Greetings, residents! It’s your Talk This Blog Services host Madelyn here to talk to you about the game dominating our self-isolation experience: Animal Crossing New Horizons. Originally, the title of this blog was going to be “X Thoughts in X Hours,” but because we kept playing Animal Crossing instead of writing, the hour count kept growing and the blog was never going to be finished . So we’ve broken form a bit to give one thought for each day we’ve been playing the game instead!
Here’s the live feed of us thinking our thoughts (I’m on the left, Emma’s on the right):
1. I wish I dreamed of KK Slider in real life.
M: Lately, my entire professional life has consisted of sending emails. I feel very lucky to still have a job, of course, but I have been sending so many emails in real life that I’ve also been dreaming of sending emails. I wish this was a joke. Probably tonight I’ll have a dreams about a Zoom calls. Visions of KK Slider crooning about the importance of friendship would be much preferred.
E: Just dream of sending KK Slider some emails. Zooming with KK Slider. What would his background be? Probably something cool.
2. Tom Nook: good guy or evil capitalist?
E: On one hand, he is generous with his loan repayment schedule
On the other hand, that sure is a lot of free labor he and his brethren are demanding of me.
M: Tom Nook let me pay off my airfare, tent, smartphone, and island getaway in butterflies and weeds, so I come down firmly on the “good guy” side. That said, I am carrying this island on my back! Are the Nooks sexist (and, while I’m at it, what happened to Mama Nook?)? Because they’re making the woman of the island gather iron nuggets and build a ton of furniture with nary a word to the freeloading man. They’ve finally allowed Clickbait Boyfriend to contribute to bridge construction, but it feels like too little, too late.
E: On the other other hand, excuse me, I have to pay you to do your work and put down some land for a new resident? And you’ll pay me back in Miles when they move in?
I’m ashamed of you, Tom Nook.
3. PICK ALL THE WEEDS!
M: My town can have no weeds. I must turn them all into succulents and hula skirts.
E: Tbh, not too concerned about the weeds. They’ll get whittled down eventually. People are so far ahead of me on Twitter, in terms of organizing their towns, so I’ve just given up at this point.
M: Look at the succulents I crafted, plus the scary doll I left outside of Clickbait Boyfriend’s house:
4. This iron nugget quest is designed to slow down my progress and I hate it.
M: It doesn’t help that I’m not very good at hitting rocks. I’ve gotten better over time, but I still dig an accidental hole and sacrifice resources about a third of the time. We finally managed to build Nook’s Cranny but it felt like it took literal sweat. Crafting furniture so my neighbors could move in felt like a breeze in comparison.
E: I grinded out so many Nook Miles Tickets to get that done as fast as possible. And now I’m somehow rolling in iron nuggets because you’ll never need that many for anything ever again.
Mr. Nook mysteriously needed no iron nuggets to replace his tent
5. All durability systems are bad durability systems
E: I despise having to go back and forth from a DIY station because my flimsy watering can literally breaks after about five uses. When they’re already throwing so many tasks in front of me, it’s just not comfy or fun to have to continuously fix my tools. Just let me fish until my inventory is full, please.
M: Thank goodness the vaulting pole can’t break or I would be spending all of my Nook Miles on rescue operations.
That feeling when your watering can breaks
6. Blathers, please, I’m about to open my own museum
E: Blathers takes two whole days to build his museum, and he won’t accept donations during that time. So what do you do with all the fish and bugs you find during that time? You dump them on the ground and wait.
I have not gone quite as hog-wild as many on Twitter, but I did have a strange little collection of bugs and fish outside my house. My neighbors were judging me. Please, Blathers, please take this science off my hands.
M: Clickbait Boyfriend solved this problem by starting an extensive home aquarium, but we still had some pretty impressive piles.
It’s one thing to keep fish and bugs, but the ethics of a hamster in Animal Crossing feel…questionable.
7. The museum is gigantic!
M: We saw part of the museum during the PAX East Animal Crossing demo (remember PAX East? When thousands of people from all over the country gathered in a cramped convention center? That was less than a month ago), but I didn’t realize we were only seeing part of it!
E: It also just doesn’t make sense. It is not that big from the outside. How did Blathers build something bigger on the inside than the outside? No wonder he needed two days to construct it.
8. The villagers sing!
E: If you put a stereo outside somewhere, your neighbors will come sing along to the tune from time to time. It’s adorable. It also keeps them from randomly coming over and singing in my lawn, which is a big plus.
M: Overall, I am just incredibly attached to my villagers. I love listening to their little songs, I love doing favors for them, I love finding the perfect gifts to send to them. Even when they get annoyed with me for talking to them too much, I love them.
This is the funniest thing that I’ve ever witnessed in a game. So topical. So kind. Stinky, thank you.
9.The turnip trade hits a little differently in the midst of a global economic crisis
M: I sure hope things don’t come to this in NYC in the next few months. Getting my vegetables from a traveling stock market broker is one part of Animal Crossing that doesn’t feel like wish-fulfillment. So far without fail, the Nook boys have offered me less than half of what I paid for my turnips. They must be making their dad so proud.
E: Timmy, stop trying to rip me off. Also, please respect social distancing rules.
10. I may have been a bit greedy with this bridge
E: While it does appear as if donations go up naturally over time, the zen bridge I’m building right now literally cost more than my house. And I haven’t even gotten my second room yet, so you know my house is nowhere near finished by Tom Nook’s standards.
But if I was gonna be building a bridge anyway, I wanted a pretty bridge dangnabit!
M: I’m building a zen bridge too! We have a lovely little garden just across the river that is going to look beautiful with this incredibly expensive bridge at the front. Emma bullied me into donating to her bridge when she visited, so now I’m inspired to try to bully Clickbait Boyfriend into paying for most of this one. We’ll see how that goes.
This is a different garden, but I wanted an excuse to show off the beautiful cherry blossoms!
11. Games that give the illusion of productivity scratch just the right itch right now.
M: I have caught more than one hundred fish in a row. In the past few weeks, I’ve produced an internet theatre series that got national news coverage, and this is still the greatest achievement of my quarantine life. Now that I have Bunny Day goals to work on too, I might have to make an actual game-specific to-do list.
E: And yet, despite my productivity, Isabelle still tells me my island is worth one star. Low blow, Isabelle. I need this right now.
12. Finally, fashion
E: The Able Sisters is another facility that takes a while to unlock completely, but I’m hype to have it now. I fully plan to have more clothes than I know what to do with by the end of April, for sure.
M: I dress my character in much the same way as I dress myself. In real life, if I’m not wearing at least two clashing patterns, my outfit is not complete. Animal Crossing has allowed me to take that to the extreme. Sunglasses are my signature accessory, because they hide my perpetually puffy, bee-stung face. Islander Madelyn is a fashion disaster and I love her.
Please, I need their help. Look at me.
13. Boy is it hard to return to work when Animal Crossing is sitting in arms reach in front of me
M: Please, my island, it needs me.
E: Honestly, it’s not distracting me from my actual work, but all my plans to write blogs and make videos were considerably slowed down by Animal Crossing compulsion.
“Love and Loss” AKA “I want to play games but have to do my job.”
Extra Madelyn Thought: This is a game Clickbait Boyfriend and I might have to fight over.
We’ve been doing a pretty good job trading off so far, but there’s already been a little tension over hoarding resources and chopping down lovely greenery in the early days. Still, that won’t stop me from sending him a ton of dumb gifts and trying to leave fruit on the trees and fossils in the ground for him. We haven’t tried playing co-op yet, but I’ll report back on the podcast in five weeks on how that goes.
Extra Emma Thought:
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Hello! It’s your Talk This! Podcast Representative Emma here! Thanks for reading all our Animal Crossing thoughts! What have you thought of the game? Have any strong opinions on Tom Nook? Leave a comment or reach out to us on social media to make your thoughts known! (for a small fee of 200 Bells).
Don’t forget to check out all our Game Thoughts blogs while you’re here.