Happy Home Paradise coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons!

As revealed in the Animal Crossing Direct, some new DLC is coming to the game: Happy Home Paradise! This game mode involves you decorating some vacation homes for your villagers to live in.

Once Tom Nook gives you a reference to the Happy Home Designers, you'll be allowed to fly to a far-off archipelago through Dodo Airlines. (by selecting "I want to work!" when speaking to Orville

Various villagers will then visit the islands, each one having their own unique ideas of what their dream vacation home should look like. For an example, Maple wants various plush bears in her Vacation home. Upon picking the villager you want to help, you then have to choose where on the archipelago the vacation home will be built. There are many choices, from the regular plains, a desert, and even a snow-covered area!

After picking the spot, head inside and place the designated furniture the villager wants. After doing that, everything else is up to you, so stylize it however you want! The game will give you some recommended furniture to use, but you don't have to if you don't want to.

You can also stylize the outside of the building as well, placing furniture, fences, trees, and flowers wherever you want. You can also move the house if you wish to place it elsewhere. You can also change the season, time of day, and weather to really bring out how the vacation home looks!

As you continue to make vacation homes for the villagers, new options for further house making will be added, such as modifying the width and length of the house! You can also use partition walls to divide the space in the house, pillars, and counters with varying sizes to really spruce up a house! You can also modify the house's lighting to enhance the mood of whatever it is you've built. You can even add soundscapes to really add depth to the house's atmosphere, such as the sound of the ocean waves, or the sounds of construction.

You can also polish the various items you placed down. Polishing will slightly modify whatever item you placed down, such as making the item sparkle, or in the case of plants, having butterflies fly around near the flower.

Once you finished building the vacation home, head back to the Happy Home Office to get compensated from your work. Instead of receiving bells, you receive Poki, which you can use to buy items exclusive to the Happy Home Island.

As you receive more requests, new items will be added to your repertoire. If you want, you can use these newly acquired items to remodel the vacation homes you've previously built.

You can also have two villagers share a vacation home! Hopefully the two you pick can get along, ha ha!

Back on the main island of the archipelago, there are a lot of abandoned buildings. As you progress building vacation homes for clients, you can repurpose these houses into faculties, such as a school, a hospital, or a restaurant!

The vacation homes you designed are captured in photos as design examples, and added to a portfolio. You can view these at anytime with the Happy Home Network. You can also use it to visit the homes of previous clients to see how they are doing.

By connecting online, you can share what houses you've made online, as well as see what vacation homes others have built. Perhaps you can even use them as inspiration for whatever you're building!

If you have an Animal Crossing amiibo figure or amiibo card, you can scan it at the Happy Home Office to make a vacation home for the character you're scanning! Perfect if you want to make a vacation home for a villager you like but aren't getting to come to the island, or to make one for the special characters like Timmy and Tommy Nook!

Additionally, all of the skills and items you've acquired at the archipelago can be used back at your main island, so you can really spice up your house!

If you've bought a souvenir, you can give it to one of your villagers back home. Doing so may get them interested in the archipelago, where you can build them a vacation home!

Once you've created a certain number of vacation homes, you'll be allowed to remodel the exterior of your villager's homes at your main island!

Happy Home Paradise will be launching on November 5th, 2021, with pre-orders starting at October 29th of this month. You can either purchase the Happy Home Paradise expansion, or get it as a bonus if you purchase the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. If you go with the latter, you won't be able to access Happy Home Paradise after your subscription runs out, but you'll still have all of the items you have acquired.

The last free major update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons!

Animal Crossing had its own special Direct a couple of days ago, showing off all of the new stuff coming for the game's 2.0 update!

First of all, The Roost returns, along with its owner Brewster! As Animal Crossing fans would expect, talking to Brewster will have him make a Cup of Joe for you... for a price! Sometimes when you visit, other characters will show up at the cafe, such as Isabelle.

If you have any of the amiibo cards/figures from the Animal Crossing series, you can use them to invite your villagers over, or even special characters like Mabel! The special characters may invite others to join, such as Mabel inviting her sisters, Sable and Label, over.

Kapp'n is also returning! For 1000 Nook Miles, he'll ferry you over to some secret islands, which range from having different materials to collect, different weather, or even a different time of day!

On Harv's Island, Harv and his long time best friend, Harriet, are thinking about opening a plaza here with all kinds of shops. With your help - and plenty of bells - you can help build and establish these businesses here! They range from Saharah and her various assortment of rugs and wallpaper, to Cyrus and Reese who can stylize your furniture.

Speaking of which, Harriet can give your character some newly added hairstyles for your character! Once she teaches them to you, you can switch to them whenever you want!

You character can now participate in stretching exercise at your island's Plaza! When doing this, you can either use button controls, or motion controls to have your character participate. You can also do these stretches on another player's island.

Inside Town Hall, you can now enact ordinances! These Ordinances range from Beautiful Town, where weeds will grow less often and flowers won't wilt; Early Bird, where everyone wakes up a little earlier than usual at the cost of going to sleep earlier as well; Night Owl, which is the opposite of Early Bird (Villagers wake up much later in the day, but also go to sleep much later as well) and Bell Boom, which makes it so that items you can sell go for much higher prices, but things you can buy also get a bit more expensive.

Tom Nook will also have new styles for your house, such as a log cabin, or a Japanese-styled castle. Speaking of which, Tom Nook can now expand your Storage System, allowing you to hold up to 5,000 items!

New stuff you can purchase with Nook Miles will also be coming! One of these is cooking. Using the vegetables you've grown/found, you can make various things, such as Minestrone Soup, cake, a smoothie, or even Pizza Margherita! (Cowabunga, dude!) You can either have your character eat them, or place them in the house as decorations.

With a Pro Decorating License, you can really spice up your house! With it, you can add lighting and ceiling decor on the... well, ceiling! You can also use Accent Walls, which will allow you to give a single wall a different pattern. Speaking of which, Nook's Cranny will now be selling ceiling decor to go with this new update, as well as various newly added items!

You can now be able to place ten bridges and inclines each instead of eight with a Pro Construcion License. Finally, nine new fencing recipes will be added. Some of the fences can be stylized as well.

With the Pro Camera App, the view will align with your eye level, allowing you to snap photos better. Additionally, you can switch to Tripod mode to get a picture of yourself, or you hanging out with one of the villagers!

Custom Designs Patterns+ will allow you to wear patterns you've made for customizing. You can even use the patterns for customizing your rugs or wallpaper!

A new app for your character's in-game phone is Island Life 101, which will help ease newcomers into the game.

Finally, you can use your Nook Miles to purchase new furniture, such as the Storage Shed, which will allow you to access your storage from nearly everywhere on the island!

K.K. Slider will be having twelve new songs added to the game. K.K. Slider visits the plaza every Saturday night, so be sure to visit!

Also returning to this game are Gyroids! Gyroids are little statues that emit sounds. If you find a Gyroid Fragments, plant it in the ground and water it. The next day, it should've grown into a Gyroid! You can also find Gyroids buried underground after a rainy day. You can place them inside your house. If you have music playing, they'll emit their sounds to the beat of the song.

You can now build ladders with the Wooden Ladder Setup Kit! Place them on various spots on the island to make it easier for you to get around.

Tight spaces in your house? Don't worry, as now your village can squeeze through them, no problem.

Your animal villagers can now invite you over to visit them in their house! They may also make an unexpected visit to your house as well. They'll only do this if your villager is good friends with them, though.

This new update will launch November 5th, 2021. Notably, this will be the last free major update for the game. (barring probably some minor updates here and there.)

Kouri, creator of the horror game "Ib", announces a remake for the game's 10th anniversary!

On the 3rd of October, Kouri - the creator of Ib - has revealed on his Twitter that he is planning to remake the game for Ib's 10th Anniversary.

来年Ibが公開10周年になるのでリメイク版を制作中です。
有料になりますが来年販売を予定してます。

— kouri (@monomu_kouri) October 3, 2021

Translated, the Tweet says: "Next year will be the 10th anniversary of Ib's release, so I'm working on a remake.
We are planning to sell it for a fee next year."

For those who don't know, Ib is a horror game that was released in Japan back in 2012, and translated into English by vgperson. Despite being made in RPG Maker 2000, the game features no battles, instead focusing more on exploration and puzzle-solving.

The game stars a girl named Ib, who visits the famous Guertena's Art Gallery with her parents. As Ib goes off alone to admire the exhibits, she suddenly ends up arriving in a strange dimension within the gallery. Ib soon acquires a red rose, which becomes attached to her life. Every time she takes damage, a petal falls off. If they all fall off, the game ends. Ib can restore her rose back to full health by dipping it in water vases.

As Ib solves puzzles, as well as avoiding the various dangerous paintings and sculptures that have come to life, she soon comes across a man named Garry and another girl named Mary, both who have also been sent to this bizarre dimension. Can the three escape the art gallery and make back home alive?

As of this writing, it is currently unknown if the remake will be released outside of Japan or not. You can bet that this writer here certainly hopes so. If you're interested, why not try the original game out yourself?

Win a SpongeBob or Leonardo-themed Xbox Series X Console and controller!

In celebration of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl's release, Microsoft is making two custom-themed Xbox Series X consoles and controllers based on two of the playable characters in the game: SpongeBob from SpongeBob SquarePants, and Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

To enter, one must be following the official Xbox Twitter account. After doing so, they must go to this post and retweet it with the text, "#XboxAllStarBrawlsweepstakes". The contest will end October 24th, 2021, where one of the winners will receive the SpongeBob-themed console, while the other one will receive the Leonardo-themed console. Additional rules can be read here.

Sora from Disney's Kingdom Hearts is the final character to join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate!

As revealed in the final "Mr. Sakurai Presents" direct, Sora from Disney's Kingdom Hearts is joining the battle! Yes, you read that right. What many thought would be impossible has happened!

First, a little about Sora. As mentioned, he's the main protagonist of several Kingdom Hearts games. Originally wanting to explore the vast seas to visit other lands with his friends, Riku and Kairi, Sora ends up getting wrapped up in a massive war against a man named Xehanort, who seeks to acquire the mystical Kingdom Hearts. Sora isn't alone on this adventure, as he also receives help from his two new friends and companions, Donald Duck and Goofy Goof.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy also comes across members of the Final Fantasy series, such as Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockheart, Aerith Gainsborough, and yes, even Sephiroth.

In Super Smash Bros. Sora is a fast, but light character. (For reference, he's lighter than Isabelle from Animal Crossing.) He mostly fights his foes with his iconic Keyblade, though he can also use some magic with his Neutral Special. He starts off with Firaga by default. After using it, he switches to Thundaga, then Blizzaga, before going back to Firaga. His taunt also has him use three magical moves, but they're only for aesthetics and don't do anything.

Sora's default look is his appearance in the first game. His alternate costumes include his designs from Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance Kingdom Hearts III, and the Timeless River look from Kingdom Hearts II.

Sora's stage is Hallow Bastian, a kingdom that was ruined long ago, though towards the end of Kingdom Hearts II, it gets restored back to its original form, Radiant Garden. Sora will also come with 9 songs. Additionally, if you have save data of Kingdom Hearts: Memory of Melody, you'll also receive a 10th song, "Dearly Beloved ~Swing Version~."

 Sora will be released on October 18th, 2021.