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The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

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Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#61

Post by conception »

danbolt wrote: post #48

I've seen a lot of comments or responses from people saying that Animal Crossing's mechanics are unfulfilling or "pointless", but I think they're missing the spirit of what makes them enjoyable to a lot of people. I'm going to posit that a video game is the three following things, but you're welcome to disagree: 1) a player performs some sort of input into a game 2) the game responds with some sort of audiovisual phe…

Your points are all correct but I think most folks are missing it’s a genre of Japanese game https://screentherapyblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/iyashikei... - basically healing games that are just supposed to give your mind and soul a break.

Laying on the grass and seeing shapes in clouds is also “pointless” but it’s not invaluable.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#62

Post by kibwen »

dpeck wrote: post #33

I know it sound silly, but I find that it goes really well with an audio book. It's a nice way to chill out at the end of the day if I don't have the energy to hack away on anything. Having something to do with my hands while listening helps my thoughts not to wander as much, even if I'm just going around fishing and harvesting fruit so my son can sell them and build/buy whatever he wants the next day. I wouldn't hav…

I was having a rough time of it in the first few weeks of distancing, and on one of my first nights in Animal Crossing I just walked out onto the beach on a stormy night and listened to the sound of rain and surf as I drifted off to sleep. It's been an immense comfort to have a peaceful mini-routine that I can spend half an hour on at lunchtime each day.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#63

Post by anigbrowl »

The point about how AC implements a particular model of village life as a tableau of georgic calm sealed inside the bottle of a company town is well made.

We have plenty of games that implement the logic of capitalist or resource-driven economies; some grand strategy games (notably those from Paradox Entertainment, like Hearts of Iron and Stellaris allow players to pursue other development trees, from fascism to communism, though I don't know how robust the underlying economic simulations are and the simple-play mechanics of the game necessarily means all options are quasi-autocracies.

Is anyone aware of a game dedicated to exploring competing economic models,perhaps through agent-based simulation or some of the methods explored in the emerging concept of econophysics and statistical mechanics applied to money relationships - I think Dragalescu is the pathbreaking author in this area. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjst/e2016-60213-...

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#64

Post by kosievdmerwe »

OK I skimmed through the article and I can't say I much care for it.

To me Animal Crossing is a game that you play over many months to sometimes relax doing something mindless or over the longer term to have an island and house that you slowly build up in your own way.

With that in mind there are a lot of great things in animal crossing. A lot of the furniture has interesting interactions and the museum is just a beautiful thing to walk through.

But I also feel that some aspects of the game needs tweaking as they detract from the gameplay. There's no reason I should have to craft fishbait one by one, mindlessly spamming A for minutes at a time. Nor does shopping have to be as tedious as it is. There is no reason I should have to buy flowers in batches of 5 taking 5+ seconds per batch. I want to plant a massive flower patch not navigate overly deep menus. The lest said about the online play the better.

I think the author is trying to find meaning where there really isn't any. At its core Animal Crossing is shallow, but in some sense that lack of depth is the appeal. What it has is a shocking breadth though giving each player lots of options to express themselves or simply to while away a few peaceful hours.

It's not for everyone and it doesn't have to be.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#65

Post by dmix »

billfruit wrote: post #47
dmix wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I feel that there is no reliable sources reporting on this, only a few vague statements laden with hyperbole. Also till recently gaming consoles themselves weren't available in China as well.

Checking it again it looks like you might be right. This isn’t 100% confirmed yet. Last I’ve read is that it was a bill that has been tabled. I’d also prefer an additional source to confirm this is happening... not that it would surprise me, or that if it was true proper sources may still be hard to come by until some western companies get forced to do it.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#66

Post by [deleted] »

kibwen wrote: post #59
billfruit wrote: post #44

Kind of surprised they did not mention Stardew Valley, in the discussion. I kind of feel that Nintendo fanboyism pervades a large proportion of writing on games, but it would be better to be more objective.

I've played both, and I don't think we should be too quick to lump both games in together. The fundamental game loop of Stardew Valley is about deciding how best to expend your finite stamina and time with every in-game day (which are quite short in real time), with the soft goal of having "beaten" the game by the first day of the third in-game year. Meanwhile in Animal Crossing, its real-time nature mandates patienc…

[deleted]

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#67

Post by elliekelly »

tasogare wrote: post #60
billfruit wrote: post #44

Kind of surprised they did not mention Stardew Valley, in the discussion. I kind of feel that Nintendo fanboyism pervades a large proportion of writing on games, but it would be better to be more objective.

Same here. From what I saw from videos about the new AC and my experience with the mobile game, the game doesn’t seem as fun or interesting as SdV. Just pure grind, without interesting variations (and I don’t care about collectibles). The Gamecube version is looking more appealing because the town is already established, so you have to discover and interact with the world instead of starting from a generic empty isla…

> The Gamecube version is looking more appealing because the town is already established, so you have to discover and interact with the world instead of starting from a generic empty island.

What makes you think there’s nothing to discover and interact with just because the island starts off empty?

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#68

Post by ebg13 »

conception wrote: post #61
danbolt wrote: post #48

I've seen a lot of comments or responses from people saying that Animal Crossing's mechanics are unfulfilling or "pointless", but I think they're missing the spirit of what makes them enjoyable to a lot of people. I'm going to posit that a video game is the three following things, but you're welcome to disagree: 1) a player performs some sort of input into a game 2) the game responds with some sort of audiovisual phe…

Your points are all correct but I think most folks are missing it’s a genre of Japanese game https://screentherapyblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/iyashikei... - basically healing games that are just supposed to give your mind and soul a break. Laying on the grass and seeing shapes in clouds is also “pointless” but it’s not invaluable.

> it’s not invaluable

invaluable (adjective): extremely useful

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#69

Post by anonytrary »

ctchocula wrote: post #54
anonytrary wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be legitimate, but is it relevant enough to call one indie but not the other? I don't think so, since 30m and 10m are the same order of magnitude. Halo has roughly a similar ratio with COD, and both series are famous.

Stardew Valley is indie, because it was made by a single developer who was responsible for everything from coding, composing the music, writing the story and the bitmap art. Animal Crossing is not indie, because it was made by a large studio.

I see, I guess we had different definitions of "indie", but I think what you said sounds reasonable and there is value to understanding the humble origins of someone regardless of their current standing.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#70

Post by EdwardDiego »

Question for people with gameplay experience of both/all - how does Animal Crossing compare to the Harvest Moon games? Or Stardew Valley?

I have a massive soft spot for Harvest Moon because I wrote my first code ever (in Python) to figure out what was the best crop to plant in summer - the answer was turnips, and 17 years later, I still remember that.

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