Neohomes 2.0 is a revamped housing system for the denizens of Neopia. Existing alongside the original Neohomes system, Neohomes 2.0 adds a plethora of fun and useful features that allow you to customize your home to your heart’s delight. Most importantly, the Neohomes 2.0 system introduces Neocash items for home decoration, and allows you to actually place your pets and their petpets inside of their homes!

GETTING STARTED

To begin building the Neohome of your dreams, you’ll want to access the Neohomes section of the site, with a link conveniently located in the Customize section of your navigation bar. Once you are in the Neohomes section, you will see several options: Shops, NC Mall, FAQ, Board, Spotlight, and Classic.

The six areas of the Neohomes section on the right side of the menu are fairly self-explanatory. The Shops will sell you furnishings and other decorative items for Neopoints, while the NC Mall Shops will do the same for NC. The FAQ will set you straight on commonly-asked questions about Neohomes, while the Board gives you a place to ask new questions and discuss Neohomes with the larger community. At the end of our menu is the Spotlight, which showcases some of the finest homes around, and finally, Classic Neohomes, which gives you access to the old Neohomes 1.0. features.

To begin planning your own beautiful new Neohome 2.0, click the Create A New Neohome button located on the bottom left side of the menu, below the preview picture!

Before you begin to break ground on your new home, you must select the area of Neopia that you wish to build your new home in – use the preview menu (shown below) to select an area and see what it will look like in the viewer to the left. Choose carefully – once you select your building area, you cannot change where your house is located!

Once you’ve selected the area you wish to build in, press the Create This Neohome button, and watch as your new home becomes a reality!

FIRST STEPS

Now that you’ve constructed your new Neohome, it’s time to build it into a comfortable (and fashionable?!) place for you and your pet to enjoy. To help you on this path, you are provided with one of five Starter Packs of furniture to begin your collection. These packs come in one of five colors – red, blue, yellow, green, or purple – and are made up of various furniture, floors, and decorative items to fill your new Neohome with. The items in this starter pack, as well as any future items that you may obtain, are placed in your Storage Shed, similar to how wearable items for your pet are placed in your Closet. To purchase additional items to stock your Shed, head over to either the Shops or the NC Mall, both conveniently accessible from their respective buttons on the Neohomes Menu:

GETTING DOWN TO DECORATING

Once you’ve shopped until you’ve dropped and you’re ready to start turning the contents of your Shed into a lovely home, it’s time to start decorating! From the Neohomes menu, press the Customize My Neohome button to launch the Neohome editor. For first time users, there is a handy tutorial to show you the ins and outs of navigating the editor. In short, items from your Shed appear on the bottom menu, which contains three tabs: Items (Furniture, Decorations), Materials (Floors, Walls), and Pets.

To decorate with furniture, open the tab (marked with a chair) and drag items from the bottom bar up to the top screen. Once items are on the top part of the screen, they can be dragged around to re-position them.

Clicking an item opens up a menu that will allow the item to be rotated, raised, or lowered, depending on its position in the room. Certain items, like tables and lamps, will need to occupy the same ‘space’ but be raised / lowered apart from one another to create the illusion that the lamp is resting on top of the table, for example.

To decorate with materials, open the tab (marked with a hammer) and click the pattern you are looking to decorate your walls or floor with. Selecting the pattern changes your cursor into a paint-roller icon! With this roller, click and drag your cursor across the surfaces to be decorated, depending on if you are painting your walls or installing new flooring.

You will see yellow selection boxes spring up to highlight the areas of your home that you are about to decorate. Release your mouse button and watch as your pattern fills your home! Doors, windows, and other wall decorations are also located in the Materials tab, and are placed similarly to furniture.

You may have noticed that you can edit the outside of your house as well as the inside of the house – there are restrictions as to what can be placed outside, but simple furniture can be added to spruce up your landscaping! To switch between the inside and outside, use the large blue button on the middle-left side of the screen.

When you are ready for your Neopets (and their petpet!) to move into their new home, click the Pet tab (marked with a Kacheek) and drag your pets into place. They can be raised and lowered in the same way that other items can be, to position them to sit on beds, chairs, couches, and tables.

When you are done decorating, don’t forget to Save your changes by clicking the floppy-disk icon on the lower right hand side!

SPOTLIGHT TROPHY

Now that you’ve bled and sweat to build the perfect Neohome, why not reap the rewards of your hard work? Master decorators and creative construction workers can submit their Neohome projects to the Spotlight contest by filling out a simple application. First, use the Snapshot Mode button (marked with a blue camera) in the top right corner of the Neohome Customization window. Adjust your view using the arrows in the top left of the screen, then click the snapshot window to take a photo! This photo will become the default image of your Neohome for all associated menus, as well as your Contest Entry!

Once you’ve captured a picture of your Neohome that you think shows off all your hard work, type a quick description and caption into your application and send it off! Once per week, a winner is selected from all the entries and that Neohome is awarded with a place on that week’s Spotlight page! For your efforts, your account will also be awarded the coveted Golden Neohome trophy!

People in gold houses shouldn’t throw trophies…

Notes

• Although the initial items in your Starter Pack are not able to be traded, you can purchase any of the items from the five sets at the Neohomes Superstore! Collect them all!
• Once you have submitted an application for the Neohome Spotlight, clicking the application link in future weeks will re-submit your application for the next contest. If at first you don’t succeed, try again!

Author: Sarah