Animal Crossing
I know I had said I will be getting on the Animal Crossing train on the first floor, but I have been debating on whether I should buy this game or not. I know for a fact that I will play for a bit and then get bored and not log in for a long time. And then I will be too scared to log in and see my town be a ghost town. I finally broke down and bought it. Not only did I buy it, but I got the digital version instead of a physical copy. To be fair I was always going to buy a digital version. Due to the way this game is played, it is better to have a digital copy so I can have a regular game in there to play and pop in AC to complete my chores every day. I think changing a cart in and out will be too much of friction and keep me from coming back to this game.
The main reason I bought this game was the fact that so many of my cousins already have this game. At least one of them I convinced to buy it before I even got it. I would love to have the ability to visit the other islands some time in the future. Since I don’t want to go online and find strangers to visit virtually, I am really glad I have friends and family who give me the option for virtual vacations. It would be nice to get fruits and recipes from a different island.
Last Animal Crossing I played was the 3DS version “New Leaf”. It is a fun game to play in small doses. I ran out of things to do in there pretty quickly though. At that point I stopped playing. I imagine the same thing will happen with this one, too.
Right now I have moved in to a tent on my new island. I say my island but this is clearly a Tom Nook venture. My island is named Gulshan. Hopefully, I can soon pay the debt off and move into a house. In my two session, I have mostly collected trash and made furniture out of it. Other than that I have bought a few clothes.
One other thing to do on the island is fishing! Fishing is one of those minigames that are seen in all types of games. So I will probably be rating fishing for quite a few games. Fishing is barely a minigame here. There aren’t much in the way of mechanics. You cast your line wherever you see the shadow of the fish, wait for the fish to bite. When the fish are just close by there is a soft sound. Once they actually bite it is more of a deeper sound. So the whole game is to hear for the deeper sound and pull. If you are too early, or too late the fish escapes. There are other aspects to it though which have more depth to it. Fresh water fish are different from the saltwater fish. There are different ones to catch at different times of the day. And I think there may also be seasonal changes, too. The type of fishing rod does not make a difference in catching. There are no stats to rods other than durability. Better rods last longer. But they also cost more in terms of resources used. Even so, the fishing portion is very satisfying. I can sit and fish until my rods break. Depending on the type of fish, it could be lucrative, too.
There is also bug catching which I dabbled into a little bit, until my net broke. That was annoying to the say the least. How strong can a bug be to break my actual net. I will do more of bug catching later. First I got to move out of the tent. Just like in real life, you can’t really experiment with too many hobbies while living like a hobo in a tent.
5-28-2020
I Have finally paid my debt to Tom Nook. It really didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I just started playing last night and I’m already out of the tent. But now I owe him another 100,000 bells for the house he’s going to build me. When I say I’m out of the tent what I mean is I’ll be out of it by tomorrow.
I also found out if you catch enough bugs then you can have a museum open up on your island. I have put a request for that in also. That should be ready by tomorrow as well. There are a couple of other inhabitants on the island and they are still in tents. I don’t know when they will be getting their houses.
Today I found a recipe for an axe, but I can’t make it yet. I had found a stone which I sold without thinking about crafting. I think I will have to wait until tomorrow for the island to produce another stone to make an axe with. And then I can use that axe to beat up boulders and get more stones. One of my least favorite things in New Leaf was running out of things to do. Clearly that aspect of the game will not be going away. And yet there are a lot more activities to do this time around. I have been wondering if other people can visit the island when I’m not there.
One more difference compared to the last AC is my character’s position in the game. Player character in New Leaf is the mayor of the town she has moved in to. What little bit of the story I remember is about how she is moving to the town after taking the mayoral job. Which raises all kinds of questions about the state of democracy in their county. Nook is the de facto leader of this community since this settlement is his venture (yay capitalism!). Maybe there will be election later on, once more people move in and Gulshan is no longer a single tent community. But I really doubt Animal Crossing is equipped to handle nuances of democratic elections.
5/28/2020
