Posted: Sat, Feb 8, 2020
Last updated: Fri, May 29, 2020
I feel like after Trent Reznor dropped The Fragile he just said ‘fuck it’. He’d made his coins. He could just put out ambient dishwasher music for the next 20 years and no one would be able to stop him. He’s put out the occasional bop since then, one of them being Echoplex from The Slip.
I thought it was a cool name for a town, so here we are. I was a man on a quest. I had an idea for a grim, run-down town that has been left to go to shit. I did start on that… but ditched that plan real fast when I got my hands on a copy of New Horizons. I have so far been having a blast living out the dreams I had for New Leaf through this instead.
Here lies the life and death of Echoplex. Gone but never forgotten.
Mayor Logan
Birthday July 19th
(Non-existent!)
Opened: November 12th, 2015
Nuked: April 21st, 2020
Native fruit:
Villagers:
| - Julian | - Coco |
| - Ruby | - Ribbot |
| - Raddle | - Lucky |
| - Kyle | - Del |
| - Ankha | - Sprocket |
Entry 01 - Starting Out
There were many reasons why I tore down my previous town, Earth616. One, the name’s shit. The rest aren’t so important, really, sometimes a fresh start is needed!
The only problem with this, was transferring everything from my old town to my new one. I’d amassed about 9 million bells from buying and trading villagers and furniture online (a fucking animal black market… I’m a shit vegetarian) and didn’t want to lose it all. My friend let me borrow her copy of New Leaf as she hadn’t played it in months and wasn’t arsed about it.
This was fucking brutal, let that be known. Also, when I started her game up, I don’t remember the exact reason why but her clock reset itself to the first of January. When I put the time back to normal Stitches had moved out of her town. Kinda fucked that one up.
After literally hours of transferring shit, we’re up and running.
Entry 02 - Abandonment
I had plans for a stunning town. Loads of PWPs perfectly placed, paths the house, villagers lined up, everything. I was actively cycling my villagers to get the ones I wanted, and trying to fill up my catalogue and donate everything I could to the museum.
A month in and I’d tidied up the fossil donations.
Cycling villagers was a bit tedious, but it was fun to get to know all of the villagers that would come passing by my town even if it was for about 20 minutes of real-time before they’d be off again. The real bitch was plot resetting. Constantly powering off the DS and turning it back on until the villager that was moving in was in a prime spot. God I hated it. I’d spend easily half a day trying to place a villager, and as soon as they were placed I’d be back cycling to get the villagers I was after into the town.
Things begin shaping up. I complete a couple of PWPs and things are starting to fall into place. Things are a bit quicker when you have a few million bells lining your back pockets.
My map is looking decent too! 6 of the houses are permanent.
The kicker comes later when I had spent nearly a full day plot-resetting to get Fang in a nice place, and I fucked up the cycling process. Ankha had moved out, and had left a lovely house-shaped patch of mud by the golden roses I’d placed. All that work to get her in and in a good spot had just gone out the window, and it’d take getting 16 new villagers in and out before I could get her back.
I’m gonna be honest, I just couldn’t be arsed. I was tired. My interest in building this town disappeared almost immediately as I’d really burnt myself out – and I had barely even started structuring my town the way I wanted it.
Entry 03 - Dropping By
Came to collect some cool shit from Redd and then leave again.
Entry 04 - Saying Hi
It’s nearing the end of 2017 and I felt like popping my head in to see how things are holding up.
Now I just feel like a cunt. I’ll swing by later…
Entry 05 - Rebirth
It’s mid-2019, and a new(?) exploit is found for the old 3DS. I’ve never ventured in console modding before as I was worried I’d royally fuck something up. I decided to take the plunge, and I’m pissed I didn’t do this earlier. It was so painless.
I think back to wee Echoplex and the fucking mess I left it in back in 2016 when I stopped playing. I start mooching round for New Leaf hacks to see what’s out there and find the New Leaf Save Editor. You can reroute your rivers. Replace your villagers' houses. Hell, replace your villagers with whoever you want. Give yourself as many bells and MEOW coupons and Island Medals as you please.
This little gem has already taken a massive load off my back. I’m sitting at 9 villagers as we speak.
I’ll need to move someone in from the campsite and replace them with Raddle, the last villager I’m after.
