Cross the street with animals
So as mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons on a regular basis. For the past month or so, my routine has been to dig up all fossils, buy the KK album from the Nook Shopping app, then check out the shop and tailor. Well, yesterday I finished the fossil exhibit at my museum.
So to rewind a bit, my first experience with Animal Crossing was probably 15 years ago. I was visiting my grandma for the summer and we found a Gamecube and a copy of Animal Crossing at a Thrift Sale. She bought it for me and I got to enjoy the game for the first time. More than anything, I liked digging up gyroids and fossils. My overall playtime wasn’t that great, but what I did play was extremely rewarding. Fast forward to 2013ish and I get a 3DS and New Leaf. My goal was to pay off my home loan early on, and fossils took the background. I didn’t know much about turnips, so my farming was about catching bugs on the island at night. My museum was pretty evenly spread, but I never accomplished any of my goals completely. Eventually I got bored and set it aside.
Now that New Horizons came out, I was very invested early on. I was able to pay off my loans within the first month (turnip exchange is amazing). I played daily, trying to get into a routine to get ingredients, recipes, items, happy villagers, and of course, fossils. That daily routine eventually dwindled, and now, for the first time, I don’t have to worry about fossils anymore.
I get the feeling that since my main motivation is gone, I’ll start to play less and less. It would be good if I found anything as rewarding, but it just hasn’t happened. I’d love to get one of those absolutely beautiful islands that can be seen around the internet, but I don’t see myself having the creative ability to come up with something unique that I would be happy with. I’ve been slowly adding new things around the island, and have done very minor tweaks with the builder app, but I’m afraid of breaking things too much.
I’m sure Nintendo will release more updates over the first year, so there’s likely going to be something that brings me back. Just the sooner, the better.