Some Animal Crossing players express their creativity through designing clothes. Others wow us with their interior and exterior island designs. Meanwhile, there are a small group of creative people who focus on their maps instead.
In today’s Lost Gamer Animal Crossing New Horizons article, we’re featuring these fantastic map artists and their creations.
Terraforming ain’t easy. And if you get a headache from even attempting it, I don’t blame you – I know I had my fair share of terraforming headaches! So this is no small feat for these artists.
If you wanna do what they do, we’ve gathered 10 amazing Animal Crossing map ideas to inspire you.
Let’s get to terraforming!
Best Animal Crossing Map Ideas (Easy)
1. Pascal-inspired Island
Source: u/Fox-and-Otter on Reddit
Fan of Pascal the red otter? Have him welcome your visitors like this! Pascal is pretty chill, and having him greet your guests with a “hey maaan” is a genius idea.
To do this, you’ll have to terraform a lot. But u/Fox-and-Otter shows that you can use the soil, grass, and hill levels to “draw” on your map like this.
2. “Boo! Keep Out!” Island
Source: sonia.k.acnh on Instagram
Nothing says “keep out of my island” than a sign on the map itself that says keep out. There’s even a spooky ghost blob that’s smiling, a cute pumpkin patch, a mushroom, and an alien, and I guess they’re all shooing us away too.
I know it says keep out, but we seriously want to visit this island now for its adorable details!
The shapes on this map show us that we can basically doodle on our island by terraforming and it’ll show up on our map like this. Thanks for the idea, sonia.k.acnh!
3. Kingdom Hearts-inspired Island
Source: chrys.crossing on Instagram
Kingdom Hearts fans, let me see your hands up! For this entry, this beloved game series from Square Enix and Disney takes centerstage.
Creator chrys.crossing showed their love for Kingdom Hearts by designing their island with the game in mind. Not only is the map KH-themed, there’s artwork of Sora and other characters on the ground too.
Sections of the island are also references to KH locations. There’s Twilight Town, the Old Mansion, Clock Tower, and more. If you’re a Kingdom Hearts fan, definitely give this place a visit.
4. Archipelago-inspired Islands
If you want to continue the tropical theme of New Horizons through your map, you can do what these two amazing creators did to their islands. You can turn the entire place into a big archipelago, with tiny isles here and there.
This can be quite a challenge since terraforming and waterscaping aren’t easy. You also have to arrange houses and buildings as well. But take it to step by step, and the isles of your dreams will soon be a stone’s throw away!
5. Moon-centric Island
Have the moon be the center of your map with this impressive map idea from danjodesu.
Aside from having a mini-moon isle at the center of the whole island, danjodesu also balances other elements of the island properly.
The houses can be found surrounding the moon, his character houses and shops are all lined up at the top, and there are two flower ponds on each side of the map.
Beautiful and balanced!
6. Circles and Symmetry
Continuing on the concept of symmetry and balance, lisalange on Instagram showed us that circles are the best form when it comes to symmetrical shapes.
The villager houses are arranged to surround the island buildings and shops. Circular ponds and gardens are placed at the center too.
For those who want to design their island but dislike the clutter of random hills and ponds and rivers, you’ll like this map style.
7. Blathers-inspired Island
Your Animal Crossing map can be a form of fanart too!
Reddit user u/PM_ME_A_COLOR drew or terraformed the fossil-loving but bug-disliking Blathers on their map.
They added details that relate to Blathers, like a fossil and his catchphrase. They also smartly alternated the soil part with the different greens to add depth to the illustration.
Hoo! Quite clever.
8. Celeste-inspired Island
Celeste is a beloved character in the Animal Crossing series, so it’s no surprise that a lot of players try to have Celeste-themed things in the game. From mimicking her dress to having her as a firework, Celeste is a big part of the game for a lot of players.
But having her as an ACNH map design is probably the biggest of them all. Here, Twitter user @molipps923 terraformed their island to make it Celeste-themed.
The details are quite fun! There are planets and star islands around her. The houses line up on her eyebrows, too. And on top of her head is the museum with the owl mark!
9. Starry Celeste-inspired Island
Designing your map to look like Celeste is really impressive, but using the houses and buildings as stars and constellations takes it to another level.
Reddit user u/lucky_719 got inspired by u/PM_ME_A_COLOR’s Blathers-inspired island and made their own Celeste-themed map. But with this one, they incorporated Celeste’s love of the night sky.
Aside from the house constellations, they also added sparkly ponds and a crescent moon. Lovely and magical!
10. Timmy and Tommy-inspired Island
We might have to pay huge loans to Tom Nook in exchange for our stay in Animal Crossing, but this business-savvy tanuki is actually pretty generous to us. When you think about it, he lets us pay our loans whenever.
What better way to show your gratitude to him by dedicating your map to the great Tom Nook and his little assistants? ACNH map artist extraordinaire @Meguru157 did just that with their map.
What makes this even more impressive is that this was done just a couple of weeks after the game was released. During the early days of Animal Crossing New Horizons, @Meguru157 wowed everyone with what you can do with terraforming.
Their artistic map abilities continue to this day. Here is other map art they did in Animal Crossing.
Quite inspiring, right?
Now, get your thinking hats, brainstorm ideas for your animal crossing island and map, then get your safety hats for some terraforming!
