1368: Confessions of a Failed Mayor

I played it for a good few weeks on its original release in the name of understanding what the hell everyone was so excited about, but I have to admit defeat and confess that I didn’t really like Animal Crossing all that much.

I’m not saying it’s bad, per se, more that I just don’t really understand the appeal of it. For sure, it does what social gaming companies like to call “invest and express” gameplay far better than any of the shite churned out by Zynga ever will — and without continually begging the player for money, more to the point — but the trouble is that what Animal Crossing offered just wasn’t enough to hold my attention.

There’s lots to do in Animal Crossing, for sure, and the game drip-feeds you new things happening in your town every few real-time days to keep you coming back. MMO-style special events allow you to compete against your friends at catching bugs or whatever, and the game world expands a little over time — though not by much.

Trouble is, most of the stuff to do in Animal Crossing wasn’t very interesting or enjoyable to me. By my last few days playing, I had settled into a tedious routine of picking fruit, going to the island, catching as many bugs as I could put in the box, selling them all, then paying off part of my loan. I’d then close the game because I’d found the experience so mind-numbing that I didn’t really want to play any more. It was feeling more like a job than a game; I was feeling obliged to earn money just to give to Tom Nook, and it just wasn’t enjoyable. By the time I’d done my daily “chores” I just wanted to turn the game off and do something else — usually go to sleep, since I inevitably put off said chores until last thing in the evening.

This is, of course, arguably the whole point of Animal Crossing. It’s a reflection on modern life and the joyless things we do to get ourselves through the day with enough money to put food on the table. Of course, in Animal Crossing you can’t actually starve to death or be turfed out of your house for being unable to keep up repayments on your mortgage, but the feeling of guilt is there — that feeling that you should be doing something more, that feeling that you should be pursuing your ambitions but instead you’re trapped in a rut barely scraping by unless you make some sacrifices in the name of being more profitable. (In Animal Crossing’s case, the sacrifices I was having to make included “playing games that I found more fun,” which was ultimately not something I was willing to give up.)

Multiplayer, too, was confusing. While it was neat to be able to invite friends over, ultimately all I found myself doing when I visited a friend’s town was admire how their trees and houses were in slightly different places to my own trees and houses, and nod knowingly if they had discovered how to make “paths” using designs printed on the floor. I never knew what I was supposed to do when I was in someone else’s town; there was no structure to it, and no real incentive to actually play together beyond pinching each other’s fruit and planting it, or occasionally doing that hilarious thing you can do with Pitfall Seeds. The only multiplayer stuff I found enjoyable were the structured “tours” on the island, and even those weren’t all that interesting or competitive to me.

I certainly don’t begrudge people their enjoyment of Animal Crossing. I just… don’t get it. And I’m cool with that; time to move on.

Pokémon, on the other hand, that I’m starting to come around to. But that’s a story for another day.