Fan-made Animal Crossing browser game lets you design your New Horizons island

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is just around the corner, and players are excited to have more creative freedom than ever when designing their island. Fans can even get a head start on planning out their island before the game releases, thanks to a browser game called Happy Island Designer. 

The in-browser game, designed by Eugeneration on Github, contains a map of an island that you can use to plan out your New Horizons home. Players can add and move trees, rivers, buildings, and other infrastructure such as bridges, and begin to get an idea of what their island will feel like. Since you can pick where new villagers choose to move in in New Horizons, experimenting with the layout of the map can help fans imagine where they’d like their neighbors to live and how their community will flourish. 

New Horizons will also let players terraform their island, allowing you to dig out sections for rivers and ponds or build up land to create hills or fill in ponds for the first time in any Animal Crossing game. It’s a lot to think about and plan out before you pick up the game, but Happy Island Designer makes it easier.

The spaces on the grid in Happy Island Designer were designed to match up fairly accurately to the area that fans will have to play with in New Horizons. You can even download your designs and refer back to them when designing your island. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons releases on the Nintendo Switch on March 20.