Brett K. Carver's Animal Crossing Page

Animal Crossing Stuff
Brett Carver


Lots of people young and, well, not so young, are playing Nintendo's Animal Crossing for GameCube. Everyone's got different goals or things they're trying to do in the game. This page is devoted to some of the things I've done and discoveries made during my time playing the game.

Warning: Some of the following pictures could be considered "spoilers" about various aspects of the game. If you're concerned about such things you may want to just go away now. You have been warned...


We have four towns in our family with multiple players in each. My town is named "SLO" which is short for San Luis Obispo. I went to college at California Polytechnic State University (Cal. Poly. S.L.O) there. My island is named CalPoly.

As listed below all four houses are fully expanded. Each as a purpose or theme:

All the pictures below (except the Mario room, and Star Wars scene) were taken in SLO.

Here's SLO's map (as created using the map tool at



My first HRA adventure took place in February of 2003 and yielded a score of 402,683. That score stood as the highest documented score for almost two years.

Then in January of 2005, NeoMario ( modified my second floor layout by replacing the Blue Table (412 points) with a Mario Block (1000) points generating a new high score of 403,271.

This turn of events threw me back into HRA research and using my best out-of-the-box thinking I re-worked my second floor a number of time eventually adding over 18,000 points for a new high score of 420,809.

The latest turn of events was in March of 2007 when Brian (Mp16z) developed his own approach to house layout generating a new high score of 423,257. His layout is documented here. This appears to be the current HRA record.

The gory details follow...

402,683 HRA Points

After I'd been playing the game for a few months, and had a good collection of furniture and other items, I decided to see just how high of an HRA score I could get. The game gives awards for 70,000 and 100,000 points, but I was reading comments by people claiming to break 200K, 300K, and one even broke 400K (with pictures to prove it). So, my goal was to also exceed 400K and, if possible, get a new high score.

It took some time and a lot of trial-and-error, but I finally succeeded in getting a new high score 402,683. To the best of my knowledge this was the highest score anyone has earned and verified until passed by Brian as listed above.

There have been some claims of having a higher score, but with the above mentioned exceptions, they have never provided proof or responded to questions about it so who knows.

Some people comment that this house is "ugly" or "unlivable". They're right. But that's not the point of this house. The point is a high HRA score at the expense of everything else. If I want a nice looking house I'll use one of the other three houses.

There are three pictures below: the letter from the HRA, the first floor, and the second floor.

The following is a listing of what's on the two floors pictured above. It lists: the total HRA points for the set/series/item, its name, and the HRA score breakdown (which shows the extra points for Redd/Lottery/etc items). I don't guarantee it's 100% accurate, but it's pretty close. To verify it I'd need to pull everything out of the house and add one set at a time to be sure the points awarded agree with my documentation.

First Floor
76240Jingle series10 * 1224 + 16K + 48K
12448Jingle wall/carpet2 * 1224 + 10K
9153Vase set3 * (3K + 51)
9514Drum set3 * 3K + 2 * 51 + 412
9514String Instrument set3 * 3K + 2 * 51 + 412
21718Figurine set7 * 3K + 6 * 51 + 412
7441Robot set2 * 3K + 412 + 1029
12565Totem Pole set4 * 3K + 3 * 51 + 412
13182Vending Machine4 * 3K + 3 * 51 + 1029
183063 flower table/chair6 * (3K + 51)
6102Frog set2 * (3K + 51)
12204Citrus set4 * (3K + 51)
9153Bonsi set3 * (3K + 51)
8995Lucky Nintendo set2 * (3K + 777) + 412 + 1029
14736Nintendo set4 * 3K + 3 * 51 + 1029 + 2 * 777
9153Cactus set3 * (3K + 51)
6102Pear set2 * (3K + 51)
6102Apple set2 * (3K + 51)
Second Floor
2448Jingle wall/carpet2 * 1224
12565Totem Pole set4 * 3K + 3 * 51 + 412
13182Vending Machine set4 * 3K + 3 * 51 + 1029
183063 flower table/chair6 * (3K + 51)
6102Frog set2 * (3K + 51)
12204Citrus set4 * (3K + 51)
9153Bonsi set3 * (3K + 51)
9153Guitar set3 * (3K + 51)
9514Drum set3 * 3K + 2 * 51 + 412
9514String Instrument set3 * 3K + 2 * 51 + 412
9153Office set3 * (3K + 51)
9153Vase set3 * (3K + 51)
412Blue Table412
2760Nes game1983 + 777
7441Robot set2 * 3K + 412 + 1029

420,809 HRA Points

As described above, when my previous high score was topped, I needed to do something radically different. While every floor has a limit on the number of items you can place, the limit on the second floor was the amount of space to place things. I could add more items, but there was no place to put them.

But by this point in time I had learned about the "Walking On Tables Glitch". It has a side effect called "NMT" (Newly Made Tables) where it's possible to stack items that aren't normally stackable. This allowed me to add a number of additional items to the floor boosting my HRA score. Since the first floor is already at the maximum item count, the method can't be applied there.

What follows is a picture of the HRA letter and the modified 2nd floor (the first floor remained unchanged).

Feng Shui

Below is a picture of one floor of my main characters house to show how I've arranged my furniture to maximize the Feng Shui effect. While the layout is kind of obvious, I can't take credit for the idea. I saw a picture of someone else's house that had a similar setup so I used the concept with my own combination of objects.

I purchased a bunch of the stuff from Nook's store, but then I used the "island duplication trick" to get the item count up to what I needed for the three floors. And in anticipation of your next question, here's the basic concept for using the island to duplicate stuff:

Unfortunately, there's no scoring system you can use to check your Feng Shui score. The closest things people have come up with is to monitor the size of bell bags you dig up from your glowy-spot each day. The best results anyone has reported so far is 10,000 bells every day with a 30,000 bag once or twice a week, which is what this layout gets me.

This picture is of my fist floor. The basement is setup exactly the same. The second floor is the same basic pattern just scaled down some due to the smaller size.

Hobby Room

Over time I've gotten a little tired of people saying my HRA house is too crowded or ugly. Well duh it's crowded, you don't break 400K leaving lots of empty space.

Anyway, I decided to take one room in one of my four houses (that was basically only being used for duplicate rare item storage) and convert it into a livable room basically just to prove I could do it. The result is this hobby room. In the back is where I write and record my songs. I also have a computer up there. The front-right is where I play Animal Crossing. And on the left is where I kick off my shoes, relax, and do some reading.

Of course I couldn't have this room be totally typical or plain. The more observant of you may spot something that's somewhat out-of-place. Those "in the know" will recognize this as the result of using the "Walking On Tables Glitch". I've also added a "DUMMY" item to the room simply because it looks neat. These items add a little spice to the layout of the room

Golden Tree Orchard

After I got my perfect town, I cut down all my trees. I then planted small orchards of each type of fruit. Then (over time) I harvested fruit and covered my entire land with it.

I then started experimenting with uncovering specific locations to force where diggy/glowy spots would appear. Specifically I'd uncover (that is, pick up the fruit from) a number of locations where I'd like a glowy-spot to appear. I needed to uncover multiple places because there needed to be room for fossils, weeds, and gyroids (if it rained/snowed). In addition, I was using multiple players so I needed room for a glowy-spot per player. Each day I'd bury shovels in the glowy-spots I'd find, dig up any fossile/gyroids, pull up any weeds, and uncover a few more spots to make room for the next day's stuff.

Using the above method I was able to create an orchard of golden trees and then cover the ground all around it with golden shovels just as other areas are covered with fruit.

The first picture shows one section of the orchard to demonstrate that I can place the trees in a regular pattern. The whole orchard actually covers parts of four different acres.

The second picture shows an area I was working on at the time. You'll notice one tree I planted that day and another spot I hoped to plant the next day. In addition you'll see a stump of a previous golden tree I cut down because it seemed to be blocking the two open spots (I was never getting a glowy spot there). Once the back two trees were growing I dug up the stump and re-plant that spot.

Money Tree Orchard

After my success with the golden tree orchard, I decided to use the same methods to create a small money tree orchard. It took a little longer because not every money tree grows "fruit". It took several round of cutting down empty trees (and those in front of it) and re-planting before I finally got the orchard. Of course I scattered money bags on the ground just as all my other orchards have their produce scattered around.

Model Town

A few weeks short of a full year of playing I finally completed my model town. I must confess to using Action Replay in our town Cheaterville to get the Post Model as well as a few of the flower models that we didn't get naturally in any of our three regular towns and dozen or so players. The cheating may make this more of a novelty that a real accomplishment, but it's still a cool picture.

The water for the stream/lake and sea shore is actually a pattern being used on the floor. My son found the pattern at and entered it into the game. If you'd like the water pattern for your model town, you can find it here: Water Pattern.

Mario Room

This picture of a Mario/Nintendo theme room comes from my son's character and town. The arrangement of the room was changed a bit for the picture since the point is to be able to see all the cool items.

NES Game Room

In the basement of one of my houses I have all my NES games on display. The complete list (left to right, top to bottom):

Picture with Signs/Patterns

Here's another interesting picture to credit to my son. Many months ago he wondered if he could make a picture out of patterns on signs. He spent some time working on the patterns and getting this figured out, but the results are worth it. I removed one sign and put his character there because it centered the signs a bit better and made for a clearer picture.

Gracie Glitch

An interesting thing happened one day while I was working on the above projects. It just so happened that I had erected a sign right next to where a house would go if a new villager moved in. One day Gracie came to town, and as luck would have it she picked that location to park her car. Since the sign was right where she stands, she ended up standing on top of the sign.

I could walk all around her, but I couldn't talk to her. She'd look down at me when I was in front of here, but not as I would move to the side/back. The only way to "fix" it was to pick up the sign. She dropped to the ground and then everything was normal.


Since much of the point of Animal Crossing is finishing various tasks, here's a list of the projects I've completed (in no particular order):

Walking On Tables Glitch

Discovered by neopuff34 -

This information is documented in more detail on:

In order to do the Walking On Tables Glitch, you need to create the setup pictured below. Basically, you need: 2 pieces of furniture to create a "runway" (I added an extra blue table to make the start of the runway even), a table at the end of the runway, and a space between the runway and the table just big enough to drop a 1x2 item. You run down the runway toward the table. Just as you get to the table you drop the 1x2 item (I'm using a Coelacanth in this picture). If you drop it at just the right point you'll pop up on top of the table. If you drop it too soon, you'll spin in place in front of the item. If you drop it to late, you'll get the message: "You can't put any more items there".

Once on the table you may drop any item that normally will sit on a table. While still standing on the table, you pick up the table (yes it's possible) which will leave the other item floating in mid-air. You can then drop any other item on top of the floating item. If you leave and re-enter the room the items will switch places and you will have just created an NMT (Newly Made Table) with the item "setting" on top of it (actually, floating some distance above it). Examples of the final result can be seen above in my HRA house and my Hobby Room.

Unrelated Links

If you're interested in one of my other activities (yes, I do have a life outside of Animal Crossing), please take a peek at:

All text and images on this site are: © 2003, Brett K. Carver.
I can be reached at: ac at carverclan dot us
(that's so spam e-mail harvesters can't read it)