The game I never meant to play

I let out an exasperated groan when I read the text from my best friend.

“Emma asked me to tell you that if you haven’t bought her birthday gift, she’d for sure like ‘Animal Crossing’ for her [Nintendo] Switch,” it said.

I had bought my niece her Switch last Christmas, in an attempt to give us something else to bond over and – yes – cement myself as the “cool uncle” (sorry Will).

But alas, it seemed my grand scheme had backfired on me; my niece had been wooed by disgustingly cute humanoid animals and visions of customizable island life.

I begrudgingly added it to my Amazon cart.

I would’ve bet money that my niece didn’t realize what she was asking for, and would be bored with the game within a week; I’ve had some experience with prior installments of Animal Crossing, and it’s usually not my kind of game.

Animal Crossing operates as – at its core – a game of life-simulation.

In its most recent release, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” you take up residence on a deserted island, with your goal simply to build up your new home so that it draws in residents and achieves the coveted “5-star island rating.”

Except, it’s not that simple.

You need resources and money (called bells) to make all this happen. Furniture and island decorations are not all immediately available to you; they either need to be purchased when they are randomly made available in the island shop, or crafted with recipes that are – you guessed it – also randomly distributed.

Sure, there are ways around this. There are those players out there who partake in “time travel”; aka altering the console’s internal clock to trick the game into thinking it’s a different day and thus trigger in-game events.

But to truly experience the game in its true form, you really need to let it run its natural course and play it at its everyday pace.

It’s also a game best played with others.

You probably know where I’m going with this.

Add to cart, again. Animal Crossing: 2, Uncle Al: -$120.

I was at a little bit of an advantage over my niece that I chose to download my copy of the game digitally, while her physical copy would be shipped to her home and then presented to her by her mother on her birthday; that way, I could get things to a point in my game so that when she was able to play, I would have things established enough that I could help her along and get her started.

Once I got Em up and running, I could put it away and return to my other games, never to play it again.

Except, it didn’t quite happen that way.

New Horizons came out right about the time we all were starting to take shelter in our homes from Covid-19, with the virus effectively throwing a monkey wrench in many of our lives.

It’s no secret that the coronavirus has caused many of us to stumble and lose track of any kind of rhythm or routine. Yet in some twisted way, New Horizons has provided me with just that.

Every day when I wake up around 7:30 am, I grab my Switch and begin doing my “chores.”

1) Check my orchard. Pick any fruit that’s bloomed, and sell it.

2) Locate the four buried fossils on my island. Dig them up and have “Blathers” assess them. Donate what the museum doesn’t have, sell the rest.

3) Pick my coconuts off my palm trees. Craft “coconut juice.” Sell it.

4) Check my beach for a message in the bottle. Learn the DIY recipe inside.

5) Find the resident who is currently crafting. Learn their DIY recipe.

6) Water my flowers. Dig up and transfer any hybrids that have bred.

7) Buy anything I want / need from the Nook Shop / Tailors. Deposit in home storage.

8) Misc. island infrastructure projects.

I know I probably sound like a nut at this point; if nothing else I’m really letting my nerd flag fly.

But my “daily morning chores” have come to represent more than just in-game progress.

What you might not realize is that by the time my “daily morning chores” are done, it’s right around 9 am, when it’s officially time for me to get to my real work. I am now ready to function for the day.

There are many of us out there who are feeling the heavy burden – i.e. anxiety, stress, and depression – that self-isolation brings. While many of us – myself included – are able to work / attend school / etc. from home, I’d hazard a guess that most if not all have had those off days where we never made it out of bed (or at very least, our pjs and sweatpants to do so).

For myself, as well as for a few of my friends who also play the game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has brought a sense of much-needed routine where routine was previously lost. The ability to visit each other’s islands and help collect and trade the in-game furniture and recipes has also built a sense of teamwork and community for a world of individuals holed-up in their living rooms.

And with these seemingly, insignificant virtual accomplishments, another day in quarantine may not seem so daunting.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game that I never meant to play; it also just happens to be the game I needed when the real world decided to plunk me and my friends on our own deserted islands.