Doing the Minimum

If you're speedrunning (to unlock customizations for base game homes on alt accounts) or just don't want to deal with the toilet lion, just:

  1. open up all the packages
  2. tell the client you're done
  3. press + to take a picture
  4. press B until you're back at Paradise Planning

Might seem obvious but I thought there would be some minimum level of interaction beyond that, and there isn't. Villagers have low standards for a vacation home!

Niko's Materials

There's info for speedrunners out there on milestones and unlocks, so I'll stick to the thing that I can never seem to find: What exactly does Niko ask for in the materials box? This info allows you to quickly prepare to make the minimum number of trips, either time traveling or day by day.

Total

In total, Niko asks for:

  • 30 branches
  • 10 wood
  • 10 hardwood
  • 10 softwood
  • 55 stone
  • 25 clay
  • 55 iron
  • 1 gold

So, one stack of each tree chopping material, one stack of each rock mining material, and an extra stack of stone and iron should cover it.

Daily

  1. Simple: 30 branches, 10 wood
  2. Concrete: 15 stone, 10 clay, 10 softwood
  3. Brick: 10 stone, 15 clay
  4. Steel: 15 iron, 10 hardwood
  5. Marble: 30 stone, 10 iron
  6. Golden: 1 gold, 30 iron

Polishing

There's a special trick to add complexity to your builds that I feel is underused—sure, you've heard of polishing, but have you heard of custom design polishing? You can assign a custom design to any of the polishing categories by pressing X and add some interesting effects.

A blue suit with an Objection! bubble like in an Ace Attorney game.

For example, here I've used the Chatterblurb polish and a custom design speech bubble to create a Phoenix Wright suit that shouts "Objection!" Because Chatterblurb is already a speech bubble, it obviously works well for this, but you don't have to stay in the same genre. Try setting something on fire [note] or adding a spooky/mystical vibe to a magic item. Play around and you might find something unexpected.

Dimensions

So you've sketched out a really cool design and you want it on your island. Great! But now you have to make it, and that means crafting. Just how many partitions/pillars/counters is that going to be for you to craft?!

A partition wall is 0.5 tiles thick, 2 tiles wide. Partition furniture is 1 tile square or 1 tile thick, 2 tiles wide. A pillar is 0.5 tiles square. Both counters are 1 tile square. Rooms in a player house are 8 by 8 (entry), 6 by 6 (side rooms), and 10 by 6 (second floor and basement).

So, to cover a wall entirely:

  • For partition walls and medium partitions, divide the wall length by two.
  • For pillars, multiply the wall length by two.
  • For counters and small partitions, take the wall length.

If alternating or only doing half:

  • For partition walls and medium partitions, divide the wall length by four.
  • For walls 6 or 10 tiles long, pick one:
    • Round up if partitions will be in both corners
    • Round down and add two pillars to cover exactly half
    • Round down otherwise
  • For pillars, take the wall length.
  • For counters and small partitions, divide the wall length by two.
  1. [Back] I cannot stress enough that I mean creating a picture of a fire in a video game. Please do not set random things on fire IRL to spark your creativity. Also, statistically speaking, you should probably check your smoke alarms.