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The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#121

Post by nicbou »

jakoblorz wrote: post #106

The article is great until Instead, Animal Crossing is a political hypothesis about how a different kind of world might work—one with no losers. Millions of people already have spent hours in the game stewing on that idea since the coronavirus crisis began. Is it though? There is compound interest in this world, I don‘t think we are able to make all lenders „Tom Nook“s.

A world with no losers is impossible when the world and its inhabitants requires maintenance just to keep existing.

The characters in Animal Crossing do not tire. They do not go hungry and they do not feel pain. The buildings in the village to not erode, and the in-game items appear out of thin air, without a complex manufacturing process.

In the real world, just maintaining your current condition is a constant grind. Real life is a treadmill that never stops. If you're lucky, it just moving a bit slower.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#122

Post by tarsinge »

fphhotchips wrote: post #80
ebg13 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s not invaluable invaluable (adjective): extremely useful

"Inflammable means flammable? What a country!" In this case the context makes the meaning clear, but this quirk of English has confused people for years.

In French it’s inflammable for flammable too, but the weird one for me is inhabitants (it’s just habitants here).

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#123

Post by noobermin »

rrmm wrote: post #13
minimaxir wrote: post #9

It'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.

Tbh, this is one thing I miss about games before the internet. The pauses and timing is part of the game, it's something you have to contend with. If anything, it makes it more challenging, for example, getting enough of a hot item in before 10pm requires organization. Now with the internet gamers cry all day like children on twitter for QOL improvements instead of just, you know, dealing with it. Before the internet, games had to be a) tested very well but b) were delivered as a final product, few updates if any, so gamers actually had to contend with the game as it was.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#124

Post by zimpenfish »

a_e_k wrote: post #87

Animal Crossing seemed like a game that my kids might really enjoy relaxing with and I was prepared to pop for it on the launch day. Reading about the one-island-per-Switch and primary vs. secondary users thing kind of killed our interest in it, however. None of them wants to (or should have to) settle for second fiddle. Seems like a really odd oversight for a company that tries so hard to be family-oriented.

Whilst I intensely dislike the one-island-per-Switch restriction, I can understand - thinking about how to handle someone visiting an island on the same Switch makes my head hurt. Couldn't have the player character there, you'd need cross-account communication of things like turnip prices, etc.

(And if you disallowed people visiting another island on the same Switch, people would be up in arms about that too.)

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#125

Post by slightwinder »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #14

Why 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.

Animal Crossing is called a Life Simulation and it's mechanics and setting lean quite strong into real life. Seems like a fair reason to take it as focus of his article. I think it's an interessting analyses and gives a nice new view, which is kinda the point of a good article.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#126

Post by gustavorg »

badpun wrote: post #100
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…

> "a series of interesting decisions" as Will Wright puts it I think that was Sid Meier.

Correct:

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/164869/GDC_2012_Sid_Meie...

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#127

Post by slightwinder »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #70

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.

They are very different. On surface they have similar mechanics and features, but focus and execution is quite different. In AC there is no energy-system like in SV. Time in AC is also way longer as it plays in real time. There is no need to sleep (as far as I known) and thus no penalty when missing bedtime. There is no real farming in AC, just collecting stuff, and a bit of arranging things.

Overall, AC is very free from sources of stress, while SV has them everywhere, though it depends on yourself on much they impact you. Also, you can also get stress in AC, but only by setting yourself goals, not through the game itself.

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#129

Post by glaberficken »

badpun wrote: post #100
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…

> "a series of interesting decisions" as Will Wright puts it I think that was Sid Meier.

yes, Sid Meyer

Here is Sid talking about that quote in 2012 (apparently he first said it in 1989) https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015756/Interesting

Re: The Quiet Revolution of Animal Crossing

#130

Post by slightwinder »

voz_ wrote: post #10

It 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…

> The game features are limited, villager interaction is inane, the items are repetitive, the goals non-existent.

You could say this for every game.

Animal Crossing is simple, not poor, though some technical aspects are poor by modern standards.

> but without a meaningful reward loop of any kind

Meaning is in the eye of the players.

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