Day 10 - AC Conclusion

Animal Crossing is "the real life game that's happening every second of every day, whether you're there or not." The basic premise of the game is that you are a human with the desire to move out on your own, and so you decide to move into a town inhabited by only animals. During the game, your objectives include expanding your home, helping the animals in the town, collecting furniture and other things for your home, and filling the museum with objects and animals. None of this is mandatory, there is no final goal in the game, and it is much like the Sims genre of games. What is interesting about the game is the intersections of the real world and simulation and the effects that preprogrammed ideals have on your gaming. Animal Crossing is a hyperreal simulation where utopian fantasies can be played out within the limits of a programmed space. This space causes these fantasies to fail when observed closely as Ryan and Sara have done for the past nine days.

Since the game runs on real-time, for example, when it is night in the real world, it is night in the game; one has to play the game at various points in the day in order to obtain certain items and perform certain duties. For example, the store in the game, Nook's Cranny, is only open at certain times of the day. If you're planning to play at two a.m., then you are out of luck for shopping. Fishing also becomes a main source of income, and certain more valuable fish can only be caught at certain times of the day, or under certain weather conditions. The Coelacanth, which is a “living fossil” can only be caught at times when it is raining. This immersive aspect of the game relies heavily on this. Without time traveling (chinging the time in the game to better suit what time you are playing in actual time and is considered cheating among many players), a player has to carve time out of their real-life schedule in order to gain certain important items.

In order to further simulate real life, Animal Crossing's activities within the game are similar to those in real-life. Ryan noted this in a post:

“Animal Crossing is a lot like life (or at least my life) in a lot of ways. I run around and do things that are pretty fun sometimes. I talk to my friends, I mess around in my house, and I have fun. But when it comes down to it, a lot of what I do in Animal Crossing is what I don't like to do in real life. I go to "work" to make money, I go to the store to buy stuff I won't care about for very long, and then I quit. I stop play, I go to sleep, I do something else. Here is where it begins to be a little different from real life. In Animal Crossing, I can always just turn it off and everything will be just fine when I get back to it. I don't have to make money if I do not want to. I don't have to have a big house, or neat stuff. But in real life, for whatever reason, these are the things I want, and essentially what we all want.

“Everyday, we all go to our jobs and make money to buy the same stupid crap. When we get home, we sort of use said crap, but then go to bed. We don't need any of this stuff, but we do it anyway. I go to school, so I can get a job, so I can make money, so I can buy shit that I don't need. I know it sounds a lot like Fight Club or Trainspotting or something, but it seems to be pretty true. To me at least.”

Your character on the other hand sometimes is not like a real human. If you run around in the rain, you will never get sick as one might would in the real world. The only harm your character can come into is being stung by bees that might come out of a tree when you are looking for some extra bells (the currency of the game). You also cannot physically harm the animals in the game. If you were to use your axe on a character and stab them in the back, the only result is the character being annoyed with you – not bleeding profusely as one would in the real world.

Also absent in the game are the working behind, built-in aspects of the game. For example, there is a dump in the game where you can put goods you do not want anymore, such as boots you catch while fishing or letters you do not need any longer. The trash magically disappears at six a.m. every morning, but there is no trashman, or even a trash truck that comes by to pick it up. Characters claim to workout or have significant others; however, you never see them acting out these comments. Characters may also state that it is going to rain tomorrow, or tell you the chance of rain which has no bearing on whether or not it will rain in your town. The time aspect of the game also gets a little confusing:

“I wonder what sort of rationale they used for timing things in the game. A tree takes days to grow, trash disappears in a day, your house gets a radical expansion overnight. It seems that bothersome things take less times and highly anticipated things like a tree blossoming take longer. Perhaps that's what keeps us hooked to the game: the things we really want to see happen just take longer.”

The museum in your town serves as an archive of the rare and common objects in your town. It has four departments: paintings, fossils, bugs, and fish. Only inhabits of that town may donated, and additionally, only actual real players of the game may donate. For example, Ryan attempted to donate a seabass in Sara's town, but the museum curator Blathers wouldn't allow him to donate. Sara noted:

“Why even have a museum? This is a video game, not real life where things will actually become extinct.

“This reminds me of Umberto Eco's concept of the hyperreal. It seems that AC tries so hard at creating an environment that feels like the real world that it even must have a simulated past. Much like how such a young country like America feels the need to preserve something in order to make it look older than it actually is, you town in Animal Crossing is trying to establish a history or archive of its contents. While the museum is not extreme simulations of Disneyland or the enchanted castles Eco writes about, it is a museum in a simulated world. It archives in order to make this world more real. When one has a place to go to see the fish he/she caught 3 months ago, it recreates the sense of time one has spent playing the game. By even digging up fossils or catching a living one (the coelanceath) a longer history is written in the game, making us believe that this virtual landscape has lasted millions of years, when in all actuality it doesn't exist at all.”

It seems that the museum serves two purposes: 1) to archive your progress in the game and 2) to create the sense that the town you live in has a history. It fails in achieving the second goal because the museum is empty when you start playing the game. Also other inhabitants of your town that are not characters for real-life players (the animals, or non-playable characters – NPCs) cannot donate to the museum.

Animal Crossing is rated 'E' for everyone by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board meaning that it is applicable for all people of ages and backgrounds to play. Many people recommend it highly for children to play (see Mike Snider's article in USA Today: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=J0E022293035102), and the game is nonviolent (i.e. you can use your axe on an NPC and they do not die). Also the game makes an attempt at teaching environmental ethic. Sometimes while fishing players will catch a boot, which must sit in their inventory until they throw it away in the dump or give it to Nook to handle. Players also cannot throw away their letters just anywhere, and they must throw them away at their mailbox or at the dump. Littering just simply isn't allowed. One may leave objects on the ground, but they will eventually show up in the lost and found in the police station to be claimed later. Also, the police station serves only as a source of information and as a lost and found. There are no crimes in Animal Crossing, and you will be hard pressed to find a way to steal items from other characters.

A train also runs through your town and serves as the mode of transportation to get from town to town if you decide to hook up with another player. However, no pollution is present in the town. You are also encouraged to plant trees and flowers in order to make your town perfect. Ironically after your town is perfect, you receive a golden axe, which will never break. This means you can cut down trees till the cows come home, and you will still have your axe which only encourages you to cut them.

“When I get that axe, all those trees are coming down. All they do is get in the freaking way. Just like in real life,” Ryan said showing that Animal Crossing's utopian ideals do not translate to real life.

Nature Day, celebrated during Ryan and Sara's gaming time, makes an attempt at teaching environmental ethic but only lead to commerce:

“As far as nature day goes, I found an interesting post on the Animal Crossing Community about nature day it really is a boring holiday. From playing the game previously I know some holidays have mass gathering and events, or everyone gathers near the town fountain. Why not on this day? Certainly this is saying something about the value of the environment. Does it not deserve a holiday to enjoy how great nature is? The game makes small attempts to shove some environmental ethic down our throats by not letting us throw our boots that we catch just anywhere and we can't throw away letters just in any place. However, nature day just turns out to be another opportunity to get some cool junk for your house.”

Ryan responded by saying “In closing, no one cares about Nature Day because it is stupid. As soon as I start getting presents and/or candy on a Nature Day, then I do not care. Nature is stupid anyway. Furniture is the way of the future.”

Nature Day is the perfect example of the intersections of nature and commerce in the game. Nature becomes your source of income, and you must “exploit” it in order to succeed in the game. In reality fishing everyday would eventually depopulate a body of water of its inhabitants. In Animal Crossing, you can fish all day, sell the fish, and come back for more and the fish will never, ever, ever run out. This leads to an endless circle of using nature in order to spur commerce. Nature only lashes out your attempts to draw income from it when you shake trees which sometimes give you a sack of bells. Other times bees will come out and sting you, perhaps representing nature's wrath at your greed. However, no real negative effect occurs except your face looks really ugly and people make fun of you.

Essentially, you are allowed to do what you want, for however long you want without negative consequences. This is where the game fails in preaching its environmental ethic. The main lesson players learn is the way to make bells fast is to utilize nature, which is portrayed as an abundant resource. This is a bit of backwards thinking as the game tries to portray a real world, but in the real world, nature is not ever renewable at all.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing has its limits because it is a virtual space that is preprogrammed and cannot adapt to user interaction such as overfishing. The real-time aspect of the game helps hide these unreal aspects and still allows player to live out the utopian fantasy of living among animals in peaceful harmonious environment.

However, this is a game, and it is still fun.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 09 - Almost Over

I believe our little experiment is coming to an end here, so I will talk about Day 9 in Animal Crossing.

To get it over with, today I made money and bought stuff. Found fossils, got mail, paid debts, and talk with the neighbors. And it is raining. Whee!

Animal Crossing is a lot like life (or at least my life) in a lot of ways. I run around and do things that are pretty fun sometimes. I talk to my friends, I mess around in my house, and I have fun. But when it comes down to it, a lot of what I do in Animal Crossing is what I don't like to do in real life. I go to "work" to make money, I go to the store to buy stuff I won't care about for very long, and then I quit. I stop play, I go to sleep, I do something else. Here is where it begins to be a little different from real life. In Animal Crossing, I can always just turn it off and everything will be just fine when I get back to it. I don't have to make money if I do not want to. I don't have to have a big house, or neat stuff. But in real life, for whatever reason, these are the things I want, and essentially what we all want.

Everyday, we all go to our jobs and make money to buy the same stupid crap. When we get home, we sort of use said crap, but then go to bed. We don't need any of this stuff, but we do it anyway. I go to school, so I can get a job, so I can make money, so I can buy shit that I don't need. I know it sounds a lot like Fight Club or Trainspotting or something, but it seems to be pretty true. To me at least.

It is strange how there can be a game that simulates what I already do in real life, but for some reason I like it. I don't really like school or work in my world, but put it in a videogame and it is a blast. Games have been doing this for a while, like the Sims, but Animal Crossing is what gets me. I love it; the game is totally fun, but it is just what I already do in my life.

How does that work? No idea really.

Day 8 - Museum

The museum in the game serves the purpose of archiving fossils, bugs, fish and paintings. Each of these different objects are only available during certain seasons, weather conditions and perhaps even only at specific times at specific days. This makes filling the museum full of objects very difficult, as it will take you probably at least a year (without time traveling/cheating) to get every item. But why even have a museum? This is a video game, not real life where things will actually become extinct.

This reminds me of Umberto Eco's concept of the hyperreal. It seems that AC tries so hard at creating an environment that feels like the real world that it even must have a simulated past. Much like how such a young country like America feels the need to perserve something in order to make it look older than it actually is, you town in Animal Crossing is trying to establish a history or archive of its contents. While the musuem is not exteme simulations of Disneyland or the enchanted castles Eco writes about, it is a museum in a simulated world. It archives in order to make this world more real. When one has a place to go to see the fish he/she caught 3 months ago, it recreates the sense of time one has spent playing the game. By even digging up fossils or catching a living one (the coelanceath) a longer history is written in the game, making us believe that this virtual landscape has lasted millions of years, when in all actuality it doesn't exist at all.

This lends to the immersiveness of the game. But I suppose that's something for another post. I think we have a nice start to a paper that connects all these ideas if we start with the museum/the elements that attempt to creat a real world.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 08 - Town Hopping

There does not seem to be a great deal of reasons to visit someone else's town. I went to Sara's town today and really it was a lot like mine, just there were different people (her store was not open as it was late at night, and it was not as new as my store anyway). There was no way for me to leave any items, animals, or money in her town so I could not do that. I did not have any stationary so I could not try mailing her anything. Another thing was that I caught some fish in her town and I wanted to donate them to her museum but the game would not let me for some reason. It would only let me visit the museum.

It was very late in her town and there was not really anything that I could do. Everyone was asleep really. So I did what I do in my town: I fished. I caught some good fish and took them back to my town to sell them and make a little money for me.

Oh, and riding the train is a slow and boring process. Blegh.

I had more things to do in my town. Like I said in my last post, after it rains, it means that one can find gyroids buried in the ground. I am not really sure why that is. They are kind of like living fossils. The rain washes away enough of the ground that we can find gyroids buried underneath it, alive. Weird little boogers.

In another exciting example of capitalism and commerce at work, Nook is back open, with a new huge store with more things for me to buy that I don't need. I love buying stuff. When you buy certain items (furniture, clothing, umbrellas) you get a raffle ticket. With five of these, you can compete in a monthly drawing for more items, that you cannot buy in the store. I have like 50 right now. I can't wait for this drawing.

Other than that, the town is going well. I am interested to see if anyone moved out of my city and into Sara's, and vice versa. More on that later.

Day 7 - A Trip to Hyrule

So taking a trip to another city require a player to know another real-life player who has another town of their own. This means having not one, but two memory cards plugged into your Gamecube at once. Once you meet that requirement you are allowed to visit the other players town, plunder their fruit, store and buried treasure. I managed to pull up four fossils in Ryan's town. This also means that your characters in your town start moving away or asking you to run favors for them in the other town. Usually, for me at least, this is where I quit talking to my characters and fish a lot. It's quite a hassle to coordinate a town visit. Both parties have to be willing to give up their gaming for a bit.

The odd thing about visiting towns is that not much changes. The faces change, the store might be a little different but you'll be hard pressed to find any sort of cultural differences. The characters have the same sort of awkward way of speaking (i.e. "Do you like eating peaches, li'l chick?"). There is still the wishing well, the museum, the police station, and store. The landscape has the same childish cutout style, and your town is filled with - you guessed it - animals! It's like your town, but laid out a little bit differently.

Perhaps the game is suggesting that in order for the world be the utopian society it portrays, every place needs to be almost the same. The New Pangaea is what will lead us to this idealized society.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 07 - Damn Nook

Good day in a lot of ways. Pretty stupid in others.

I caught a freaking ceolocanth (sp?). Very awesome; the fish is huge. I ended up donating him to the museum, but I know that they are worth 15,000 Bells and I was so damn tempted to sell it. They are really rare though, and I can make that kind of money without too much trouble really. By the way, you can only catch one of these in the ocean when it is raining. I got really lucky. I like when it rains, because that means something else besides these huge fish..

It means GYROIDS! Like Sara so disgustingly put it, gyroids are little penis/mailbox shaped cylinders that make neato noises. They do not do anything else I guess... wiggle... ding... shit like that. I love them.

Found and got some fossils today.. I fished a lot this day. Fished a lot. But you know what. I could not sell them. You know why? Nook is remodeling again! Still this is good and bad. I can't sell anything today, but soon I will be able to get many more items that I think are fun!

Another thing... I planted a shovel in a shining hole in the ground. It sprouted a gold sapling which is maturing into a larger golden tree. Eventually when it is full-grown, it will drop me a golden shovel that randomly digs up 100 Bells. Sounds stupid to me, but like a raccoon, I am drawn to shiny objects. Even if they hurt me sometimes.

In closing, no one cares about Nature Day because it is stupid. As soon as I start getting presents and/or candy on a Nature Day, then I do not care. Nature is stupid anyway. Furniture is the way of the future.

Days 5 & 6 are a blur

Basically all I've been doing lately is a lot of fishing. I've become somewhat obsessed with trying to upgrade my house. This is probably the only part of the game where you have some sort of immediate response to your work. You catch fish, you sell them, you deposit your bells, and your house will get bigger. As an indirect result, Nook's store grows. So the circle of commerce continues. You buy and sell more stuff, you get more useless stuff like furniture, a larger house etc. You exploit nature in order to participate in this endless cycle of commerce. Even after you finish expanding your house, one imagines that you would still be caught in this cycle because you want your house to score high on the HRA.

It rains all the time in my town. It rained saturday and sunday in my town, and there were fossils and gyroids galore. I wonder what gyroids actually are. They appear to be little wraggling penises (peni? what is the plural form of penis?) that grow out of the ground. Are they some sort of ancient penis ground living animal?

As far as nature day goes, I found an interesting post on the Animal Crossing Community about nature day it really is a boring holiday. From playing the game previously I know some holidays have mass gathering and events, or everyone gathers near the town fountain. Why not on this day? Certainly this is saying something about the value of the environment. Does it not deserve a holiday to enjoy how great nature is? The game makes small attempts to shove some environmental ethic down our throats by not letting us throw our boots that we catch just anywhere and we can't throw away letters just in any place. However, nature day just turns out to be another opportunity to get some cool junk for your house.

peace.
/sara

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 06 - Axe

I got an axe today. The axe and the act of keeping the town up to standards is the hardest and the strangest part of the game for me. The axe breaks really fast and I am never sure what I am supposed to do in my town to make it perfect. I have never done it before, and I do not think that I am going to try anytime soon. Possibly after this assignment is over, and if I am still playing the game, I might look into it. But not right now.

The payment for having your house expanded (the last one that is not an upstairs) costs a whole lot of money/Bells. Remember how I said that the basement had a payment of 50000 Bells or so, well not this one. This expansion costs roughly 400,000 Bells. I have done it in the past, but it certainly seems more daunting this time around. I have paid off about 80-90000 Bells since I got it done, but it is moving really slow.

You know what else is going really slow? Trying to collect my theme for my house. I have gotten like two or three pieces, and I am not even positive if they are part of the same theme. They look like they belong together to me, but I could easily be wrong about that. Why have a neat theme for your house ? Hell, I don't know, but I think it is something that we as people really do, so why not have it be a part of the game. As far as the game is concerned though, it does not seem to really matter. The points do not do anything, so oh well.

Sara: Do you have any of the playroom/kiddie themed furnitures or anything at all? I am lacking.

I go through like an axe a day. Also, I hope to get this house paid off so I can get an upstairs. Also, the damn Museum needs to start sending me some new fossils.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 05 - Gulliver

My Nature Day was crap too.. almost nothing happened this day. Sara asked a lot of questions, that I would like to get to in a second.

What happened to me today? Well the usual mostly.. the last time I played I paid off my basement, which was relatively cheap and I expanded my house again. It is much bigger now, and it is going to take me quite a while to pay it off. But I want to get it paid off; I know that the next expansion is going to be my upstairs. I am excited about that upgrade.

I got some more fossils in the mail. Two out of three of them were amber; what the hell? I have gotten four ambers since I have started this town. I want some more real fossils so that I can actually get some full fossils completed, but that is going to take me a while. Also I caught a couple new fish that I donated to the museum. No new bugs as of right now.

Also I found the golden spot in the ground and buried a shovel in it. This is how you get a golden shovel, which really is not something all that special but I want it anyway. A golden shovel sometimes randomly digs up 100 Bells in a bag. Honestly I think that is going to be more annoying than helpful. 100 Bells is nothing.

Gullived the sailor washed up on shore today and gave me a rare item I cannot spell. That guy cracks me up. He washes up on shore and wanders around for a while and then disappears to that unknown place Sara was talking about. So on to those questions.

Where does a tree go.. I do not know. Where does the garbage go? Also I do not know. I know that there is at least a mailman that picks up the mail, and a police station where you can find lost items, and there is that train that comes and goes. But where... I do not know. I have never gotten a painting by the way, and I have played this game a good bit.

I did not get a tree model. Damn?

Also, one of my characters (Axel) wanted me to plant flowers as well, yet he says nothing. I am thinking that maybe you have to mail them to him or something as a present. Maybe that would work? This game raised more questions than it does anything else.

Disappearing into thin air

When you cut down a tree, what really happens to it? It just disappears. When you put trash in the dump, where does it go? I mean, can a boot really just disintegrate?

I wonder what sort of rationale they used for timing things in the game. A tree takes days to grow, trash disappears in a day, your house gets a radical expansion overnight. It seems that bothersome things take less times and highly anticipated things like a tree blossoming take longer. Perhaps that's what keeps us hooked to the game: the things we really want to see happen just take longer.

I donated a painting I got from that traveling salesperson once, and it just hung in the gallery. That was the only painting I had ever gotten. Why are they so rare?

Nature day was a bust. I got a tree model from the mayor. There didn't seem to be any sort of celebration, just a lot of scolding from Mr. Mayor. He reminded me to take care of the environment and plant some trees and flowers. Not very educational or fulfilling if you ask me. The good thing is that I got the tree model which will make an awesome edition to my house.

Ryan, have any of your characters ever asked you to plant flowers near their house for their girlfriend? I did that today and I didn't get any response from the character even after I did it. Who is this girlfriend anyway?

Sorry for all the questions. My head is in limbo.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 04 - ...

Day four, and not a whole lot going on. Nook opened back up, I paid off my basement (50000 Bells or so, not really bad), and did a bit of the usuals. Mailed some fossils in to the museum, donated some bugs to the museum, looked at all the things I have found in the museum. I heart the museum. Sara, have you ever donated a painting or whatever to the museum?

Did some fishing, which is how I pay almost all of my house debts. I got some more fossils in the mail, two of which were new (the mammoth skull and the trilobite), and one old one (amber) that I sold to Nook for a little bit of money. I think you can keep fossils if you want to and set them up in your house or basement maybe, but I am not sure. Maybe not, either way I would rather get the money.

So yes, Chris Jay, the game is all about making money, and it totally rocks. Except it is better than real life, which is just about money, because I get to fish all day and have a basements, things that I do not do or have in real life. Animal Crossing is great.

To Sara:

Yes, you can catch the bees. Try harder. As far as getting hurt... it is an interesting aspect of the game. You can get stung by bees, you can get bitten by mosquitos, you can fall into pitfalls (don't know if that actually hurts), and I am not sure on other physical pain. Your character can feel disappointment, like from not catching a fish, or something. Not sure.

On the other hand, your character can cause somewhat physical harm. You can beat your friends with the shovel and net. You can trap them in dugout holes, catch them in pitfalls, and push them all over the screen. But really in the end, this just seems to make them mad at you, and have more emotional rather than physical damage done to them. I am not sure of any other examples off the top of my head right now. But there may be more.

I asked for my bigger house today after paying off the basement. Can't wait to store more crap in it. Whoooo! See you again soon.

/ryan

Day 3 - Could I get hurt?

Today I got stung by a gang of bees while I was shaking trees. Sometimes when you shake the trees, bags of money come out of them (talk about exploiting nature there). Once in awhile you get stuck with a horde of bees flying out at you. I thought "Surely, if I catch one of those bees it will be worth quite a bit of money and I will be rich and pay off my house." But while I was trying to rope them in, they stung me. I tried a second time and failed again. I don't think its possible for you to catch them. I think they're only there to discourage you from making all your imcome off shaking trees.

But it got me thinking, you don't have hit points or lives in this game. It's nearly impossible to get hurt. A gargantuan fish will never pull you into the sea and drown you. When you cut down a tree, it never falls back on you. You never slip while digging a hole with your shovel and get a black eye. So, what's the deal? How come only bees - natural beings - can hurt you? Ryan can you think of any counter examples?

I was playing the game while Chris was in the room today and he said "God, what is this game all about? Just making money? Seems boring." Isn't that everyone's reaction to the game until they play it anyway? I don't remember being terribly thrilled by all the reviews I read about it before I started playing it.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 03 - Ugh

I don't know about intensification, but I am having a problem with supply and demand. I demand for Nook to have a store that is open when I need it to be, and Nook is supplying me with nothing. Actually, he is just remodeling today. It is a good and a bad thing. It is great because soon when he is back open he will have a bigger store that sells many more things, things that I would like and need to have (flowers, stationary, and an axe please). It is bad because I basically got nothing at all done in town today.

Like I said, Nook was closed, and I could not sell anything I found in town, nor could I buy anything new. On the other hand, I got my new basement today and I get to keep all kinds of crap down there. This is a good thing I say, mainly because your basement is the only part of your house that is not judged by the HRA (so you can do whatever you want with it, like I do). Currently it just has shirts (which I found a few of at the dump) and raffle tickets in it. I can't wait for my next upgrade, but that will take a while, even for a super-gamer like myself.

So I spent the day doing whatever I could around town. I fished for a little while and kept a few, but they take up room in your inventory so I did not do a whole lot of fishing. I saw some of my first insects today and caught some of them to donate to the museum. I caught mostly butterflies and one pill bug (a roly poly). Bugs are cute and fun, but I rarely see them in this town, so I am catching whatever I can. Also I got some of my new fossils in the mail today: a dino egg, a footprint, and some amber, which is pretty standard stuff that I will probably be getting a lot more of. The museum was happy to get them regardless.

Other than that though... I picked some weeds (no problem), found some fossils that I could not mail (no stationary), and the trees are getting really thick (no axe). Also Sahara the carpet seller was in town... actually she is a carpet trader. She wanted 3000 Bells and a carpet. Well guess what! Nook's closed and I have no carpets to trade! Aghhhhhhh!

I cannot wait for Nook to open back up tomorrow. Seriously, this must relate to something somehow, but I am too aggravated with Nook for not being open. Oh well. Intensification! I need more shit from Nook, so he is going to sell me more of said shit! Great.

/ryan/link

Bug Hunting

Since I'm way behind Ryan, and Nook's store in my game hates me, I was forced to bug hunt all day today in order to pay off my house. Usually your main source of income in the game is fishing because it is easy, fish are all over the place and they're very valuable. Bugs on the other hand, are somewhat rare, usually not as valuable and harder to catch. They require more hunting and better timing. Luckily, I had mad awesome skills and between selling seashells and catching bugs I managed to pay off my house. Tomorrow I should have a nice big home to keep all my crap in. I haven't been able to get my house all feng shui'ed and appropriate for the Housing Judge people, because every piece of furniture I get is from a different scheme.

I also have the problem of the animals in my town asking for fruit which does not grow in my village, or in this case peaches. Somehow one of them gave me and apple, but that still doesn't solve my dillema. Ryan doesn't have peaches either. I think we can relate this to Marvin Harris' theory of intensification. But instead of depleting resources, those resources just don't exist. So in order for me to get peaches I have to sit around and wait for one to magically appear, or find another town/person playing Animal Crossing who has peaches. Yeah, not going to happen. Naturally this scarcity of fruit causes Nook's store to pay more for it. I'm currently growing an apple tree from the fruit I got from one of the characters. Hopefully it'll make it. The tree is a little shrub right now and by tomorrow it should be full grown. Playing this game in real time without time traveling is seriously annoying. Everything is less immediate, and waiting and scheduling your real-life around your AC life becomes a priority. I almost skipped class today to check out Nook's sale at his store. Naturally, Nook didn't win out.

The color red is phenomenal.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 02 - Fishing!

Lot's of new things happened today, the second day in Hyrule (which I stared at 6pm until 7, then 8 until 9:30).

I got a letter from the Museum, telling me I could send in fossils to be analyzed. This is a good thing, so now I get to send off those 5 letters/fossils I got on the first day. In addition I found the 5 new fossils for today and also sent them off. Fossils are great. I get to either look at them in the museum or sell off ones I already have for a quick buck. Not a bad setup really. I also donated a lot of fish to the museum today since I got my first fishing rod. I gave away about 10 to 15 different species of fish and sold the repeats. I will talk more about fishing later.

I buy and sell a lot of things. Everyday I buy every new item in the store that I have not bought before so that it will go into my catalog and so I will get a raffle ticket for the end of the month drawing. By doing this, if there is a certain house theme that I want to do later and there are certain items I need, there is a better chance that they will be in my catalog and I can order them then. As well when you buy and then sell something, the item becomes worth 1/4 of its original cost. Not great, but at least it is some money back in my wallet.

On the note of decorating the house, there is a thing called the HRA, the Happy Room Association (I think). This group gives you points that do not really mean anything based on how stylish and well set up your room is based on themes, certain rare furniture items, and feng shui. How fun. I am aiming for the playhouse theme right now, but that could easily change.

Speaking of my place, I got my upgrade today. My place is a little bit bigger and it can now hold more stuff. On top of that I have a new bill to pay of.. well I already paid it off actually. It was 148,000 Bells, and I paid it off through the lucrative money-making scheme of fishing.

Fishing is a great way to make money, and though I do not agree with fishing in real life, this is just too profitable to pass up. On that note, if I got paid big bucks to fish in real life, I probably would.

Certain fish are easy to find. Some fish are pretty hard to find. Those fish are worth a lot of money. A lot of money. I look for those fish. There are fish like the carp and the bass and so on that are worth chump change, like 100-300 Bells, but then there are the better ones. In the sea you can find Red Snappers which are worth 3000 Bells and Bar-Knifed something-or-other fish that are worth 5000 Bells. These are the types of fish I look for. Most of the other kinds I release them after I catch them, or donate them to the museum if I do not have them.

Sometimes when fishing, you catch litter, which sucks and you have to get rid of it. You can do this by either taking it to the dump or bringing it to Nook, both of which get's rid of the trash. The game seems to focus on an equilibrium between keeping your town nice and filled with nature (but not too much), and making a whole lot of money. I also found my first weeds today which I had to pull. They make your town ugly, but they are pretty easy to get rid of.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be able to get an axe and start taking care of some of the tree overgrowth. Also I will be stuck with a new bill for the new basement I just upgraded to. Tomorrow will have a lot of good and bad things. Hopefully good things.. since I will get some fossils back in the mail. See you then! Look for Sara's post!

/ryan!

Visual Language

As you can tell, the beginning of the game is basically a quest to pay for your house that Tom Nook has graciously given you under the condition that you become a worker for him for a bit. In speaking of the visual language of the game, we're in a cute world here. The world is a bit of a collage in that all of the elements of the game look flat and pieced together. For example:



Check out the ground in this image. It appears almost to be composed out of cutouts pasted together. Similar to Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon at the Island of the Grand Jatte these small dots of color when placed together give the illusion of grass. However, we see placed on the z plane above it, a somewhat more 3-D weed. This 3-d aspect shows us that we can interact with the object, and one of the main objectives of the game is to remove all the weeds so that your town can be "perfect." So rather than a realistic, 3-D representation of grass, the game is telling us that we should prefer the flat grass.

This really relates to the treatment of tress in the game, as like weeds, trees must be placed in the proper space to make your town "perfect." Connecting this to Ryan's post, tress are also one of your sources of income. Here's we're getting an interesting connection between nature and commerce. I think I'm going to be paying more attention to that aspect today.

By the way, my town's name is PortCity and my character's name is saratoga. The game even pronounces it right when the text is read. Crazy.

Ryan, as usual, you're ahead of me. I didn't find the magic rock yesterday.

PS. Does your digital camera work to take screen shots? I haven't tried mine yet.

Ryan's AC Adventure - Day 01

Just got started today with a new city and new character around 5PM or so.. here is what went down:

I start the game and I am greeted by KK, the traveling musician dog who let's me start and new town and what not. Next thing I know I am on a train and along comes Rover the cat, who helps me start my new character and new town. He asks who I am and where I am going and such, just to get things started. I chose my name as Link and my town as Hyrule. Here I go!

I get to town and meet Nook who sells me a house and I have to work for him to pay it off.. I can do that. He has me do some tasks like deliver furniture, help people around town, mail a letter, post some news on the bulletin, and meet everyone in town. I get all of these things done and eventually, with much furniture and clothing later, I am free of the job to go make money on my own to pay off the house. This is the part I am good at.

Oh yeah, I need 18,800 more Bells (money) to pay off my house. Can do.

My town is nuts. It is FILLED with trees. A lot of them; also pears, rocks, a dump, stores, police and mail station, among other things. Oh and a river that is totally in the way. The townsfolk, who are all animals (mostly cats and frogs) tell me I should plant trees and flowers; it makes the town nicer. These guys love the nature around here.

Earlier I said I wrote a letter, which I did. I wrote one to Bob the cat and I went to talk to him later and he totally LOVED the letter... way too much really.

Now to get money, I am good at this. I sell all the pears, seashells, and items I find around town. I am not worried about keeping furniture right now. Anything that you can buy, you can buy again later from a catalogue. There are rare items that cannot be bought, so I do not sell those. Also I know that there is a magic rock in town that has money in it. I make about 22,500 from it or so, and I can now pay off my house. Told you it was not a problem. I upgraded my house and will see what it looks like tomorrow (I chose a purple roof).

That leaves what I am going to do tomorrow:
I really need to buy a fishing rod (I have a shovel already) so I can fish (big $$$$)
I need to mail off fossils to the place that deals with them so I can give them to the museum
Check out my upgraded house
Begin collecting money to pay it off


This game rocks. Have fun Sara. We seriously need to take some pictures of our adventures. See you tomorrow people!

yay

we made a blog poooooooooooooooooop

So we are going to play the game Animal Crossing. We each are going to play for 2.5 hours a day (whenever we can during the day). We each are going to have our own city, and we will visit each other's city whenever we get a chance. Other rules: no time travel at all, ever. Ever. No. None for Ryan. No changing towns, or maybe some other things.

Things to observe:
How commerce and nature relate
Preservation in the game
Visual language of the game
Real-time aspect of the game (seasons, weather, day/night, etc.)
Writing letters/interacting with the AI
Morality (stealing, results of running errands, so on)
Immersiveness of the game

Naturally these observations will lead to other ideas.

We will be playing until the 28th, on which date we will write our final thesis and draw connections between our observations. Can't wait, keep watching.

/ryan and sara