Animal Crossing: New Horizons - How to use the Timer in multiplayer

Creating your very own fishing or bug-catching tourneys is one of the most fun things you can do with your friends in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but without some sort of timer, you'll have a hard time coordinating when to start and when to stop. Thankfully, though, there's a Timer tool that you can get in-game that allows you to easily do this. Here's our guide to using it, as well as where you can buy it.

How to get the Timer

Before we can explain how to use the Timer, you'll need to know how you can get one in the first place. Thankfully, doing so isn't too difficult, although it does take a fair amount of time. You buy the Timer from Timmy and Tommy at their Nook's Cranny shop, but it won't be for sale until they perform their very first shop upgrade. To get the shop to expand, you'll need to do the following:

• Buy or sell 200,000 Bells worth of items (both types of transaction count)
• Wait 30 days after Nook's Cranny was initially built

Any days passed prior to you hitting your 200,000 Bell total still count towards the waiting period, so don't feel rushed to buy or sell items. Once both of these requirements have been met, the shop will be closed for a day as Timmy and Tommy upgrade it. After that, they will re-open and you'll be able to buy a Timer for 840 Bells. Here's how to do that:

• After entering the shop, walk to and open the green cabinet.
• Scroll through the item selection until you find the Timer.
• Press the A button to select it.
• When prompted if you're sure, select the I'm sure! speech option.

The Timer will appear in your inventory once you hand Timmy and Tommy your Bells.

How to start the Timer in multiplayer

Now that you've got a Timer, using it is simple and easy. Here's what you'll need to do once you're in a multiplayer game with friends:

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• Open your inventory.
• Scroll to the Timer.
• Press the A button to select it.
• Select Start Timer.
• Select your desired length of time.

Once you do this, the Timer will activate and begin to count down. A fish and bug catch tracker similar to the ones that appear during official fishing and bug-catching tourneys will appear at the top of each player's screen, and when the Timer runs out each player's total catch count will be tallied up, making it easy to see who the winner is.

How to stop the Timer early

If you want to stop the Timer prematurely for whatever reason, you can do so just as easily as you started it up. Here's what you have to do:

• Open your inventory.
• Scroll to the Timer.
• Press the A button to select it.
• Select Stop.

After you do this, the active Timer will immediately shut off and player fish and bug catches will cease being tracked. A large blue banner will also go across the top of the screen informing all players of the Timer cancellation.

We hope this guide has helped you learn the ins-and-outs of using the Timer in Animal Crossing: New Horizons multiplayer!

Related: Animal Crossing: New Horizons — The best activities to do with friends

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available on Nintendo Switch for $60.