Earlier this week, my partner stopped playing Crossing the Animals: New Horizons. I have continued to improve my island by adding new facilities, beautiful houses, and the introduction of stained glass sculptures. But, mostly, I just fish and catch bugs. “This must be done by my hands,” I say to him in an attempt to explain my preference for leisure activities. It feels satisfying. It sounds like progress. Sounds like a job well done. But then I stop playing, and I worry that I have wasted my time.
For myself and many others, Animal Crossing it has become a game of social choice of its own. It boasts a vibrant island paradise into our overworked, dimly lit screens, a way to escape from the cold-built indoors It's perfect and in our time in small ways: It can be played in bite holes, between remote workshops, classrooms and virtual hangouts. It's on the Switch, so you can carry it from the living room to the living room, or, if you're a really bad person, go to the bathroom. It doesn't make sense to play it while watching TV or chatting with friends via Discord. There are so many new gaps in some of our break-in life to pass; Animal Crossing he barks at them from above. Its subtlety is particularly satisfying: In times of chaos, it sounds like a production aimed at self-directed, direct track of development that never shifts to achieving goals such as home ownership. You put in the work, you will get a reward.
Currently, there is social pressure to spend time we no longer use for travel, meeting with friends, or attending events to produce. Even thought a clear exposure to that index from the literature or just your friend who last posted their guitar videos “just picked up” while reading several classic books, the message is clear: We are trapped inside, so why not enrich ourselves? Isaac Newton did it, apparently! Also so was Shakespeare! You and I are here at least good as those pioneers whose names will once again enter the halls of history. Yes, there was going back to this school of thought; this is a pandemic that has never been seen, after all. It's OK to feel frustrated and helpless while your planet is moving from its axis. It's okay to remove the load while trying to figure out what's next. It's okay to deal with it.
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And, when I tell myself that, I can't escape the feeling that I'm not productive enough. When I feel that way, my first inclination is to pick up my guitar, read a book I bought months ago, or even start one of the many held games that contaminate my secretary, Control. But then I turn my eyes a few inches away from the screen of my computer, and there is a change in that Animal Crossing. I'll only play for 15 minutes, I tell myself. Or maybe 20 30? I will do a few tasks: Draw some weeds, build a fence, keep the neighbor on * checking the paper * for the coronavirus. It will be. However I decide to fish a bit. And I realize I need to dig and bring some excursions to the museum's masters. Oh, and the Nook store offers double jewelery that I can do crafts, so I need to collect stuff for that. Also, and just remember that I ordered new furniture, so I need to rearrange my entire room to get it ready. Two hours pass.
I feel accomplished when I'm done with all this. The face of our neighborhood, however, has changed. My overwhelming desire to buy as many garden gnomes as possible has paid off, and now I can navigate my way into my island to catch guests on a terrific gnome canal. My home is from the hodgepodge of my favorite “interactive experience” with two rooms containing a large diamond earring for ska. I'm full of pride. I turn around and tell my partner. But in the middle of my definition, I fail. What's the point of all this? What should I do? What have I really done, other than to add another tower to a sandwich that was immediately washed away when everyone moved on to another game?
Then I go online. I see other people’s creations, and they blow up my tiny barren island out of the water. Their houses have themes of pop culture and traditional art. Their town buildings are clean and orderly, with paved streets and landmarks. Invite people to visit guided tours, raves, and sales of turnip. Seeing this makes me want no one to visit my island. I would be embarrassed. But I did get another realization, too: I would never care enough to put it into the genre of the work it takes to build this amazing island.
It's the points that work for me, because Animal Crossing still exists in a world that runs on real capitalism.
I understand that depending on green efforts, but also that there are different types of work. When I played Animal Crossing, I fall into a meaningless kind of life. I see something that needs to be done, and then I do it. I do activities together. There is agreement with the grounds on the bottom of my island – like my dinosaur room and small grove behind my house – but if not, it's simply the result of whatever I had at the time. I don't want to think too hard when I play Animal Crossing. Its overall context and speed suggest that I shouldn't – I'm meant to be a fugitive, not some sort of brain-wrecking exercise in a larger organization and production. Accordingly, Animal Crossing is the place where I go to do some kind of cultural, mindless work. It's like cleaning your kitchen: You go through the same desires all the time, but you always feel good about it.
However New Horizons is often at odds with itself. Seeing other players accomplished made it difficult to just get into the work routine of relaxation. Quietly (and sometimes aloud) asks you to consider it, a deliberate task. It's full of programs that promote the min / max idea: Things you can sell for double jewelery, lots of fruit that you can collect, trees to invest in income, fluctuating prices. These mechanics are often associated with social programs of the game. You can visit other islands of other players to collect different fruits and sell your turnips. This allows you to have more money and build a more beautiful island. There is a deep satisfaction of developing your island, sure, but also something that works: After all that hard work, you'll just want to show it. But if your island ends up being compared to other people, why should it put you off the ground? So you have to be deliberate in building your island, more productive in your work.
Animal Crossing it produces a worldview in which capitalist technologies – production and its methods, management, buying, selling, leading, and so on – can be separated from the demands under which they are made. You can pay your bills any time you want. You can use your time however you choose. Nookers will never run out of money to spend on the trash you get at sea. The island will always sprout new resources. The islanders you are forced to leave will always find new homes. So you can go nuts. You can produce and produce and produce, and there will be no environmental consequences.
It is a dream come true, especially at a time when uncontrolled production and expansion has created a fragile society in the face of an epidemic that has forced many people to stop working. But it's an idea that didn't really work for me, because Animal Crossing it still exists in a world that runs a real ancestor. In our connected capitalist world, and especially right now, the product is all-not-just Animal Crossing-You can work. We equate productivity with value and meaning because that is what we are determined to do. Even though we are stuck in our own homes without a direct incentive to be productive, we still want to show how productive we are – learning new skills, learning, writing – because this can temporarily take over our lives.
So I find myself in a weird place with Animal Crossing. On the other hand, I want to clear my brain and use the game as a way to relax, unwind, and deal with these bad times. In a way, that's good. It provides an endless stream of simple tasks that are not satisfying yet. Each day, I can enjoy my little routine for a few minutes or hours. But the game also features real world programs that make me feel like I should be doing more than playing the old character Animal Crossing, or that if I decide to play it, I should be doing so for a greater purpose: a final island with an alliance with thrift shops and a very cool local community who show off my energy and productivity. This is not really something I want to do, but nonetheless I feel like it is what I am you should they did.
All of which is to say: I think if I just wanted to do something with my hands, I should have taken the plunge.
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