Bulletin Board Bundles
| Bulletin Board Bundles | |
|---|---|
| Type | Bundle |
| Location | Community Center |
| Bundles | 5 |
| Reward | Friendship |
The Bulletin Board hangs on the left wall of the Community Center, and its scrolls appear once three bundles anywhere in the building are done. Of the six rooms it is the one that reaches across the whole farm, asking for tapped tree syrup, a cooked dish, a gem, a fish, animal produce from two upgraded buildings and a crop that shops will not sell in the first year. That spread is why it is usually the last room a farm closes, and why its scrolls sit half filled for months. Its payoff is unlike every other room: nothing is built or repaired, and instead every villager who is not a marriage candidate gains two hearts of friendship at once. Two hearts is the difference between a neighbour who nods and a neighbour who posts recipes, invites the farmer in and starts their heart scenes, so the room is worth finishing early in the run rather than as a tidy-up at the end.
Overview
Three of these five scrolls can be filled with ordinary foraging, cooking and shopping. The other two wait on farm buildings. Truffles only come from a pig, and a pig needs a barn carried through both upgrades to Deluxe. A Rabbit's Foot only comes reliably from a rabbit, and a rabbit needs a coop carried through to Deluxe as well. Those two upgrades together are a large stack of gold, wood and stone, which puts them firmly in the second year for most farms. Red Cabbage sits in the same place: Pierre only puts the seeds on his shelves from the second year onward, and in the first year the only route is a lucky visit to the Traveling Cart or a rare monster drop.
A farm that has just arrived in the valley can still make progress. Maple Syrup, Oak Resin and the mushrooms only want a Tapper and some time in the mines. Wheat, Hay and the cooked dishes are all cheap. What a new farm cannot do is finish the room, and knowing that early saves a lot of wasted searching. The honest shape of this room is a first year of quiet collecting and a second year in which two animal purchases and one seed packet close it in a week.
Bundles
The Fodder Bundle is the quick one and a sensible first target, because everything it wants is either sold at Marnie's Ranch or grows in a single season. Field Research is next, held up only by one winter-only shell. The Chef's Bundle and the Enchanter's Bundle both stall on an animal, and the Dye Bundle stalls on a seed packet, so those three tend to finish together once the second year opens the shop and the buildings.
The order worth playing is therefore Fodder, then Field Research, then whichever of the remaining three the farm happens to be closest to. The one thing not worth doing is leaving the fruit trees. Apples and Pomegranates are both wanted here, both only ripen in Fall, and a sapling needs most of a season in the ground before it bears, so the trees have to be planted long before the scrolls are ready for them.
Chef's Bundle
This scroll asks for a kitchen's worth of ingredients, and two of them are cooked. Fried Egg is the simplest dish in the game, but cooking at all needs a kitchen, which arrives with the first farmhouse upgrade from Robin. Maki Roll is taught either by the Queen of Sauce on the television or bought as a recipe at The Stardrop Saloon, so a farm that misses the broadcast can simply pay for it. Maple Syrup wants a Tapper on a Maple Tree, and a Tapper takes days to fill, so it pays to have one running long before the scroll is readable.
Truffle is the hold-up, and the reason is the chain behind it. The pig has to live in a Deluxe Barn, which means buying a barn and upgrading it twice, and the pig itself is a serious purchase on top. Even then the truffles do not appear on demand: a pig only finds them while it is outside on the grass, and pigs stay indoors on rainy days and for the whole of Winter. A farm that buys its pig in late Fall will watch the barn door stay shut until Spring. Fiddlehead Fern has a narrower window still, growing in the Secret Woods only during Summer, with the prehistoric floors of the Skull Cavern and felled Green Rain trees as the other routes. Poppy is a straightforward Summer crop, which means one good Summer can cover both the fern and the flower if the seeds go in early.
The Pink Cakes the bundle returns are worth keeping rather than eating. They are a loved gift for some of the children in town, and a cake handed over on a birthday moves a heart faster than any amount of conversation.
The bundle wants all six items below.
| Item | Image | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Maple Syrup | 
|
Tapped Maple Tree |
| Fiddlehead Fern | 
|
Summer Foraging in the Secret Woods, Foraging on Prehistoric Floors at the Skull Cavern, Cutting down Green Rain Trees |
| Truffle | 
|
Pigs |
| Poppy | 
|
Summer Crops |
| Maki Roll | 
|
Cooking (recipe sources: The Queen of Sauce, The Saloon) |
| Fried Egg | 
|
Cooking |
Dye Bundle
Six items, one for each colour, and every one from a different corner of the valley. Red Mushroom comes from the mines, from the Secret Woods in the warmer seasons or from a farm cave set up for mushrooms. Sunflower grows through Summer and Fall from seeds sold at Pierre's General Store. Aquamarine comes out of its own nodes in the mines, out of smashed boxes or out of a fishing Treasure Chest. Duck Feather is the awkward one of the easy group, because a duck drops it only now and then in place of an egg, so it is a matter of keeping ducks and waiting.
Sea Urchin needs a bridge. The tide pools at the east end of the beach are where urchins wash up, and the wooden footbridge to them starts the game broken. Repairing it takes a large pile of wood handed over at the broken edge, which is a real cost for a farm still building coops. Once it is fixed the pools refill constantly, and most visits turn up coral with the occasional urchin among it.
Red Cabbage is the item that decides when this bundle finishes. The seeds are not stocked at Pierre's until the second year, and the crop then needs a full Summer to grow, so a first-year attempt depends entirely on the Traveling Cart happening to stock the packet. Serpents, Mummies and Purple Slimes drop the vegetable itself, but at rates low enough that hunting for it is not a plan. The usual outcome is that the Dye Bundle waits for Summer of the second year.
The Seed Maker that comes back is the best machine reward on the board. It turns a harvested crop into a packet of that crop's seeds, which breaks the cycle of buying seeds every season, and it occasionally produces Ancient Seeds from an ordinary run. Its recipe otherwise waits on a high Farming level, so getting one from the Junimos is a genuine shortcut.
The bundle wants all six items below.
| Item | Image | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Red Mushroom | 
|
Foraging in The Mines, Summer or Fall Foraging in the Secret Woods, The Farm Cave (mushroom option), Tapping a Mushroom Tree |
| Sea Urchin | 
|
Beach Foraging, after using 300 wood to fix the bridge to the right side of The Beach or any side of the beach during crab mating season; foraging in the Beach Farm |
| Sunflower | 
|
Summer / Fall Crops |
| Duck Feather | 
|
Ducks |
| Aquamarine | 
|
Aquamarine Nodes, boxes in The Mines, Fishing Treasure Chests |
| Red Cabbage | 
|
Summer Crops (Red Cabbage Seeds are available at Pierre's General Store in year 2+, at the Traveling Cart, or dropped by Serpents, Mummies, and Purple Slimes) |
Field Research Bundle
Four items, and three of them are easy. Chub swims in both the mountain lake and the river in every season at any hour, so it is often the first thing on the board to get ticked off. Frozen Geode drops from the frozen middle floors of the mines, where a farm will be digging anyway. Purple Mushroom lives on the deep mine floors, with a mushroom farm cave and the Forest farm in Fall as the alternatives.
Nautilus Shell is the trap. It is a Winter-only forage on the beach, so a farm that reads this scroll in Spring has three seasons to wait before it can even look. Two things soften that. Demetrius posts one occasionally once there is any friendship with him, which is reason enough to say hello when passing the laboratory, and the Beach farm layout spawns the shell in any season. It is also easy to confuse with the Nautilus Fossil, which is a museum artifact and will not go in the bundle.
The Recycling Machine the bundle hands back converts the rubbish pulled out of the water while fishing into stone, coal, ore and wood. It is a small but steady return on an activity that otherwise produces nothing, and its recipe is normally locked behind a fishing level, so an early copy is welcome.
The bundle wants all four items below.
| Item | Image | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Purple Mushroom | 
|
The Mines, The Farm Cave (mushroom option), Forest Farm Map Foraging in Fall |
| Nautilus Shell | 
|
Winter Beach Foraging, Beach Farm Map Foraging during any season, Random gift from Demetrius (Note: NOT the Nautilus Fossil artifact) |
| Chub | 
|
Can be found in the mountain lake and river during all seasons, any time |
| Frozen Geode | 
|
The Mines floors 41-79 |
Fodder Bundle
The cheapest scroll in the room by a wide margin. Wheat grows through Summer and Fall, and a Single Bed of it covers the count easily. Hay can be bought outright at Marnie's Ranch, or cut from grass with a scythe once a Silo is standing, so it needs no planning at all. Neither of those is a problem.
Apples are the only real requirement, and they are a planning problem rather than a difficulty. An Apple Tree bears only in Fall, and the sapling has to stand in the ground for most of a season before it fruits, so a tree bought in Fall is a tree that gives nothing until the following Fall. Planting one in Spring of the first year is one of the cheapest pieces of foresight available, and the same logic covers the Pomegranate the Enchanter's Bundle wants.
The Heater the bundle returns is narrow but real. It only does anything in Winter, only after evening, and only for animals inside the building it stands in, where it lifts their mood overnight. Mood drives produce quality, so one Heater in the barn quietly improves a Winter's milk. A second one in the same building adds nothing.
The bundle wants all three items below.
| Item | Image | Amount | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 
|
10 | Summer / Fall Crops |
| Hay | 
|
10 | Purchase at Marnie's Ranch or Desert Trader, or harvest from Grass or Wheat. |
| Apple | 
|
3 | Apple Trees during Fall, The Farm Cave (fruit bat option) |
Enchanter's Bundle
Oak Resin is the easy half of this scroll: a Tapper on an Oak Tree produces it slowly and without any attention. Wine needs a Keg, which is either a Farming reward or the prize for the Artisan Bundle in the Pantry, and then the better part of a week with fruit inside it. Any fruit will do, so the cheapest berry from a bush is as good as a melon here. Pomegranate comes from a Pomegranate Tree in Fall, which is the same long lead time the apples have.
Rabbit's Foot is the item that keeps this bundle open longest. Rabbits live only in a Deluxe Coop, which means a coop taken through both upgrades, and the rabbit itself is another large purchase. Even then the foot only turns up in place of the usual wool, and only once the animal is well kept and happy, so it is a matter of petting it daily and waiting. The Traveling Cart stocks one occasionally at a steep price, and Serpents in the Skull Cavern drop it at a rate low enough to ignore. Buying it from the cart is the one route that can close this bundle in the first year.
Five Gold Bars come back, which is not an exciting reward on paper. In practice it arrives at the moment a farm is short of exactly that: Gold Bars are what Crystalariums, Seed Makers and the better sprinklers all want, and smelting five of them means five trips to the deep mine floors.
The bundle wants all four items below.
| Item | Image | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Oak Resin | 
|
Tapped Oak Tree |
| Wine | 
|
Keg |
| Rabbit's Foot | 
|
Rabbits, Serpent drop in Skull Cavern (0.8%), Cat (1.7%) |
| Pomegranate | 
|
Pomegranate Trees during Fall, The Farm Cave (fruit bat option) |
Rewards
The room reward is the one to plan around. Two hearts applied at once to every non-datable villager pushes a whole town past the thresholds where recipes arrive in the post and heart scenes start to fire, and it does it without a single gift. It lands the morning after the last scroll is filled, as a letter from Mayor Lewis explaining that parcels addressed from the farm have been turning up in people's houses, and the friendship is credited when the letter is opened.
Among the bundle rewards, the Seed Maker is the standout and the Recycling Machine is a solid second. The Heater matters for exactly one season a year. The Gold Bars are a convenience rather than a windfall, and the Pink Cakes are best treated as gifts rather than food.
The table pairs each bundle with what it pays.
| Bundle | Reward | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chef's Bundle | Pink Cake | 
|
3 |
| Dye Bundle | Seed Maker | 
|
1 |
| Field Research Bundle | Recycling Machine | 
|
1 |
| Fodder Bundle | Heater | 
|
1 |
| Enchanter's Bundle | Gold Bar | 
|
5 |
Strategy
Plant an Apple Tree and a Pomegranate Tree in the first Spring, before either scroll is even readable. That single decision removes the longest wait in the room. Put a Tapper on a maple and one on an oak at the same time, and both tree products will be sitting in a chest by the time they are wanted.
Keep a dedicated chest in the farmhouse for this room and drop everything into it on sight. The Bulletin Board is the room most often sabotaged by ordinary play: the Fried Egg gets eaten before a hard mine run, the Wine gets put into a Cask to age, the Aquamarine goes to Clint, and the single Duck Feather gets shipped with the rest of the morning's produce. None of those is recoverable without starting that item again.
When the second year opens, deal with the three blocked bundles in one push. Buy the Red Cabbage seeds from Pierre and plant them at the start of Summer, get the barn and coop to Deluxe, then buy the pig and the rabbit. Check the Traveling Cart every visit on the way, because a Rabbit's Foot or a Red Cabbage Seed on its shelf skips a whole building upgrade's worth of waiting.
Notes
The friendship only reaches villagers the farmer has actually met. Anyone still showing as an unknown name on the social list gets nothing, and the Dwarf is skipped entirely unless the Dwarvish Translation Guide has been assembled. Kent is the sharpest edge here: he is away when the game begins and only comes home at the start of the second year, so a farm that finishes this room before he arrives leaves him on no hearts at all.
Farms started with the bundles remixed may find quite different scrolls on this board, including ones built around spring berries, children's treats, festival food or help-wanted tickets. The room reward is the same either way.
All Bundles
Every room of the Community Center, with the number of bundles it holds and what finishing them repairs.
| Name | Bundles | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| Crafts Room Bundles | 6 | Bridge Repair |
| Pantry Bundles | 6 | Greenhouse |
| Fish Tank Bundles | 6 | Glittering Boulder Removed |
| Boiler Room Bundles | 3 | Minecarts Repaired |
| Bulletin Board Bundles | 5 | Friendship |
| Vault Bundles | 4 | Bus Repair |
| The Missing Bundle | 1 | Movie Theater |
| Joja Community Development Form | 5 | Bought with gold |