I'm back to playing Animal Crossing, a 2002 Gamecube game. The object of the game is to live. Yes, I play a game in which I go outside, talk to friends, explore nature, and become an interior designer. The odd thing is that, somehow, it's often more fun than real life here.
I may have my own room here, but do I have the money to furnish it with all kinds of weird, interesting stuff? Where can I buy a statue of a boy with water streaming out of him? Can I unearth a Gyroid that dances and makes bizarre sounds, often in sync with whatever is playing in my stereo? What about a frog-shaped chair that doubles as a whoopee cushion?
The thing with Animal Crossing is that you can constantly find and make money ("bells") in order to buy furniture, clothes, and a remodeled house. The best part is that there are no money syphons at all (food, rent, maintenance fees) and the resident shopkeep and tanuki, Tom Nook, isn't breathing down your neck for a minimum payment on your brand-new basement. He's always got something new and different in his small, little store, and yet, he's able to have more interesting items on sale than a Target.
The money for all of this comes from selling things - fruit, insects, fish, and more - to him. Your town comes with one common fruit; it is your task to find the four other exotic fruits and successfully grow the seeds into trees. The insects and fish are caught in the wild and sell for often exorbitant amounts - stag beetles fetch about 2,000 bells, while the coelacanth (a "living fossil") goes for 15,000. To compare, the basement sets you back 50,000 bells.
These can all be donated, in addition to art and dinosaur fossils, to the local museum, which is addictive as hell to fill. It's amazing how quickly and easily you can improve the quality of your town by yourself. That's not to say the inhabitants of your town, animals, don't. They provide much-needed relief from the constant grind of fishing by making you laugh, giving you items, or playing games with you. While there are only five main personalities shared between the 100+ possible animals, it's interesting enough for you to find a favorite townie.
Animal Crossing also utilizes real-world date and time, so that events happen throughout the year and different insects and fish visit your town during different seasons. K.K. Slider, a dog with an acoustic guitar, sings songs on Saturday nights and gives you the music, which you can play in your stereo. New Year's is celebrated with confetti around the town's lake. The sheer fun of just being at these events can pull you away from real-life obligations and friends (thankfully, you can cheat by manipulating the time in the game's settings).
Even worse is that, should you NOT play, weeds grow, the town's citizens miss you, and cockroaches infest your house. At one point, however, I stopped caring about the daily grind of Animal Crossing, which may explain my attitude towards Richmond now. I've picked it back up after a few years and it's as fun as ever... hopefully that experience may cross over into the real world. Otherwise, I'll just have to hop on a train with only 1,000 bells in my pocket and my dreams of a new and different life.
I may have my own room here, but do I have the money to furnish it with all kinds of weird, interesting stuff? Where can I buy a statue of a boy with water streaming out of him? Can I unearth a Gyroid that dances and makes bizarre sounds, often in sync with whatever is playing in my stereo? What about a frog-shaped chair that doubles as a whoopee cushion?
The thing with Animal Crossing is that you can constantly find and make money ("bells") in order to buy furniture, clothes, and a remodeled house. The best part is that there are no money syphons at all (food, rent, maintenance fees) and the resident shopkeep and tanuki, Tom Nook, isn't breathing down your neck for a minimum payment on your brand-new basement. He's always got something new and different in his small, little store, and yet, he's able to have more interesting items on sale than a Target.
The money for all of this comes from selling things - fruit, insects, fish, and more - to him. Your town comes with one common fruit; it is your task to find the four other exotic fruits and successfully grow the seeds into trees. The insects and fish are caught in the wild and sell for often exorbitant amounts - stag beetles fetch about 2,000 bells, while the coelacanth (a "living fossil") goes for 15,000. To compare, the basement sets you back 50,000 bells.
These can all be donated, in addition to art and dinosaur fossils, to the local museum, which is addictive as hell to fill. It's amazing how quickly and easily you can improve the quality of your town by yourself. That's not to say the inhabitants of your town, animals, don't. They provide much-needed relief from the constant grind of fishing by making you laugh, giving you items, or playing games with you. While there are only five main personalities shared between the 100+ possible animals, it's interesting enough for you to find a favorite townie.
Animal Crossing also utilizes real-world date and time, so that events happen throughout the year and different insects and fish visit your town during different seasons. K.K. Slider, a dog with an acoustic guitar, sings songs on Saturday nights and gives you the music, which you can play in your stereo. New Year's is celebrated with confetti around the town's lake. The sheer fun of just being at these events can pull you away from real-life obligations and friends (thankfully, you can cheat by manipulating the time in the game's settings).
Even worse is that, should you NOT play, weeds grow, the town's citizens miss you, and cockroaches infest your house. At one point, however, I stopped caring about the daily grind of Animal Crossing, which may explain my attitude towards Richmond now. I've picked it back up after a few years and it's as fun as ever... hopefully that experience may cross over into the real world. Otherwise, I'll just have to hop on a train with only 1,000 bells in my pocket and my dreams of a new and different life.
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