Animal Crossing: New Horizons balloon-popping trick will save you a slingshot

An Animal Crossing: New Horizons balloon-popping trick could save you a ton of frustration in case you left your slingshot back home.

When you don’t have a slingshot... from r/AnimalCrossing

Reddit user ItzStarr86 demonstrated the trick in a quick Reddit video: it starts in typical fashion, with a balloon drifting overhead and an excited Island Representative quickly realizing they don't have their slingshot on them. Instead of sinking into despair and cursing the heavens, which is my usual strategy, they proceed to enable their Cliff Construction Permit, create a block of earth adjacent to the balloon's path, then climb on top with their ladder. Then, with one well-timed swing of their bug net, the balloon is popped and the present is saved.

Granted, this strategy is no less reliant on having the right stuff in your inventory, since you need a ladder to get up there and a net to do the balloon popping (not to mention having Terraforming and cliffscaping unlocked). But it does mean that you shouldn't lose hope the next time you hear that trademark "whoosh" and start cursing yourself for leaving your slingshot in storage again. We're slapping our foreheads for not already thinking of it ourselves.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is rapidly approaching its first anniversary, but players are still discovering new secrets all the time. That includes a special message if you're a Leap Day baby, and that you can turn a football fish's light on and off (it doesn't seem to mind).

Check out what's coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons all throughout March.