Image courtesy of animalcrossing.wikia.com

Let’s face it: the first couple days of starting a new town in Animal Crossing: New Leaf are arguably some of the hardest days you’ll spend in the game.

For starters, you’re immediately passed from NPC to NPC in order to establish yourself in the town and take your first steps toward becoming Mayor.

While the process of choosing your face or running back-and-forth between Main Street and Town Hall may seem exhaustive, gaining your approval rating in order to earn your building permit is by far what many consider to be the most difficult aspect to the game.

As I have become a compulsive town-seller, I find myself having to endure this process quite often, and as an avid note-taker, I have created an extremely detailed guide (with help from my friends on the r/AnimalCrossing Discord!) on how to progress to the true Mayor status by raising your town’s citizen satisfaction, including details on how to do so. These items are not necessarily completed in a specific order. They are also not all required, but will help you even more in reaching that glorious 100% approval rating.

Pay your down payment to Tom Nook at Nook’s Homes on Main Street.

The fee of 10,000 bells goes to Tom Nook directly and does not need to be paid through the ABD. This allows Nook to build your house overnight, which is a requirement to receive your permit. This also boosts your approval rating a lot- in the last new save I started, finally building my house boosted my approval rating by nearly 20 percent!

Take your ID photo for your TPC (Town Pass Card)

I am not sure if this is technically required for the building permit, but getting this done as quickly as possible cannot be anything other than beneficial.

Post on the town’s Bulletin Board

This shows your citizens that you are going to be an engaged mayor. Remember, your Bulletin Board posts can be seen by anyone.

Mail letters to your villagers.

Villagers love getting mail, no matter how messy or misspelled it is. If you send a gift along with your letter, you may just get one back. If you don’t have any stationary, Isabelle will give you some when you ask her about “Advice for living here” when you stand in front of her desk in Town Hall.

Change your town tune and town flag.

Not only is it a great way to customize your town and show off your artistic and musical abilities, it’s an extremely precious moment when your villagers sing your town tune when they’re happy. Isabelle also suggests this action when you check in with her about your approval rating.

Dig up pitfall seeds and fossils- then donate the fossils.

Donating fossils means that there are more attractions inside the museum. If you sell pitfall seeds that you dig up, you can sell them for a few bells, which is helpful if you are starting from scratch and not with money from selling an old town to Tom Nook.

Catch fish and bugs and donate them.

This may be a little more difficult during the winter months, as there are so few bugs, but any amount of donations to the museum helps. You can find one of these at Timmy and Tommy’s shop on the first day, and you can receive the other from Isabelle through her “advice for living here.”

Dispose of trash you catch to Reese at Re-Tail.

Yes, it does cost money to take trash to Reese. However, a clean town is a happy town, and your approval rating will get boosted by this.

On that note, sell to Re-Tail!

Use the Flea Market and sell spare bugs/fish/fruit to Reese. The more bells’ worth of items you sell, the quicker you unlock Cyrus and his valuable item customization.

Add greenery around town- pull weeds and plant trees.

Some of the first advice that Isabelle will give you will be to buy a shovel and plant some trees. You can shake fruit-bearing trees and plant the fruit they drop. Plus, in the beginning, one of your fruit trees will have a “perfect” version of that fruit which is very valuable. Plant this perfect fruit in a suitable spot (one empty space on each side of the tree) immediately.

Speaking of greenery, water all of your flowers.

When Isabelle gives you her last bit of advice, she will give you a watering can. You can only water one flower at a time with the first watering can you get, but you also do not start with many flowers, so you should take care of them so that more grow. Pay special care to any wilted (grey) flowers. As Isabelle says, “citizens love seeing a mayor get their hands dirty!”

And lastly, the easiest way to raise your approval rating quickly: mingle with your villagers!

This is an extremely fast way to raise your approval rating. After all, how can you approve of someone to be your government if you know nothing about them? Chat with them, do their errands, and visit their houses. It may get repetitive having to do so many chores for your villagers, but it is the best possible thing to do. Doing errands (such as deliveries) give you even more points toward your rating.

While this is by no means a completely exhaustive list, it has helped me speed up the approval rating process in all of the new towns I have created. I hope this helps those of you out there starting your new towns, and if you have any suggestions, let me know!