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shitposting-extraordinaire · 4 years

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College was a terrible time for me. And Animal Crossing was my savior. Throughout all the turmoil, it gave me this cozy reprieve from the madness.

As with any open-ended game of the sort, I made a project for myself. Making a story town for the dream suite - not a horror town, as many people try, a mystery. And reexploring my town after so long yielded so many details I’d totally forgotten, and some that still rang clear as day. And now that everyone's moved on from New Leaf, I think it would be fun to explore that old story.

So if you’re in for a long story about a forgotten passion project, click read below.

(Dream code is, sadly, now inactive)

For atmosphere, I suggest you listen to the town theme that would have been playing when you visited. The dream-town was accessed at 1am, so this song below would be playing softly over the tragic town of Opalvale. As this was early april, I invite you to imagine the cherry blossom petals that would slowly drift across the whole town.

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My town was lovingly landscaped - and coated in flowers. This is what you’d open up to, with the two empty spaces being where the dream suite bed would lie. If you put on the four pieces of clothes provided, you’d get...

...your first hint something was up. Because most of the town was very traditionally pretty. With this being early April, the cherry blossoms would be in full bloom.

And some decidedly not so cute details.

Unsure if dream sutie villagers could tell you what nicknames they called the player, I had all of my villagers call my character “murderer.” But let’s get into the story proper. Not with the main character herself, but the house closest to where you would start. That would be the church.

One of three humans, Joan was the priestess of the village. If spoken to, she’d say, “Stay safe, my child.”

Inside was a traditional church setup, with pipe organs, mannequins as parishoners, and a few side rooms with no relevance to the plot.

But if you creeped behind the pipe organ, you could find a secluded room extremely relevant to the plot.

A memorial of some kind is in session. Black flowers for mourning surrounded by votive candles and offerings. The markings on the wall read “Tu Fui Ego Eris,” a traditional epitath. K.K. Lullaby tinks away on the gramophone, griddled with static reflecting the time passed. And in the middle, in a pure white frame is a photo of the villager Whitney. If you lingered enough, the lullaby would play a series of strange, disorienting triangle waves right at the end.

This would not be Whitney’s last appearance.

If you head up to Joan’s bedroom, there was one more detail - a map on her wall with a red X.

All that remains of this house is a basement room of no import. But related to the memorial room, at the top left corner of the town...

A small graveyard, with four graves, surrounded by fresh flowers. Three graves bear perfect fruit trees, and if you dig into the spot;

A grim detail. If you dig into the spot below the dead tree, where there is no gravestone, however;

A hat that, if worn, is revealed to be just a skull. Whitney’s presumably. But Whitney’s house is gone, she not among the villagers, you cannot investigate her house. But of the remaining two, one house is much closer.

Regina, the blue-haired DJ, and her home is full of details pertaining to Whitney.

The main room is a concert venue, with shirts on display showing various villagers at instruments. The mannequin is clearly Regina, but who are the other five shirts?

Most of the house is simply other rooms in the concert hall.

The basement is especially irrelevant, but looks neat.

The backroom, however;

This appears to be a writing room, with the whiteboard, some instruments around. There are four cushions around the room, meant to resemble documents. A fifth hangs on the wall, with the same pattern as the cushions;

“ＷＨＩＴ．ＰＡＹＯＵＴ“

Five insurance payouts, all in the band room. A band shown to have six members. And if you look at the photo in the memorial chamber, you can see Whitney is wearing a specific shirt that’s on display.

Whitney was on second guitar. Regina got one payout, leaving four to the other band members. To identify them, though, we’ll have to go to the final house.

This is Exie, and if you speak to her, she says in letters affected with accent marks and random capitalization, “I’m nOT aLloWEd tO sPeaK...” This is the village who, if the animals talk, will refer to as “murderer.”

Like her home exterior and outfit, Exie’s foyer is pontzy and extravegant. Exie’s home is the most interesting of the three for many reasons. The backroom is strikingly out of place.

To the right is a bar with melancholy music, to drown her woes.

And to the left, a study. If you rotate the camera, there’s a similar payout on the desk, only this one has been denied - by the killer, not allowed to talk.

Or is she?

The basement is barren, but most of the furniture inside is directly from Whitney’s default house design. Only now, there is money scattered around - wealth from both Whitney and Exie, presumably - as well as swords and skeletal models, foreboding symbols both. The fireplace crackles like static - perhaps it’s simply a memory for Exie? A look into her mind? And in her mind there are three mannequins.

One wears all the same clothes as Exie. One bears a wolf hood, Whitneys shirt, and white pants. Above these two is a scrolling sign with a heart pattern. Past lovers, now forever parter.

Curiously, there’s a third person in the room, wearing two things. A heart shirt - an unrequitted lover? - and an ever foreboding skull hood.

Exie loved Whitney. Someone else loved - Whether they loved Whitney and were furious as her lack of interest, or if they loved Exie and wanted Whitney gone, who can say. But it appears there was a third party in this crime. Despite the public opinion and denied life insurance payout, Exie was innocent. Perhaps the trauma led her to obsess over another - hence the shrine to Kevin - as a coping mechanism?

Upstairs in their twin bedroom is a chorus of singing lullaboids. And as you noticed, there’s tons of villager pictures around the room.

Using these pictures, you can see everyone’s default outfit, and figure out the rest of the band members who got insurance payouts.

Fang the wolf appears to be the vocalist. Klaus the bear was singer and lead guitar. Whitney on second guitar, Benjamin the dog on bass, Freckles the duck on drums, and Regina as a dj. Could one of them be the unrequited lover? A person furious at Whitney who also stood to gain financially?

Much of the town exterior is simply pretty. This extends to a well kept beach, with a curious arrangement of trees.

The same arrangement, in fact, as the map on the wall of the priestess’s room. If you dig in the hidden dig spot, you get;

...A secret of little relevance. Although, this can help in one small way. The graveyard is in the upper left corner of the town, bordering a small patch of land.

Barely a sliver of beach is inaccesable without a wetsuit, and from the cliff face you can see something has been buried. This is the only spot left in the town.

An outfuit, buried so long it’s gone to rot, a skeleton, and an axe. The skull without a body in the graveyard was disposed of here. You have discovered Whitney’s corpse, buried where no one could find it... save the preacher, who seems only tangential to the case.

If you noticed, there are five dig spots, one hidden behind the tree. The final clue, something left by the murderer... perhaps accidentally.

A single pink feather, small enough the killer missed it.

There is only one bird villager. A pink bird, in fact, who was a member of the band. Freckles, the pink bird who lives closest to the cemetary and body dump. The same color as the pink shirt representing the unrequitted lover. Who would have matched perfectly with the bright pink diving suit buried.

What happened exactly is meant to be for the player’s imagination. Freckles is the likeliest killer. But what of Joan? She knew the location of the diving suit buried. Did she simply bury it herself, perhaps at Freckles order? Or was the feather left to incriminate her?

Either way, the picture is far clearer than the simple idea that Exie killed her. Freckles and likely Priestess Joan were in some way involved.

Such is the story of Opalvale. What became of the band and it’s members, who can say. But the player, as the detective, has found the most important clues to the truth. The player can put the story to an end.

I don’t type this all because I’m boasting about a project I did years and years ago. It’s because this is a time capsule for me.

In the midsts of the lowest point of my life, New Leaf gave me sanity. To go back and discover this town was to discover that, at this point in my life, I still had a creative drive drilling away at my mind. Even in the mists of despair, I crafted a surprisingly intricate story in a game that was in no way made to house tales of murder and intrigue.

I share this as a thank you to the me of the past, who felt he had nothing to live for. This is a thank you to the me who found it in his heart to love this silly game and all his villagers, even as he swirled into chaos.

Even now, when I need a background town name in writing, I usually go for Opalvale. Perhaps with New Horizons, I’ll do something similar.

But that night is over. Opalvale will forever be the past. May the future be bright... and similarly decorated with wistful new Animal Crossing memories.

#Animal Crossing #Animal Crossing New Leaf #ACNL #Animal Crossing New Horizons #ACNH #Long post

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