![]() ![]() In that sense, I’d like to call Animal Crossing a pox. Lessons that my parents taught me when I was a kid, probably because it was the easiest way to explain things. It suggests that debt is a construct and that one’s labor is proportional to one’s standing. Animal Crossing reinforces some of the great lies of our times. And if I can pretend, then I can call it effectively and wholly mine. As long as Nook doesn’t call my debt, I can pretend that the tent I live in is fully my own. I’m free to toil at my leisure towards making my island a shrine to materialism. Nook may have me by my pears, but (perhaps as a result) he’s rather undemanding. For as much work and debt this game imposes on me, there also doesn’t appear to be any consequences for going too slowly. I thought I died and lost at Animal Crossing, a game I have been assured is fun.ġ0. Did you know there are tarantulas in this game? One bit me while I was trying to find the stone. At my current pace, I should meet the ghost by May, and I’ll be no closer to paying my debt.ĩ. Fun! Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via SB NationĨ. Like real-life Instagram, you can also ruin your image with filters. I was so relieved to find this vital ingredient to a bad tool that I took a photo of it with the in-game cellphone camera. I wandered 10 minutes just to find the one stone I needed to build a flimsy axe so I could whack trees and get more wood. Which means I’ll need to craft a better tool (maybe a chainsaw?) than I currently possess using hardwood, softwood, stone, iron and weeds (weeds are shockingly useful in the Animal Crossing universe).ħ. Doing so will probably require building a bridge. I saw a friendly ghost bobbing across the river, and my driving force right now is to catch it. The game does a good job of subtly teasing me, displaying items (a barbecue!) that I might be able to buy when I’m someday rich, or floating presents on balloons that I still can’t catch (I swing my bug net once and come up embarrassingly short).Ħ. I think the pull right now is in small accomplishments - catching a new fish, buying a cool shirt, setting up some tiki torches - and knowing that there’s still a litany of things I can’t do, don’t have and can’t access. The insidious thing is I feel compelled to keep going. This adventure to a deserted island paradise feels like it’ll do more harm to my soul than good. ![]() The fact that I’m indebted ( indentured?) to a family of raccoons - a creature I adore, but not for its magnanimity - verifies that I’ve been duped. I mistrust the game’s system of credit just like I mistrust my real life system of credit. I’m sure the conversion rate is terrible. Or maybe I misheard as Nook explained the various services he offers for managing my wealth. I think there’s a systems of converting bells into miles and vice versa but I haven’t figured it out. There’s a debt I owe Tom Nook in Nook Miles, and a debt I owe him in bells. ![]() What’s worse is that I’m doing all this in service of a convoluted debt that I was only informed of after I signed on the dotted line. There’s a lot of busy work to accomplish - I’ve pulled up hundreds of weeds at this point - and in-game smartphone notifications that beep with more alarm than they deserve.ģ. But most of Animal Crossing is a loop of things I hate in real life. I caught a sea bass and that felt rewarding. You pick stuff up so you can sell it to earn money that you can then use to buy furniture (stuff you put down on the floor) or make tools, like an axe, that helps you pick up better stuff.Ģ. That’s maybe the best way to describe the game: A picking-stuff-up simulator. I’ve played roughly four hours of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and spent 90 percent of my time picking stuff up off the floor. ![]()
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