Release notes

Fixes

• Fixed the crash where the game closed the tab while loading on iPhone and iPad. It was not the game running out of memory: Safari was compiling one oversized piece of the game's code, and that briefly used far more memory than iOS allows a browser tab. Splitting that piece cut peak memory during loading by 59%, with no change to framerate. This is why the crash always happened during loading and never once you were playing.

Behind the Scenes

• Reduced memory use at startup by about 40 MB for everyone who is not using an HD texture pack. The lookup tables for HD textures were being reserved on every launch, whether you had a pack loaded or not.

Fixes

• Fixed villager house walls and floors showing as grey-brown static. Wallpaper and carpet textures load correctly again.

Changes

• Rolled back the Jul 25 mobile memory and graphics changes. Phones and tablets are back to full graphics quality, matching Jul 24.
• The game should feel less slow and laggy on startup. Those changes are paused until we have proper performance benchmarks.

Fixes

• Fixed the Options menu running off the screen with no way to scroll, which could leave you stuck in it with the Close button out of reach. Worst in landscape. The menu now fits the screen and its list scrolls.

Changes

• Anti-aliasing, texture sharpness and HD texture packs are switched off again on phones and tablets. Yesterday's update turned them all on. Newer phones lose a little image quality; older ones run more reliably.
• If your device has had its graphics turned down, the Options menu now says so, and offers a button to force full quality anyway if you want to try your luck.

New Features

• Phones and tablets now have a joystick to walk with, in place of the old arrow pad. Push it any direction to walk that way, push further to move faster, and hold B while moving to run.
• On text and menu screens, like naming your character, writing a letter or going through your pockets, the joystick turns into arrow buttons on its own so each tap moves exactly one space. Close the menu and the joystick comes back.
• Options has a new Touch controls setting if you'd rather pick one and stick with it: leave it on Auto, or force arrows or the joystick everywhere.

Changes

• Playing on a phone or tablet works again. Mobile was paused earlier today after tabs kept closing a minute or two into play; that turned out to be a bug in Apple's browser, not in the game.
• iOS 26.0 through 26.4 close the tab on games like this one after about a minute. Apple fixed it in iOS 26.5, so if you're on one of those versions, update your iPhone or iPad and it plays normally. If you're affected, the game now tells you and points you at the update instead of just dying.
• Phones and tablets now run at full graphics quality. Resolution, anti-aliasing and texture sharpness had all been turned down on mobile to fight that crash, and none of it ever helped.
• HD texture packs now work on phones and tablets instead of being ignored.
• Bug reports are no longer posted on the feedback board; the board now points you to our Discord instead, so we can ask follow-up questions and help diagnose the issue directly.

Fixes

• Fixed being stuck on the pause screen on a phone or tablet. Switching away from the game and coming back pauses it, but there was no way to unpause without a keyboard, so you were stuck. The on-screen buttons now work on the pause screen: tap A to carry on playing, or use the arrows to reach Settings and Quit.

New Features

• Feedback board at /feedback: post ideas and report bugs, and upvote the ones you want most. Anyone can read it; posting and voting need a free account.
• Reply threads on each post, with a Dev badge on official replies.
• Placed gyroids now come alive outdoors: set one down in your town and it sways, with every gyroid type animating at its own tempo.

Changes

• Site-wide readability and accessibility pass: higher text contrast, visible keyboard focus rings, bigger tap targets, and a cleaner mobile header.
• The top-nav menu button now shows a "Menu" label beside its icon, on mobile and desktop.

Behind the Scenes

• Basic profanity filtering on the board.
• Removed an unused internal debug hook that could have touched save data.

Changes

• Password reset and welcome emails now share the look of the site, with the grassy background, cream card, leaf, and gold button.

Fixes

• The leaf on account emails now sits on a cream badge so it stands out instead of blending into the grass background.
• Account emails now keep their bright cream look everywhere, so they read the same whether or not your device is in dark mode.

Fixes

• Fixed a long-standing audio delay: sound and music now play in step with the action instead of lagging up to three-quarters of a second behind.

Changes

• The homepage roadmap now lists every Animal Crossing+ quality-of-life mod that's live: sit on rocks and stumps, drop and place furniture, gyroids, and clothes as their real 3D models, a 360° and first-person camera, and improved lighting.
• Added multiplayer town visits and the quality-of-life mods to the homepage feature list.

Fixes

• The links under the Start Playing button — to the devlog, how-to-play guide, and FAQ — are now easy to read instead of blending into the grass.

Fixes

• HD texture packs now load completely. Large community packs (like the Animal Crossing HD pack) previously stopped at ~32,000 textures and only partially applied — now the whole pack loads and the HD look covers the full town.

Changes

• First-person and the free camera (360° rotate and mouse look) are now off by default. Turn them on anytime from Options → "First-person & free camera".

Fixes

• First-person: the sun no longer drifts across the sky when you turn left or right — it now stays anchored to the world.
• First-person: leaving first-person snaps the camera back to the default view instead of a rotated angle.

New Features

• New "Place" action for furniture, gyroids, and clothes — set them down and they appear as their real 3D model right in your town.
• Placed furniture and gyroids are solid, so you can lay out a yard you actually walk around.

Changes

• Dropping an item now leaves it on the ground as a wrapped item you can walk over and pick back up. To show off the real 3D model, use the new "Place" action instead.

Fixes

• First-person: tree trunks and stumps no longer look hollow or sliver-thin at grazing angles.
• First-person: a grown tree's leafy crown no longer looks like a dark rock from below.

New Features

• First-person view mode — toggle with the 'f' key
• Look around in first-person with your mouse
• Touch controls: on-screen first-person button and drag-to-look
• First-person stays active while talking and inside buildings
• Spin the camera a full 360 degrees outdoors with the arrow keys
• New "Improved lighting" toggle in Options (off by default)
• Cozy color grade — a warmer, richer palette
• Time-of-day lighting — pink dawn, golden dusk, cool night
• Soft bloom glow on bright surfaces
• Ambient occlusion for grounded, deeper-looking 3D
• Smoother edges on fences, roofs, and paths
• New "Tilt-shift" toggle for a miniature-diorama look (off by default)
• Dropped gyroids now appear as real clay figurines
• Dropped clothes display their design on a model
• Added a Release notes page at /releases listing every update.
• Linked the release notes from the site footer.

Changes

• Sharper textures with anisotropic filtering
• Sun, moon, and night stars now hang in the first-person sky
• Crisp first-person sky that shifts with the time of day
• Rivers and ponds reflect the first-person sky
• Foliage turns to face you, so trees look right from any angle
• Rounded, fuller-looking tree crowns up close
• Walk into furniture and it stops you, like a tree or rock
• Walls of furniture block you head-on
• Softer blob shadows (opt-in)
• Denser weather fog (opt-in)
• Added a "What's new" card on the homepage that links to these release notes.

Fixes

• Walking, turning, and animations behave properly in first-person
• Smooth acre-to-acre crossing with no third-person flicker
• No more sky flash during fast camera spins or transitions
• Sun and moon stay locked in place instead of drifting with your view
• Hardened lighting so glitchy surfaces no longer go black
• Removed the murky blue tint from first-person view
• Fixed ground and path texture shimmer
• Fixed grey inventory pockets and the cream cloth background
• Fixed some villagers' clothes showing up solid black
• Each of several clothes dropped at once shows the right design
• Closer items are grabbed before solid ones behind them
• Picking up a solid piece clears its collision
• Buried items can be dug back up, with no invisible sparking block

Behind the Scenes

• Game files now sent pre-compressed for faster mobile loading
• Added a size guard to catch oversized game files before launch

New Features

• Dropped furniture shows its real 3D model instead of a leaf.
• Multi-tile pieces like beds, sofas, dressers, and globes render correctly.
• Appliance bodies like the fridge, stereo, and TV render.
• Clocks and decorated trees show their real models.
• Gold tools, balloons, fossils, and shop buildings render on the ground.
• Custom-design mannequins and umbrellas still show a leaf.

Changes

• Dropped furniture rests at the correct terrain height.
• Placement checks every tile a piece needs before dropping.
• Dropped furniture casts a contact shadow.

Fixes

• Fixed large furniture vanishing from your save when placed.
• Fixed a crash when dropping a certain alarm clock.
• Fixed the game page endlessly reloading on iPhone and iPad.
• Loading finishes instead of refreshing mid-startup.
• Updates stop retrying and show a manual Update button.
• Fixed the Update button to pull the latest version past the cache.
• Auto-recovery no longer reloads over harmless startup hiccups.

Fixes

• Fixed a crash that blocked loading after an update on iPhone.
• Reloads once to fetch a clean set of files.

New Features

• Visit a friend's town by user ID or invite link.
• Ride the train in through Porter, just like the original.
• Start a visit from the Visit page or the Friends button.
• Manage your room with member, kick, and leave controls.
• Get join and leave notifications.
• Play alongside each other live in the same world.
• Other players show their own look and a floating name tag.
• Players walk, run, and use tools with full animation.
• Held tools stay raised while running.
• Visitors see the host's villagers, fish, and bugs.
• Visitors share the host's weather, time, shop stock, and town tune.
• Doors open into building interiors during a visit.
• Emotes and reactions pop up over players' heads.
• Players stay visible to each other indoors.
• Digging, chopping, tree shaking, and the money rock sync to both screens.
• Dropping, picking up, planting, and pulling weeds sync live.
• Signs, the bulletin board, and item trades show for both players.
• Unified Save panel handles local saves, cloud saves, import, and export.
• Automatic local backup before any risky save, with restore.
• Walk into a rock or stump to hop up and sit on top.
• Sit on rocks while visiting a friend too.
• Redesigned homepage with a draggable clip carousel.
• Live player counter in the header and on the homepage.
• The counter is honest, anonymous, and never makes up a number.

Changes

• Rebuilt the devlog into dated, newest-first entries.
• Added a devlog chapter on the town-visit work.
• Cloud save conflicts ask which to keep and back up first.
• Visiting players move naturally instead of freezing or sliding.
• Idle tools no longer float oddly.
• Other players keep animating off the edge of the screen.
• Fishing and net swings play their full motion.
• Trees fall in the correct direction when chopped.
• Carried gyroids and overhead items draw correctly.
• Characters cast a ground shadow instead of floating.
• Footstep dust, sounds, and effects play faithfully.
• The door-entering pose plays properly.

Fixes

• Fixed the train station vanishing and freezing Porter.
• Fixed importing a save so it actually loads.
• Fixed a host's houses and buildings vanishing for visitors.
• Fixed a stuck visiting state re-freezing Porter.
• Fixed a keep-cloud conflict loop.
• Fixed crashes in the train scene with Rover.
• Fixed crashes when talking to K.K. Slider and other special characters.
• Fixed a crash when selling at the shop.
• Closed a security hole that bypassed per-request limits.

Behind the Scenes

• Stood up a separate staging environment for real-deployment testing.
• Overhauled the build and deploy pipeline for faster, safer releases.
• Added guards against shipping a mismatched or older build.

New Features

• Cloud saves sync your town across devices.
• Conflicting saves ask which to keep and back up the other.
• Play on your phone with an on-screen control pad.
• Upload HD texture packs on desktop.
• Huge texture packs stream in without crashing the tab.
• Options shows how much of your texture pack is in use.
• Returning players boot straight into their town.
• Loading card shows clear steps and a progress bar.
• Shows how long ago you last played.
• Added a how-to-play guide on the play screen.
• Added a first-time tip for newcomers.
• Auto-pauses and mutes when you switch tabs.
• Added a crash screen with one-tap copy for bug reports.
• Drag and drop your disc file to load.
• Added a controls reference for keyboard, gamepad, and touch.
• Added FAQ and fan-project info pages.
• Added a developer blog.
• Expanded the homepage with new sections.
• Added Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pages.
• Redesigned welcome and password-reset emails.

Changes

• Cut iPhone audio delay.
• Added a tap-to-enable-audio pill when sound starts muted.
• Slow frames no longer cut sound effects short.
• Removed background buzzing and static.
• Desktop visuals default to higher resolution, anti-aliasing, and vsync.
• Textures preload for smoother play.
• Phones auto-lower graphics to stay stable.
• Ships a smaller, faster build.
• Play page updates without a hard refresh.
• In-game settings persist across reloads.
• Touch controls realigned to prevent overlap.
• iOS long-presses no longer trigger text and zoom popups.
• Pressing Enter no longer exits fullscreen.
• Completed the on-screen controls hint.
• Fullscreen button shown only on supported devices.

Fixes

• Fixed in-game saves not being written.
• Fixed a crash when talking to certain villagers.
• Fixed the opening cutscene sometimes failing to advance.
• Fixed crashes tied to certain sound effects.
• Fixed save-and-quit to restart cleanly to the intro.
• Fixed a bug that wiped your address book.
• Fixed name entry producing scrambled characters.
• Fixed cloud saves falsely reporting conflicts.
• Fixed cloud restores failing.
• Fixed the first disc drag-and-drop failing.
• Fixed a phone boot loop.
• Fixed HD texture packs failing to load.
• Fixed the Saved confirmation flashing on background saves.
• Fixed blank player-model colors.
• Fixed the in-game Options entry placement.

Behind the Scenes

• Added a staging site to test changes before release.
• Made the site searchable for search engines.
• Added crash and error reporting.
• Hardened the deploy pipeline.

New Features

• Play GameCube Animal Crossing in your browser.
• Load your own game file, kept on your device.
• Play through the full first day.
• Name your character and town.
• Create an account with login.
• Reset your password by email.
• Get a welcome email when you sign up.
• Save and load your town between visits.
• Import an existing .gci memory-card save.
• Export your save to back it up.
• Reset Save recovers a broken town in one tap.
• Play on phone or desktop with touch controls.
• Plug in a controller for gamepad support.
• Open the in-game Options menu for save tools.
• Check the controls reference in Options.
• Browse home, About, Play, Login, and Register pages.
• Join the community through a Discord invite.

Changes

• Busy scenes run at full speed.
• Startup trimmed to Click to Start with a loading indicator.
• Recovers and reloads if graphics drop, save intact.

Fixes

• Fixed the intro never advancing past the opening cutscene.
• Fixed a crash when talking to certain villagers.
• Fixed silent or missing audio.
• Fixed inventory icons showing as blank white boxes.
• Fixed keys getting stuck.
• Fixed Export Save producing an empty download.
• Fixed the game not loading on certain page addresses.

Behind the Scenes

• Reorganized into one codebase with separately buildable parts.
• Hardened accounts with security-first hashing, sessions, and rate limiting.
• Added privacy-minded usage analytics.