Very true and fair! I'm not certain how difficult or annoying that would or wouldn't be since I've never tried it. Previous challenges I did on tool limitations were restrictions on XP gain rather than just the use of the tool itself, so bombs were a non-starter. It would be interesting to find out though! I'd like to propose a friendly contest. For the two of us, but certainly anyone else is welcome to join in. The guidelines are as follows:
1) You must start a new save, your choice of map, on a random seed (no seed manipulation)
2) You must delete all starting tools other than your preferred one as soon as possible. Deleting them from the save is acceptable, as is buying enough wood from Robin for a chest, and putting the tools in there on someone's path.
3) At no point can you use any starting tools other than your chosen one, and once destroyed / deleted, you must not recover them from lost and found.
4) We're looking for at minimum community center completion here. "Fastest" can mean a lot of things (fastest irl? Fewest game hours? Fewest in game days?) so it's not a race per se, just looking to see how we get along with our chosen route. The goal is to get at least to CC completion before Jan 1st 2023.
5) No RNG manipulation, no game exploits (such as item duping / spawning, even if done with entirely in game methods) and no mods.
6) No restrictions on using non-starting tools, such as the copper pan or milk pail or fishing rod*.
7) Just to keep things relatively comparable as far as experiences, you must go the Joja route. Obviously the CC route is also doable with this challenge but transparently I don't want to do it since it'd be way harder XD Both going the Joja route makes it easier to compare without it being totally apples vs oranges.
8) Once you have gotten the CC done, post some screenshots, showing what your in game time, in game days, etc looks like. If you can, share the save file too!
9) Provide regular updates on the forums of your progress! The whole point is to talk about how easy / hard it is, what strategies you use, where you encounter sticking points, and so forth. Let's keep it friendly, and have fun with it!
10) Though I'd be incredibly surprised if anyone got perfection within the timespan in question especially given the restrictions, it'd be incredibly impressive if someone did. So if they do get perfection with a new save using these restrictions before Jan 1st 2023, they automatically "win", whatever that means XD
*I personally think the fishing rod is a bit cheap in this context (you can get the CC pretty easily with *just* fishing after all), but in good faith I can't restrict it. After all part of the appeal of the watering can is the lure of perfection with just the one "starting tool", so it'd be lame to have a restriction which prevents it.
Anyway, let me know if you're interested! I think it'd be fun, and I'm definitely game, but only if at least one other person (who wants to pick something other than the pickaxe) is interested in doing it as well. If not no worries, it's a hectic time of year and there's plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't be interested in tackling such a challenge *right at this time*.
