Animal Crossing players explain how to make the perfect Snowboy

The winter is upon us, at least for those whose Animal Crossing islands are in the Northern Hemisphere. Islands are once again wintry wonderlands, snow is falling, and villagers are in their adorably cozy finery. This means it’s also the time of year for repeatedly attempting to build a perfect Snowboy — Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ version of a snowman.

I’ve got good and bad news: These bad boys are delightfully festive, but also incredibly finicky to build. A “perfect” Snowboy will give players one seasonal DIY recipe, as well as a Large Snowflake every day until it melts. But it’s incredibly easy to biff the proportions on the fresh-packed rolling snow — the snowball will grow as you roll it, making it hard to finesse — yielding a Snowboy that’s adorable but ultimately doesn’t give you any items.

Luckily, New Horizons players have discovered an easier shortcut for making that perfect Snowboy.

Here’s Redditor doctorgurlfrin’s sage advice:

Roll each snowball to their max size (they won’t get any larger and your character will struggle for a second pushing it when you are stopped- you can see how mine is when I’m placing the snowball on the right.).

Lay a 10 tile path (or custom design like the strawberries I used lol. I prefer something that doesn’t completely blend together so it’s easier for me to count the number of tiles).

Place one snowball on each end of the path- do NOT let them roll over your 10 tile path or any other path/custom design during placement or it won’t work!!

Start with the right snowball and roll to the left and voila! PERFECT SNOWBOY!

As the Redditor notes, later in the thread, players don’t need to have terraforming tools to lay down pathing — it can be done by taking a custom design and simply laying it on the floor, square by square.

Twitter user and Twitch streamer SnaxBreak also demonstrates a perfect Snowboy build, complete with advice on how to achieve it:

Sure, these perfect Snowboys give you cool stuff. But in our opinion, all Snowboys are perfect. They’re all cute, no matter what — and islands look great with a few of them in whatever shapes and sizes they come out in. So, go forth and cover your islands in Snowboys.