
Show HN: A site to keep track of critters you can catch in Animal Crossing - sawyerjhood
https://ac-catch.com/
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zuhayeer
Fun fact: Katsuya Eguchi incepted the game as a result of his move to Kyoto to
work at Nintendo - because he missed his family and friends from his hometown.

"Animal Crossing features three themes: family, friendship and community. But
the reason I wanted to investigate them was a result of being so lonely when I
arrived in Kyoto! Chiba is east of Tokyo and quite a distance from Kyoto, and
when I moved there I left my family and friends behind. In doing so, I
realised that being close to them – being able to spend time with them, talk
to them, play with them – was such a great, important thing. I wondered for a
long time if there would be a way to recreate that feeling, and that was the
impetus behind the original Animal Crossing."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuya_Eguchi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuya_Eguchi)

~~~
Trasmatta
And now Animal Crossing is helping millions of lonely quarantined people
across the world cope with the current state of things. It really came out at
the perfect time.

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stepvhen
This looks great! I too have been working on a critter tracker[0], but writing
it in C using kcgi[1] (no JS at all).

I have never done a web project before, so this has been a great learning
experience. I still have some functionality to complete, but so far it has
been pretty useful, even just the "available now" feature.

[0]
[https://xvetrd.tilde.institute/index.cgi](https://xvetrd.tilde.institute/index.cgi)

[1] [https://kristaps.bsd.lv/kcgi/](https://kristaps.bsd.lv/kcgi/)

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resu_nimda
This triggered memories of fishing for Coelacanths in the original Gamecube
Animal Crossing. Twas an amazing game, and sounds like it still is.

~~~
eganist
They made it a bit easier in ACNH. Best streak I got was six in a row during
hard rain.

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wizzard
Everything is easier in ACNH. Even though I’m making much faster progress,
it’s not as satisfying.

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eganist
Well there seems to be more story and less grind, which makes me quite a bit
happier honestly.

I'm nowhere near it, but I can't wait for the KK plot to play out.

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awinder
Little off-topic but can anyone here compare to Stardew valley? I feel like
I’ve kinda “finished” stardew after going through the core story and wondering
about switching trains

~~~
mathgladiator
The big crazy difference is that Stardew Valley goes faster while AC is real-
time and this is... super frustrating.

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rashkov
Agreed.. was a bit disappointed by AC when I was hoping for something more
like stardew valley. Would love a recommendation for something like that if it
exists.

~~~
slightwinder
You could try the original franchise from which Stardew Valley was cloned
from: Harvest Moon (also know as Story of Seasons) or it's Spin-off Rune
Factory.

There is also Graveyard Keeper, which is similar in vibe and mechanics, but
with a very different setting.

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krustyburger
I’m trying to avoid looking at any outside guides for a good while, so I can
experience things for myself.

But when I eventually give in, this guide will be handy!

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werber
Looks great on an iphone! How did you get the pics?

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aendruk
Someone ripped the images from the game [1] and uploaded them to a fan wiki
[2], implicitly misrepresenting the content as CC BY-SA, and then this site
hotlinked them.

[1]:
[https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:150357#2](https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Thread:150357#2)

[2]:
[https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Fish_(New_Horizons)](https://animalcrossing.fandom.com/wiki/Fish_\(New_Horizons\))

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marinhero
Great work! I’m curious, how did you get all the critter info?

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32gbsd
I get a blank white page. What tech is this coded in?

~~~
drusepth
Looks like React to me.

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bobblywobbles
Very well done website, thanks for hosting this!

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kevinwang
My friend also made one that shows bugs/fish available at the current hour in
your timezone to practice python: [http://critter-
catcher.herokuapp.com/](http://critter-catcher.herokuapp.com/)

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madrox
Thanks so much! I had a mind to work on this the other week (even started up a
boilerplate) and then got distracted. So glad you stayed on task more than I
did.

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derpydev
Showed it to my wife who's been playing, and then I heard a bunch of clicking
and now it's circulating in the Discord channel she hangs out in. Nice work!

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ayberk
Great stuff, thanks a lot!

May I ask where you get the data from?

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krustyburger
There’s an official strategy guide available, so I would guess that was the
original source.

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dstaley
The strategy guide hasn't been published yet, so my guess is this comes from
someone who data mined the game.

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a_t48
Is there a button to reset? I clicked on one to see what happened and now I
can't undo.

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sawyerjhood
You can scroll to the bottom to see all of the caught critters and uncheck
them there

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fourstar
This is awesome. Did you or someone else illustrate the icons? They're
beautiful.

~~~
sawyerjhood
The fish/bug pictures are straight from the game. All of the other icons
(hemisphere, bells, length, etc...) are made by a combination of my girlfriend
/ myself.

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max23_
Nice work!

I like how it is first sorted by fish/bug that will be gone next month.

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mikl
Very cool, just what I needed.

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keithwhor
This is great! Thank you.

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oneVoiceOnHN
This should have been built into the game. Nintendo fans are so forgiving of
glaring flaws.

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spondyl
There's an in-game app called the Critter Guide that does bugs/fish and what
months they're available. It requires you've encountered said bug/fish at
least once though I think for it to appear in the guide

