Ready for your self esteem to take a serious hit? Well, then I think it’s time to visit Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer’s Happy Home Network. It’s a feature that allows everyone in-game to submit homes and facilities they’ve customized to an online database and share them with the world. At the same time, you can visit the homes and facilities others have created and rate them based on cuteness, uniqueness, coolness, and quality of life.
In short, everyone is going to have much better homes than you could ever hope to create and you’ll feel super bad about that.
At least, that’s how it is initially. When the update came in, I was super excited. I submitted a hospital design I was particularly proud of, as well as a home I’d prepared for one of my characters. I immediately regretted said decisions, because afterwards I went online to see what others had done, and everyone else’s design decisions were so much better. Let me reiterate that, so you really get the message. Everyone else is so much better.
Fortunately, the quality of work isn’t firmly established. After the initial shock wore off, it’s easy to see why these Japanese Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer players had accrued thousands of “Cutes,” “Cools,” and “Uniques.” A peek at any of their homes reveals the secret. They have all of the furniture. Their catalogs are obviously packed, because even after spending 30 hours with my copy of the game as I write this, I still don’t have all that cool stuff. Also, they have multiple rooms and second stories. There’s no way we can compete with that. (Yet.)
That, and the knowledge that no one has even seen any of my homes yet because there are tons of places upload, made me feel worlds better.
Here’s how the Happy Home Network works. After it’s unlocked, you can tap on your client list when in town to bring up an assortment of people you’ve worked with. This also shows the facilities in an additional tab. If there’s a house you’re particularly proud of, you can tap the red computer in the bottom of the touch screen to upload it to Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer’s network. You can even allow custom patterns to be shared.
Once it’s submitted, you’re pretty much done! All that’s left to do is share the QR code or ID number for your place and wait, hoping people will visit and rate it. In the meantime, you can search other people’s creations by facility type, character, or quality rating. You can even shake things up by primarily looking for homes that are “Unique” or “Cool,” or maybe only searching for places that fall under “Cute” and “I’d Live Here.” You can also check in to see how your properties are doing, but a watched home never accrues compliments.
I find it easiest to go with the QR code sharing method. People get a quick image of the home, to see if it’s worth visiting. If they like it, they open up Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, bring up the Happy Home Network, choose the QR reading option, and they’re set.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is available now for the Nintendo 3DS. Your homes may not look as ridiculously amazing as the top ranked ones on the Happy Home Network, but give it time. Soon, your reign will begin.
