Perfect Town Guide

In Animal Crossing: Wild World, your town can become perfect if it is well maintained by its inhabitants. Achieving perfection can be difficult, but worth it. Welcome to Animal Crossing Ahead�s Perfect Town Guide. Everything you need to know about Perfect Towns can be found here.

What is a Perfect Town and why should I care?

A Perfect Town is an Animal Crossing: Wild World town that conforms to various rules set at the town hall. These rules are meant to keep your town clean, friendly, and appealing to visitors. The only catch is that you don�t know what these rules are in advance. Some are fairly obvious, others not so much.

A Perfect Town consists of at least 8 �perfect� acres, and 8 �decent� acres. You may have more than 8 perfect acres, provided the remaining acres are decent. Unlike in Animal Crossing for the Nintendo Gamecube, you must determine the acres yourself. There will be an explanation of how to determine acres later in the guide.

You can inquire about the current status of your town by speaking with either Pelly or Phyllis (depending on the time of day) at the left window of the town hall. Either Pelly or Phyllis will give you feedback submitted by villagers regarding their feelings about the town. It should not be surprising that your wacky neighbors aren�t exactly straightforward; more often than not, the feedback is weird and cryptic. Even when you get the gist of what the messages may mean, such as �add more plants,� it�s not always clear where you should add more plants unless you have a decent understanding of how acres work.

AXA users Archon and Liquefy have attributed meanings to the following messages. Quoted parts of the message is Pelly reading from the feedback. Unquoted portions are Pelly�s commentary. Phyllis says different variations of these messages. Messages related to trash mean that there are items buried or left on the ground.

Pelly: �This one is from someone who'd rather remain nameless ...
"Ugh! This place is the worst! Seriously, what's up with this town?!
Here, there, everywhere! Everything I see looks terrible!"
You know, I think if we added some green, it would really help ...

Answer: Not only do you need to add more trees, but there�s something seriously wrong with your town. Chances are there�s trash, weeds, or a rafflesia present. Make sure you get rid of these things!

Pelly: �It feels odd to write this but�can�t you take better care of our town?� That�s what the message says. He was holding back, but his sadness is clear. You know, I think if we added some green, it would really help.

Answer: This is an extreme message conveying that a particular area needs more trees. This message was triggered after all the trees were removed from a particular acre.

Pelly: �Hmm� Well, it�s not passing, but it�s not failing either. Like more than milk, but not quite a milk shake, know what I mean?!� Hmm� Sounds like there�s nothing this resident likes or dislikes in particular. You know, I think if we added some green, it would really help�

Answer: This message appears when there is an acre with too little greenery in it. In testing, this message was triggered by having acres with less than 10 trees and no flowers. Locate the acre that does not meet perfect conditions and plant additional trees and flowers. It is important to note that if there is a single acre with too many trees and an acre with too few trees, Pelly will tell you that there are �too many trees.� The �too many trees� message overrides the �too few trees� message. Thus, if you immediately chop down a tree to satisfy the �too few trees� message, do not automatically assume that chopping down that tree caused the problem. There likely are too few trees in a different acre.

Pelly: �Hmm� Well, it�s not passing, but it�s not failing either. Like more than milk, but not quite a milk shake, know what I mean?!� Hmm� Sounds like there�s nothing this resident likes or dislikes in particular. Hm, I�ll bet the problem is that there are too many trees�

Answer: In general, this is triggered when a single acre contains more than 17 trees. Flowers do not contribute to this message. Locate the acre with the excess trees and remove some. There may be some acres in double river towns that may have a lower tree threshold. If you cannot locate an acre with more than 17 trees, check acres where there are �islands� or river forks.

Pelly: �[Your town] is a clean and decent place. But it feels like something�s missing.� Well, at least this person sounds content. You can�t be ecstatic all the time. Everyone needs to work together if [your town] is to be the best town around!

Answer: This message can be triggered when every acre has between 10 and 17 trees (or the flower equivalent). Some acres may be perfect, but you are just shy of the magic eight that you need to get an overall perfect rating. Basically, there�s nothing offensive about your town, but it lacks that certain zing. Refer to the acre section of this guide to determine what acres you need to fix, and how.

Pelly: �[Your town] is a great place to be! It�s really come a long way!� Sounds like this resident is very happy. Wouldn�t it be wonderful if we could keep [your town] this livable forever?!

Answer: You have met the requirement of 8 perfect acres, and 8 decent acres. You don�t have to do anything else except to make sure it stays this way.

What should I do if I�m not sure what�s causing a message?

  1. Remove all weeds. You may choose to remove dandelions and clover patches, but for those who have an attachment to these plants, keep in mind that flowers planted in the same acre will cancel out the presence of weeds on a 1:1 ratio.
  2. Make sure that there are no items buried. Trash caught fishing is particularly repugnant. Garbage should be placed in the recycling bin.
  3. Refer to the acre method in this guide. Make sure that there are minimally 8 perfect acres and 8 decent acres.
  4. Planting flowers never hurts. Thanks to research by Liquefy, we know that flowers do not contribute to the �too many trees� message.
  5. Make sure that trees are not planted in �dead� areas or any plant planted in expansion areas. Trees will not grow in the areas adjacent to signs, and flowers placed there run the risk of being crushed by a house or Gulliver�s spaceship. Furthermore, the area to the left of Nook�s store and the areas to the left and right of your house will eventually expand during the course of the game. Anything planted here runs the risk of dying as the result of expansion. Unless you are done expanding your house and Tom Nook�s, keep plants several spaces away from these areas. For more information on expansion, see the expansion guide and the special character�s guide (note, link to Nook).

Perfect Town rating is determined at 6am, before the flower spawn is triggered. Accidental rating changes during the course of the day do not affect your two week count so long as the status is �Perfect� at this time.

There are real benefits keeping your town perfect. If you can maintain a perfect town for roughly two weeks, Pelly or Phyllis will reward you with one of the golden tools, the golden watering can. This item can be retrieved by inquiring about town status at the post office. Aside from being one of the elusive golden tools, the golden watering is the only means of creating golden roses. For more information on roses, please consult the hybrid guide. Also, when your town is perfect, Jacob�s Ladders, a very rare plant, will grow.

It is important to note that some users have reported that they have received a can after 15 days (14 nights). No one has been able to obtain a golden can before two weeks, and the overwhelming majority has received their can on the 15th day.

Acre Calculation

On calculating trees, see section:

Before you can calculate how many trees are in an acre, you need to understand how acres work. Those familiar with Animal Crossing for the Nintendo Gamecube may recall that acres were automatically marked on the map. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, you must mark them off yourself.

There are sixteen acres in every Animal Crossing: Wild World town. To determine the borders of an acre, we suggest using the pattern feature to mark the borders of each area. If you open your pattern pocket in your inventory, you will have the option to place a pattern on the floor as long as you are outside. Simply drag a pre-made pattern to the ground bubble when you are standing over the spot where you wish to place a pattern. Patterns can easily be removed by standing over them and pressing the B button. Each of the 16 acres consists of 256 spaces, a 16 by 16 grid. One pattern will occupy exactly one space. We recommend that you start placing patterns horizontally from the northwest corner of your town and marking off the top border of the first row of acres. Repeat line markers 16 spaces to the south of this line. The same must be done vertically. For an example layout of markers, see the graphic below. I this case, the northern and eastern border are included as part of the acre, but not the western and southern borders. We have marked acres as A, B, C, D for notation purposes. You may choose to mark acres differently, depending on the layout of your town.

In general, it seems as if 12-15 trees and 3 or more flowers per acre are sufficient to reach �Perfect� status in each town. Count the numbers of trees and flowers in each marked off acre to see if you meet these requirements.

We recommend that you remove all weeds, trash, and items on the ground from each acre before trying to calculate the appropriate number of trees in an acre.

If you are having difficulty with the guidelines above, here are more specific thresholds suggested by Liquefy et al. For those wondering about acres in excess of 17 trees, it should be noted that flowers appear to cancel out the �too many trees� message.

Perfect Acres
TreesFlowers
027
125
223
321
419
517
615
713
811
9 9
107
115
123
133
143
153
165
177
189
1911
2013
2115
etc.
Decent Acres
TreesFlowers
021
119
217
315
413
511
69
77
85
93
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
183
195
207
219
etc.

For your use, we have provided a large image that you may print out and use to keep track of spots occupied by trees, flowers, and buildings. It is significantly easier to deal with adding and subtracting trees with an overview in hand:

Right-Click here and choose "Save As" to save the grid to your computer.

Generally, it is not a good idea to plant trees near signs. Keep this in mind when planting them!

Whether certain plants count as weeds or flowers:

Flowers
Cosmos
Rose
Tulip
Pansy
Jacob's Ladder
Dandelion


Weeds
Dandelion Puff
Clover Patches
Rafflesia

Rafflesias appear when your town is in dire conditions. Most commonly, they appear when someone has time traveled (artificially changing the date) a significant amount of time, allowing the weeds to build up. The game then thinks that your town has been left unattended for a long period of time.

It is not currently confirmed what the minimum requirement is for making a Rafflesia wilt, but the plant will remain as long as the town is a mess. Try cleaning up and planting more trees. Once the town recovers from toxic shock, the plant will wilt.

Credits: AXA would like to offer thanks to everyone who participated in the creation of this guide. Chief content contributors were Archon, Calico Lemon, Jess, Kamek, and Liquefy; special thanks to Niwer for the images of the flowers and weeds.