It's kind of funny that they titled the article this way considering the fact that Animal Crossing is currently banned in China because people have been using it as a platform to stage the Hong Kong protests online [1]. I suppose it gives 'quiet revolution' a doubly apt connotation.
The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
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Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
That quote was from Frank Lantz, who is the guy who designed Universal Paperclips. There's a bit of irony about the criticism of repetition, coming from someone who designed a game about clicking buttons over and over to make numbers go up. Disclaimer: I actually think Universal Paperclips is brilliant, and agree that Animal Crossing has a lot of overly tedious and unnecessary mechanics. But I don't think it's fair t…
Was Universal Paperclips supposed to be fun? I kind of got the impression it was meant to scare you into donating to MIRI or whatever.
I thought the story was poignant as well.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#13It's interesting how New Horizons adds many quality-of-life features to streamline gameplay...but still deliberately keeps some of the monotony present in the game design two decades ago on the GameCube. Adding a "weight" to repetitive actions has been a controversial game design principle. It implicitly makes good/efficient actions more rewarding, but there has to be a balance.
Most every game is on some level about wasting time. Good games make wasting time enjoyable.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#14Why does he go on and on about whether the game accurately represents modern life? It seems like this misses the point of games in general, and a game for pre-teens about talking animals specifically.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#15I loved the original Animal Crossing, but honestly I think the less well known indie game Stardew Valley is far better.
> less well known I don't know if I would call Stardew Valley "less well known", as it's sold over 10 million copies. It's incredibly popular, one of the biggest indie game success stories ever. I would also say Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley (and Harvest Moon, for that matter) and very different types of games (despite surface level similarities), so it's pretty hard to compare them directly like that.
> the Animal Crossing franchise has sold over 30 million units. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crossing
The inequality is legitimate.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#16It's kind of funny that they titled the article this way considering the fact that Animal Crossing is currently banned in China because people have been using it as a platform to stage the Hong Kong protests online [1]. I suppose it gives 'quiet revolution' a doubly apt connotation. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52269671
That resulted in a ban that will affect every game released in China. Games will have to start blocking any interaction between mainland Chinese and any ‘foreigner’: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885892
This is part of the reversal of the great ‘Opening of China’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#17It is a rather poor game all things considered. Stardew valley is far better. On the whole, the one thing they needed to nail is co-op, and that is probably the thing they did the worst on. The game features are limited, villager interaction is inane, the items are repetitive, the goals non-existent. I understand the simple joy of a no-pressure game, but without a meaningful reward loop of any kind, the whole thing s…
It's not really a "game" at all. There's no failure state. It's an interactive experience that brings joy to millions of people, and that's enough.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#18It is a rather poor game all things considered. Stardew valley is far better. On the whole, the one thing they needed to nail is co-op, and that is probably the thing they did the worst on. The game features are limited, villager interaction is inane, the items are repetitive, the goals non-existent. I understand the simple joy of a no-pressure game, but without a meaningful reward loop of any kind, the whole thing s…
stardew valley is one guy's attempt to make the best possible harvest moon, which is a game, i would say, of the same genre as animal crossing, broadly speaking, in the same way as -- i don't know -- mechwarrior and virtual on.
the way i think of animal crossing is: take a few microgames from warioware, set it in a jrpg town, and give the player their own doll house. it isn't deep, but that's an observation, not necessarily a criticism.
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#19It's kind of funny that they titled the article this way considering the fact that Animal Crossing is currently banned in China because people have been using it as a platform to stage the Hong Kong protests online [1]. I suppose it gives 'quiet revolution' a doubly apt connotation. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52269671
That resulted in a ban that will affect every game released in China. Games will have to start blocking any interaction between mainland Chinese and any ‘foreigner’: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885892 This is part of the reversal of the great ‘Opening of China’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
Maybe it is more open than it was? Maybe is was even more closed before?
Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> less well known I don't know if I would call Stardew Valley "less well known", as it's sold over 10 million copies. It's incredibly popular, one of the biggest indie game success stories ever. I would also say Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley (and Harvest Moon, for that matter) and very different types of games (despite surface level similarities), so it's pretty hard to compare them directly like that.
> the Animal Crossing franchise has sold over 30 million units. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crossing The inequality is legitimate.
That's 30 million units over like 20 years and many titles vs one indie game tho