Animal Crossing New Leaf Cheats and Secrets

If you want to know the very best Animal Crossing New Leaf cheats and secrets, then you've come to the right place. We've just returned to New Leaf in anticipation of Animal Crossing New Horizons next year, and it remains a lovely and charming game to dip back in to. In this Animal Crossing New Leaf cheats guide, we'll be walking you through all the secrets and tricks you can pull in the game to make life as easy as possible in your new town.

Are There Cheats in Animal Crossing New Leaf?

Firstly, we should point out that strictly speaking, there technically aren't any cheats in Animal Crossing New Leaf. Instead, what there actually are is a litany of secrets and tricks that the game hides from you, that you're going to need to figure out.

Gold Furniture Upgrade

If you want to really go over the top in Animal Crossing New Leaf, there's always the super secret gold furniture. If you can get a hold of 3 Gold Gems and bring them to Cyrus, he'll reward you with a randomized item of furniture made entirely out of gold.

How to Get the Hammer

Is someone in Animal Crossing New Leaf really annoying you? Well that's where the Hammer can make life hell for them.

This trick item won't actually let you cut down trees or break apart rocks, but the Hammer can be used to really annoy villagers if you hit them enough times with it. You can purchase the Hammer from Tortimer Island for 10 medals.

How to Unlock the Museum's Second Floor

You can enter the museum in Animal Crossing New Leaf from practically the beginning of the game. However you can only visit the first floor of the museum right away, where you'll see a ton of empty display stands.

To unlock the second floor of the museum, you need to donate one of every item in every category to Blathers, who runs the museum. There's the bugs, fish/deep sea creatures, fossils, and works of art categories that you can donate to in the museum.

How to Wake Up Cyrus

Cyrus isn't immediately awake in Animal Crossing New Leaf. But if you want to purchase some custom furniture for your home in your town, you're going to need to wake him up.

To wake up Cyrus in Animal Crossing New Leaf, you firstly need to sell items that accumulate to 100,000 total Bells to Reese. Then, you need to make sure you have 100 total items in your catalog, and finally, it must be at least 7 days since you started this playthrough of New Leaf. Once all the criteria is filled, Cyrus will wake up.

Secret Photo Filters

In the town center of Animal Crossing New Leaf, you can find the photo booth, where you can pay to have your photo taken. However there are two hiddens filters you can apply to all the photos that you have taken within the booth.

If you want to apply a black and white filter to your photo in the photo booth, simply hold down L on your 3DS. Alternatively if you want the sepia tone on your photo booth portrait, you can hold down the R button while the photo is being taken.

Stop Villagers from Moving

Have you got your eye on a particular plot of land in Animal Crossing New Leaf? If you do, then you obviously don't want another villager moving in and taking that plot of land while you're still planning and waiting.

To prevent a plot of land from being taken up by anyone else, simply put a custom design board in the designated area. While the design board is in place, no other villagers in your game can relocate to this plot of land.

Take Up a Part Time Job

Ever find yourself in need of a few extra Bells? You can actually take on a part time job in Animal Crossing New Leaf, but only at Brewster's Cafe.

After purchasing 8 cups of coffee, you'll be offered a job at Brewster's Cafe. While you're working in your part time job, there'll be characters that you need to sell the correct type of coffee to, based on the hints that they give. Based on your performance, Brewster will give you a bag of coffee beans which vary in quality, which you can then sell on for as much as 2,000 Bells.

The Kapp'n's Song Skip

If you opt to sail the high seas with Kapp'n in Animal Crossing New Leaf, the character will begin singing a little tune to you. If it's say, your third or fourth time hearing the tune, you might be a little tired of it by now. Simply tap A or B, and you'll skip Kapp'n's song, and go straight to the island destination.

The Mushroom Trick

In Animal Crossing New Leaf, you can only grow certain items at certain times of the year. Take for example the mushrooms, which you can't grow in the dead of Winter because it's way too cold.

But there's one trick around this. Sometimes when you cut a tree down in Winter, there'll be a special symbol of a mushroom on the tree stump. Don't dig the stump up, because if you come back three days later, there'll be a mushroom waiting for you there.

Unlocking the Gardening Shop

The special Gardening Shop isn't open when you first boot up Animal Crossing New Leaf. For it to be open for business, you'll have to either plant 30 trees, plant 30 flowers, water 30 flowers, or pick 30 weeds. We should mention that if the number of weeds in your town exceeds 50, Lief will close the Gardening Shop until you bring the weeds back under control.

Unlock the QR Machine

There's a QR machine in the Able Sisters shop, but it isn't unlocked straight away. You need to talk to Sable, who runs the Able Sisters shop, literally every day, until she's counted as your friend. At this point, she'll open up the QR machine for you to use whenever you want.