BrianMp16's Animal Crossing (GCN) Billion Bell Challenge FAQ

BrianMp16's Animal Crossing (GCN) Billion Bell Challenge FAQ

Q: Has anyone ever legitimately obtained 1 billion bells and gotten the Post Model in this game before?
A: No, not a single person in the world has. A few people have accomplished it using glitches including Coldeggman, Runnerguy2489, and a few other unconfirmed cases.

Q: What are the rules you've established for this challenge?
A: The rules are: NO glitches, NO Nook Codes, One Town only, time traveling permitted by advancing time no more than 1 day at a time.

Q: What setup are you using to play and record gameplay?
A: I am playing with a Nintendo official unmodded DOL-101 GameCube with a Nintendo official 1019 Block Memory Card and a Nintendo official purple GameCube controller displayed on an old CRT and recorded with a Diamond VC500 capture device. Sadly the audio capture doesn't work so the game audio is captured from the blue snowball microphone that I also speak into. I wish to get a better capture device one day.

Q: What is considered a glitch?
A: There are many glitches in this game, some useful ones to get a lot of money relatively quickly include: duplicating items using any method and restoring turnips by time traveling backwards in time and resetting.

Q: What is a Nook Code?
A: A Nook Code is a built-in feature in the game in which a player may talk to Nook and ask to "Say Code". The player is then prompted to input a 28-character code. If the code is successful, Nook will give the player an item based on the code. For more information, see: https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Secret_code

Q: Why aren't you using Nook Codes?
A: Nook Codes can be used to instantly receive any item, defeating the purpose of legitimately obtaining the Post Model. This is how most people obtain the Post Model in their Animal Crossing playthroughs.

Q: Isn't a Nook Code considered a legitimate method to obtain the Post Model?
A: Yes and No. No because one use of Nook Codes is Nintendo used to provide a select few "universal codes" online and through Nintendo Power magazines. None of the codes Nintendo officially provided give the player the Post Model. The reason the answer is also yes is because once one player in the world has legitimately obtained the Post Model, that player may choose to send it legitimately to another player via Nook by saying "Hear Code" and sending it to another person. From there, that one Post Model can legitimately be distributed to anyone else indefinitely. This has never happened though. Another reason one could argue yes is because the algorithm to generate Nook codes has been reverse engineered from the game code and anyone can generate their own unique Nook Code for any item. However, the developers had no intention of this happening, so a custom code is not considered legitimate.

Q: Why are you only using one town?
A: One option to ensure you profit from Turnips is to travel to other towns that currently have a "Turnip Spike" (see below). Because I could create as many towns as I want, I could simply guarantee profit each week by traveling to my other town and selling Turnips there, which I feel is pushing the boundaries of legitimacy.

Q: Wouldn't you consider Time Traveling illegitimate?
A: Time traveling backwards (except for proper daylight savings time changes) is considered illegitimate in my opinion. However, time traveling forward up to one day forward at a time forces me to play the game exactly as the developers intended but at my own pace. There is no in-game advantage given to the player time traveling in the manner I established; and furthermore, the total time spent will be the same time traveling in this manner versus playing in real time.

Q: Won't you run out of time to complete this challenge since the Animal Crossing clock ends in 2030?
A: I started this challenge in real life and in the game time on January 1st, 2020. I do not believe it will take more than a couple in-game years to complete this challenge with my strategy.

Q: What is your strategy here, why are you buying so many Turnips?
A: I am playing the "Stalk Market". There is a 40% chance each week that I can turn an 8x profit off of Turnips from Turnip Spikes (see below). This is the most efficient way to make money in Animal Crossing (GCN).

Q: Tell me more about the "Stalk Market" and who is Joan?
A: Joan is a sow who visits your town every Sunday between 6a.m. - 12p.m. She is the only character who sells you Turnips. Once you buy your Turnips from Joan on Sunday, Nook will buy your Turnips on Monday - Saturday for a certain price. The price we are looking for is a large number in the hundreds called a Turnip Spike which is exactly 8x the value Joan was selling Turnips for the previous Sunday. This is what we are aiming to get. For further information, see: http://www.animalcrossingcommunity.com/acgc_turnip_guide.asp

Q: Why is there money all over the ground even when you aren't buying Turnips?
A: As soon as you talk to Joan in an acre, you have to stay in the acre or else she will leave and relocated elsewhere in town. Because you can only buy 100 Turnips at a time from Joan and each group of 100 Turnips takes up a spot in your inventory or ground, there is a limited number of Turnips that you can fit on the ground in a given acre in which you must stay in. I have calculated how many Turnips can fit in a given acre given the Turnip buying price and therefore how much money I will need to spend in that acre. Having the money in the acre ahead of time will save time buying Turnips from Joan.

Q: But if the Turnip buying price varies each week, how do you know how much money to put in an acre?
A: Joan's Turnip selling price will range between 70-129. Since a turnip spike is always 8x the buying price, the most efficient strategy is to buy Turnips at a higher price because you can spend money quicker. Knowing this, I set a cutoff point in which I will only buy Turnips if Joan's selling price is 115 or higher (this happens 1 in 4 times). I therefore calculate how many Bells will be needed to buy enough Turnips to fit in that acre with a Joan Turnip selling price of 115. Once Sunday comes around and I check the price, if the price is greater than 115, I can put that number into my algorithm I created to make minor adjustments of bringing in a few more 30K Bells Bags to the acre for that day.

Q: Why is buying at a higher price more efficient?
A: Because buying Turnips is the most time consuming process of the stalk market and because the turnip spike is always exactly 8x the value of Joan's selling price, the faster you can spend money, the better. The higher the Joan selling price, the faster you can spend money. Imagine you want to buy 1,000 Turnips. This will take about 2 minutes to accomplish. On week one, Joan is selling Turnips for 80 Bells each and you get a Turnip spike of 8x that value on Tuesday which equates to 640 Bells and you earn 640,000 Bells. Now on week two, Joan is selling Turnips for 120 Bells each and you get a Turnip spike of 8x that value on Tuesday which equates to 960 Bells and you earn 960,000 Bells. Only factoring in the buying time, you spend 2 minutes earning 640,000 Bells on week one versus you spend 2 minutes earning 960,000 Bells on week two.

Q: Doesn't it take time to sell Turnips too?
A: Yes, absolutely. In fact, the higher Nook's Turnip Price is, the longer it will take to sell your Turnips. The reason for this is because you can only hold 549,999 Bells max in your inventory. Fifteen 30K Bell Bags in your item inventory and 99,999 Bells in your bell inventory or "wallet." You can manually transfer up to ten 30K Bell Bags to any empty letter you have in your letter inventory, but Nook will not automatically do this for you. That means you can only sell up to 549,999 Bells worth of Turnips at a time. If you get a turnip spike, you won't be able to sell 15 sets of 100 Turnips at a time because it will sell for too much money - more than you can hold in your inventory. You will be forced to sell a smaller quantity of 100 Turnips at a time which will increase the time spent selling Turnips. However, it is still faster selling turnips than buying them regardless of how high of a spike you get.

Q: Why are there no trees in your town?
A: A perfect town status does not affect the Turnip price or odds of a Turnip Spike, therefore, the less obstacles in the way and the less objects taking up space on the ground, the more efficient the process will go. Note: Feng shui also does not affect the stalk market.

Q: How long do you think this will take?
A: I've calculated this will take between 200-300 hours depending on how lucky I get getting turnip spikes. With perfect luck, it would only take around 100 hours and with really bad luck, it could take upwards of 1000 hours. So far I have gotten bad luck. I hope that will change soon.

Q: Why hasn't anyone ever done this before?
A: My theory is because it's so easy to simply type in a Nook Code for the Post Model, no one has justified spending hundreds of hours to obtain an item they can get in a few seconds. I know a handful have tried but have either given up or resorted to glitches. I can understand, it's very defeating spending 7 hours buying Turnips only to sell back at a loss.

Q: Why are you doing this?
A: It's always been my dream to legitimately obtain every item in the game (at least the ones possible to do legitimately). I have legitimately obtained every other item in the game (including the Mailbox at 100,000,000 Bells) so this is the final item. And the fact that no one has ever done this before is an added incentive. Additionally, it seems fitting to finally 100% this game legitimately as a goal in preparation for New Horizons release on March 20, 2020.

Q: Do you think you will give up?
A: There's always a chance, but I have no intentions of giving up even after 20 hours in a row of losing money.

Q: Tell me about your "Animal Crossing Bell and Turnip Counter" program.
A: I wrote this program the first week of this challenge to provide some interesting statistics for you, the viewer, and myself likewise. I wrote some fancy image recognition code that takes a snapshot of a selected part of my computer screen a few times per second to automatically detect when I successfully buy Turnips from Joan and increments values to a text file and also displays them on my program for you to see. This is both informational and useful.

Q: What can I do to support you in your challenge?
A: Simply watching is all I ask for your support! Even if my channel is paused in one of your background tabs, it improves my viewership and motivates me to continue the grind and encourages others to watch knowing we are all a part of history in the making. Other than that, following me on Twitch, engaging in chat, watching my YouTube videos (www.youtube.com/BrianMp16), subscribing on YouTube and Twitch, and donating are all other ways to support me! All money I have earned on both platforms has gone directly into improving my stream. I greatly appreciate everyone who watches and contributes in any way!

Q: Will you be streaming and playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons when it's release?
A: Yes! I am very excited to play New Horizons when it's released on March 20, 2020 and I will be streaming it regularly!

Q: When do you stream?
A: I stream every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday in the evenings and if I have the time, I will stream on other days and other times if I can. Sometimes I can multitask while doing this challenge though, especially while buying Turnips, so I will be streaming more frequently than usual. I hope to see you in stream! Feel free to ask any more questions that I didn't address here =)