Life in Review: Animal Crossing
The one game that I have been playing regularly is Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS. I describe it to my friends as World of Warcraft without the fighting.
I’m not sure what the appeal is exactly. What I do now in the game basically amounts to grinding. I tired of that pretty quickly in WoW, but for some reason I’m driven to pay of my debt to Nook. I think I just have some sort of obsession with paying off debt. In WoW, you had to earn money to purchase goods, whereas in Animal Crossing, you’re just in the hole.
Another amusing thing I noticed was the parallel between my character’s development and the development of mankind in general. Man started off as hunters and gathers. I earned my money/bells that way initially as well, gathering sea shells, fishing, etc. Just as man discovered farming and settled down, I have done the same with my character. My character now derives most of his income as a fruit farmer. In fact, I have so many fruit trees, it takes many hours to harvest. Sometimes it becomes too much like work and I start nodding off. I joke that I need to hire farmhands to do the manual labor for me. And winter is coming around — will that put an end to my fruit farming?
I wonder if that will drive me to a different type of income (clothing?).
One touch that I always get a kick out of is when the NPCs interact with each other.
Some one should make a MMORPG version with a Java applet client. It would make for a fun casual game, I think.
Pros:
- Non-violent.
- Free online play adds another dimension.
- Worldwide events based on time. Make sure your clock is accurate. New seasons, new holidays bring new surprises. Helps replay (unless you’ve cheated with your clock).
Cons
- Online play sometime exhibits stability issues.
- Can get boring at times if you don’t join in on some of the social aspects.
- Promotes consumerism. No real goals if you’re not materialistic or if you’re not interested in paying off your debt.