also, keep an eye out for Flick! He’ll buy them from you for 12,000 bells each!