How to Invite Em to the Mineko’s Night Market Village

With potential villagers Itao, Koji, and Sugihara in Mineko’s Night Market, it is fairly easy to invite them to move in. They have very defined quests assigned to them. You can tell what they need. However, finding out how to invite Em in the Mineko’s Night Market Village Garden is a bit trickier, as it means manipulating in-game objects that Meowza Games never indicated you could move until that moment. 

How do I invite Em to move to the village in Mineko’s Night Market?

The initial prerequisite for getting any new villagers is to hit level four for the Night Market and have the initial five areas on the island open. Once you do that, Em will begin showing up at the Village Gardens. However, I’m going to recommend you do something that will save you some time later on. Head to the Dark Forest in Mineko’s Night Market and chop 24 pieces of wood. You’ll need this for the later part of the Em invite process for Mineko’s Night Market. 

With the extra wood in hand, head to the Village Gardens. You’ll see Em in front of the zen garden area. Em will complain about needing peace. Those four rocks in the zen garden can all be pushed if you shove Mineko up against them. Your goal is to get them from the initial screenshot in the picture I took on the left below into the center of the rings. My screenshot on the right shows the final position for each rock. 

Note that none of the rocks “lock” or “click” into place, so you need to use your best judgment as you play. However, when you get it correct, you will see a dialogue box with the message “Hmm, that feels about right.”

Do that and Em will bring up wanting to make a Ring Toss game. This is where the 24 pieces of wood comes in. Give those to Em. This will fulfill all the requirements, meaning Em will show up in a tent in the village. At the next night market, Em will be there with the Ring Toss minigame. You’ll also get Pottery Craftbench Dutch Oven and Cat Ring Holder recipes and two Boximal Blind Boxes.

Mineko’s Night Market is available on the Nintendo Switch and PC. It will be on the PS4, PS5, and Xbox One on October 26, 2023.