Ah, stone — one of the foundations of crafting in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It’s used in a lot of DIY recipes and is needed to progress your game early on.
If you’re new to the game and wondering how to get it, let me lift that heavy burden off of you and share with you the steps, tips, and tricks on how to get stone in Animal Crossing.
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Getting Stone in Animal Crossing
Soon you’ll have stacks of stone in no time. Let’s rock!
Step 1: Find the Rocks
For newbies of the game, you’ve probably come across a random rock on the ground with a tiny rock beside it.
The big one is a rock, and the tiny chunk is a stone. You can pick up the stone by pressing ‘y’.
Each island actually gets six rocks, and their locations can be quite random. You have to wander around to find them.
TIP: Remember their locations so you can go to them again the next day!
Step 2: Get a Tool
We actually can’t hit a rock without a tool. You will need an axe or a shovel to get stones.
If you’re early in the game, you can get a Flimsy Axe Recipe from Tom Nook after giving him some critters.
Later on, you can get a Flimsy Shovel Recipe from Blathers after he has settled in his tent.
Step 3: Hit the Rock With Your Tool
Let’s take out your axe or shovel first. To take out a tool, press ‘x,’ select the tool you want, press ‘a’ on it, and choose ‘hold.’
Now that you’re holding your tool, it’s pretty straightforward from here. Simply go in front of a rock and press ‘a’.
You should see something fall out of the rock. You can get a maximum of eight materials per rock if you time it right, and these materials can be stones, iron nuggets, clay, or even a rare gold nugget.
Some rocks give you bells instead. If you can’t get any more materials, check your rocks the next day.
And that’s it! Excellent work, stone friend! Go forth and get all the stones.
Trick for Getting Eight Materials per Rock
Every beginner in the game should know that you can actually get eight materials per rock.
You have to repeatedly hit a rock without any short gaps in between.
This can be tricky, though, because the force of your axe hitting a rock actually pushes you back.
Worry not, rock hitter! There is a way you can avoid repositioning yourself after every hit. You just have to dig two holes behind you.
The holes will act as a barrier for you and stop you from bouncing around and stepping a bit too far.
You have to dig the holes outside the space where the materials will drop.
Here’s a handy-dandy visual guide to show you where you should dig the holes.
Tips for Stone Farming
Knowing how to get stones is just the first step. You might need more stones, accidentally destroy a rock, or want to make a ‘rock garden’. Hit up these tips for more info!
Other Ways To Get Stone
You can actually get stones from fishing or popping balloons. It’s random, but it happens.
For fishing, there’s a chance you can get a stone from small fish shadows.
Go to Mystery Islands
Need more stones? Accidentally sold all your stones before crafting any tools early in the game?
Mystery Islands are the answer to your stone woes. If you’ve got all the materials you can from your own rocks on your island, head to any Mystery Island and hit rocks there.
TIP: Remember to bring extra tools. But if you’re willing to part with some of your miles, you can exchange your miles for tools through Wilbur or Kapp’n.
Store Some Stones
Sounds obvious, but it’s good to be reminded about this. You can store stacks of stones in your storage.
You never know when you’ll need lots of stones for a project!
Don’t Eat Food Before Hitting!
Eating food in this game will give you the strength to shovel trees or destroy rocks. Unless you want to move a rock, remember not to eat anything before hitting one.
A destroyed rock takes a day to respawn.
Can I Plant Rocks?
Wondering about ‘rock gardens’? They’re not actually rocks that you can plant, but rather they’re rocks that have been gathered in one location.
You force a rock to spawn at your desired location by destroying it, blocking all the spaces on your island with items, and leaving only a 3×3 grid for a rock to spawn the next day.
Now, you have everything you need to know about getting stones in Animal Crossing.
Take care of your rocks, store enough stones (it’s never enough!), and remember the trick to get the most out of your rocks!