Add Animal Crossing events to your digital calendar

11 min read Original article ↗

Animal Forest (“Dōbutsu no Mori” or “どうぶつの森”) was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64 on April 14th, 2001: exactly 25 years ago today! To celebrate this beloved franchise I have created calendars for each of the “first-generation” Animal Crossing games that you can load into calendar apps like Google Calendar or Apple Calendars to see events from your town.

These calendars include holidays, special events, igloo and summer campers, and more. Additionally, I've created a tool which can generate importable calendars for the birthdays of villagers in your town using data from future titles and star signs from e-Reader cards.

Select which game, region, and language you are interested in and then scan the QR code or copy the URL and import the calendar manually into your calendar application. Note that calendars are only available for a valid “game + region + language” combinations such as: “Animal Forest e+ + NTSC-J + Japanese”.

This project would not be possible without many contributions to Animal Crossing game preservation such as Nookipedia, the Animal Crossing decompilation project, Animal Crossing Megasheets, and more. Thank you to everyone who contributes to these resources and for cherishing an important game for many people, including myself. The code to generate these calendars and birthdays is available on GitHub, licensed MIT. Data is licensed according to their respective owners. If you find issues, please submit them on GitHub.

Villager Birthdays



Villager birthdays were added in Animal Crossing Wild World, so none of the first-generation Animal Crossing game supported villager birthdays. There are 321 unique villagers across all first-generation games. Of those 321 villagers, 258 villagers appear in future games and can have their birthdays mapped from those games.

We have some information to go on for what the remaining 62 villagers' birthdays might be. Every villager from the first generation has an e-Reader card that contains information about the villager, including their star sign. This star sign was used for a single GBA e-Reader mini-game about match-making, where the player would swipe two e-Reader cards and be rewarded for compatible matches.

The 62 villagers without known birthdays are listed below, the vast majority are exclusive to all first-generation games (32) or only Animal Forest e+ (24). Below is a table with these villagers, and an "unofficial birthday" (*) column that I've generated myself, methodology below the table:

Name Birthday * Star Sign Games
Hector Mar 31 Aries AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Rhoda Apr 19 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Woolio Apr 14 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
ゲン (Gen) Apr 10 AFe+
ポコ (Poko) Apr 5 AFe+
メグミ (Megumi) Mar 24 AFe+
Bessie May 11 Taurus AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Chuck May 1 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Oxford Apr 21 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Petunia Apr 26 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Betty May 28 Gemini AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Cupcake Jun 12 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Flash Jun 20 AF+, AC, AFe+
キャロット (Kyarotto) Jun 7 AFe+
タロウ (Tarō) May 30 AFe+
Belle Jun 22 Cancer AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Elina Jul 6 AF+, AC, AFe+
Emerald Jul 16 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Marcy Jun 25 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Penny Jul 10 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
シナビル (Shinabiru) Jul 18 AFe+
ジョー (Jō) Jun 23 AFe+
Pigleg Jul 29 Leo AF+, AC, AFe+
Rollo Aug 15 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Twirp Aug 5 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
バウ (Bau) Jul 23 AFe+
Hambo Sep 2 Virgo AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Liz Aug 23 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Quetzal Aug 25 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
パトリシア (Patorishia) Sep 21 AFe+
ミャウ (Myau) Sep 13 AFe+
Flossie Sep 29 Libra AF+, AC, AFe+
Hank Sep 23 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Sue E Oct 18 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
こはる (Koharu) Oct 2 AFe+
キット (Kitto) Sep 27 AFe+
Tiara Nov 11 Scorpio AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
マダムローザ (Madamurōza) Nov 10 AFe+
Jane Dec 21 Sagittarius AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Leigh Dec 20 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Lulu Dec 12 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Valise Nov 24 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Yodel Dec 11 AF+, AC, AFe+
サニー (Sanī) Dec 15 AFe+
ジュウベエ (Jūbē) Dec 6 AFe+
ピエール (Piēru) Nov 23 AFe+
フルーティー (Furūtī) Nov 27 AFe+
Chico Jan 4 Capricorn AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Iggy Dec 26 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Otis Jan 10 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Sven Dec 31 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
しょうきち (Shoukichi) Dec 22 AFe+
アイル (Airu) Jan 18 AFe+
Nosegay Feb 2 Aquarius AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
アナログ (Anarogu) Feb 12 AFe+
ウェルダン (Werudan) Feb 14 AFe+
Aziz Feb 29 Pisces AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Dozer Mar 15 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
Huggy Mar 13 AF, AF+, AC, AFe+
クララ (Kurara) Mar 19 AFe+
マサ (Masa) Feb 25 AFe+
ルル (Ruru) Mar 18 AFe+

To assign birthdays for these villagers I gathered a list of dates that did not yet have a villager with a birthday per star sign and then randomly assigned birthdays to minimize "overlaps". It turns out there's enough "slots" in each star sign to do this without any overlaps, although Cancer is close with exactly 7 villagers without known birthdays and 7 open days:

Star Sign Villagers Available
Aries 6 9
Taurus 4 13
Gemini 5 11
Cancer 7 7
Leo 4 10
Virgo 5 11
Libra 5 7
Scorpio 2 13
Sagittarius 9 10
Capricorn 6 9
Aquarius 3 8
Pisces 6 15

If you're doing the math, you'll notice there's a single villager unaccounted for. It turns out that there is just one villager from Animal Forest e+ with a known birthday: Nindori. Nindori is special because his birthday, September 14th, is printed on his e-Reader card as a "fun fact". This date is special because it's the date the Nintendo GameCube released in Japan. Nindori's design is based on the Japanese-exclusive spice-orange GameCube.

How many years of Animal Crossing are left?

Animal Crossing for the GameCube is not an infinite game. After a certain year, depending on which game you are playing, time will stop advancing. Once time freezes every year will be the same as the previous year:

Game Last Year
Animal Forest 2032
Animal Forest+ 2032
Animal Crossing 2030
Animal Forest e+ 2030

This means that without mods, you only have 6 years left before years stop advancing in all first-generation Animal Crossing games.

This was likely only done due to a single holiday: the Harvest Moon Festival which corresponds to the real-life holiday the “Mid-Autumn Festival”. This holiday follows the Lunisolar calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar. The dates for the Harvest Moon were pre-calculated and stored as a lookup table and the final "year" in each game corresponds to the last year in this lookup table. The lookup tables were different for each game:

Year Real AF/AF+ AC/AFe+
2000 9/12 9/12
2001 10/1 10/1
2002 9/21 9/21 9/15
2003 9/11 9/11 9/10
2004 9/28 9/28 9/28
2005 9/18 9/18 9/18
2006 10/6 10/6 10/7
2007 9/25 9/25 9/26
2008 9/14 9/14 9/15
2009 10/3 10/3 10/4
2010 9/22 9/22 9/23
2011 9/12 9/12 9/12
2012 9/30 9/30 9/30
2013 9/19 9/19 9/19
2014 9/8 9/8 9/9
2015 9/27 9/27 9/28
2016 9/15 9/15 9/16
2017 10/4 10/4 10/5
2018 9/24 9/24 9/25
2019 9/13 9/13 9/14
2020 10/1 10/1 10/1
2021 9/21 9/21 9/20
2022 9/10 9/10 9/10
2023 9/29 9/29 9/29
2024 9/17 9/17 9/18
2025 10/6 10/6 10/7
2026 9/25 9/25 9/26
2027 9/15 9/15 9/15
2028 10/3 10/3 10/3
2029 9/22 9/22 9/22
2030 9/12 9/12 9/13
2031 10/1 10/1
2032 9/19 9/19

You'll notice that the dates for Animal Crossing and Animal Forest e+ are sometimes not correct and the dates for Animal Forest and Animal Forest+ are perfectly aligned with the real dates for the harvest moon. Why they changed the algorithm they were using to generates these dates we'll likely never know.

If you're looking to play Animal Crossing beyond 2032, you are in luck! There is a mod for Animal Crossing called “Animal Crossing Deluxe” which extends the last year in the game to 2099 and adds many quality of life features.

Mushrooming Season

This event is one of the shortest per day, running from 8:00 to 9:15AM as every 15 minutes one of the mushrooms is found by a villager and removed from the game. The event doesn't have an official name in Japanese, as the message board only references the type of mushroom not 'Mushrooming Season'. The name included in the calendars in Japanese is an unofficial name.

“Tom Nook’s Shop Hours”

Some events like the Raffle, Sale Day, or Fukubukuro occur at different times depending on the current hours of Tom Nook’s shop. This value changes depending on the tier of shop you have in your town. This is something I didn't notice when I first played Animal Crossing:

Shop Hours
Nook's Cranny 9am-10pm
Nook 'n' Go 7am-11pm
Nookway 9am-10pm
Nookingtons 9am-10pm

Because Nook 'n' Go is open for three additional hours compared to the other shop stages, this means these events are available for longer, too. To avoid giving incorrect information in the calendars I simply put the event as being "9am-10pm".

Town Day

There is a single holiday in Animal Crossing and Animal Forest e+ that has no defined date: "Town Day". This holiday takes place on a random date in July (but not July 4th) and is randomly determined during town generation. For this reason, it is not included in the calendars for these games.

In Animal Forest+ this holiday occurs on a fixed date: February 11th.

Tent Campers and “Summer Weekends”

Tent Campers occur on “every summer weekend” starting June 1st ...but sometimes also May 26th (if June 1st is a Saturday?). This is also the only event that spans multiple days but can be broken up by other holidays (like the Fireworks Show). I don't think my implementation is correct, if anyone would like to fix it up then submit a pull request.

Regional differences

To generate this section I created a calendar for a single year (2026) for each game and then ran a textual diff tool to find some smaller differences, here's what I found:

  • Animal Crossing PAL has Labor Day on May 1st compared to Animal Crossing NTSC with Labor Day on September 1st.
  • Animal Crossing PAL has Spring Cleaning Day on March 15th instead of May 1st.
  • Animal Forest e+ has the same events as Animal Crossing except for a new event: Tanabata or “Star Festival Day” on July 7th.

Physical Animal Crossing calendar

In addition to digital calendars, I have also procured a real-life calendar for Animal Crossing for the year 2003. The calendar was distributed by Nintendo Power in Volume 164 as a promotional item. This calendar has holidays in-game mixed with holidays in the United States of America and Canada. The seasons are denoted by the backgrounds, ranging from snow in winter to dark green grass for summer and leaves for autumn.

Here are the complete list of events noted on the calendar:

List of all events
  • New Year's Day
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Day (USA)
  • Groundhog Day
  • Valentine's Day
  • President's Day (USA)
  • St. Patrick's Day
  • Spring Sports Fair / Vernal Equinox
  • April Fool's Day
  • Cherry Blossom Festival
  • Daylight Savings Time Begins
  • Nature Day / Earth Day
  • Spring Cleaning
  • Mother's Day
  • Armed Forced Day (USA)
  • Victoria Day (Canada)
  • Memorial Day (USA)
  • Summer Fishing Tourney
  • Graduation Day
  • Flag Day (USA)
  • Father's Day
  • Summer Solstice
  • Quebec Day (Canada)
  • Canada Day (Canada)
  • Fireworks Show / Independence Day (USA)
  • Morning Aerobics
  • Meteor Shower
  • Founder's Day
  • Labor Day
  • Harvest Moon
  • Fall Sports Fair / Autumnal Equinox
  • Explorer's Day / Columbus Day (USA) / Thanksgiving (Canada)
  • Mushrooming Season
  • Daylight Savings Time Ends
  • Halloween
  • Fall Fishing Tourney
  • Mayor's Day / Election (USA)
  • Officer's Day / Veterans Day (USA) / Remembrance Day (Canada)
  • Harvest Festival / Thanksgiving (USA)
  • Sale Day
  • Snow Day
  • Winter Solstice
  • Toy Day
  • Jingle Comes to Town
  • New Year's Eve

Why are the iCalendar/ICS files so large?

Because at a minimum Apple calendars does not support the RDATE iCalendar feature. Theis feature make it space-efficient to repeat an event across multiple irregular dates. Unfortunately, it's not possible to represent a set of dates in a Lunisolar calendar within the Gregorian calendar using only RRULE, you need to actually pre-calculate the dates.

It's likely that Android calendars also don't support the entirety of the iCalendar RFCs, but I can't verify this on my own. Therefore, I went with the simplest approach that works on at least Apple calendars: duplicate events completely and use RECURRENCE-ID.

Wow, you made it to the end!