A Play in the Life is my new ongoing series where I play "daily" games and post short updates. I'm not so good at doing daily gaming tasks (see Tomodachi Life) without a social group reminding me to, so I'm hoping that having at least community motivation will get me to do it.

The first installment is Animal Crossing for the Gamecube. I'm hoping to finish the debt in all the mainline AC games (except for New Horizons. Sorry) and write about how the game has changed.

I've already played through the tutorial, but I'm going to be splitting it up into chunks for my sanity so I don't have to write a bunch at once like I did with Tomodachi (which I will get back to).

Ahh, Animal Crossing. When’s the last time you thought about the original Gamecube game? OK, if you’re on these forums you probably think about it daily. My bad.

Animal Crossing is, and has always been, about moving out and being independent. These themes were completely lost on me as a kid, who saw it more like a little demented dollhouse I was playing with.

CLASSIC public transportation moment: some asshole sits next to you, clocks you as trans, drops a microaggression, and immediately starts trying to proselytize

Well, whatever. If I’m going to Hell before I die I might as well find a comfortable place to live.

I’ve already got a house AND a fat bitch! Life CAN be dream!

hmm i think i am going to be murdered in here perhaps

THE TRANSPHOBIA CONTINUES

Making Money

I am expected to do manual labor for the fat rat if I want to own my house.

This is something I find a little funny about the progression of Animal Crossing as a franchise. They’ve taken a lot of steps over the years to make Tom Nook seem like a much nicer guy, enough so that even I had some rose-colored glasses about his behavior in the first game. I didn’t recall that the tutorial is actually him forcibly employing you!

Since I don’t have a choice in the matter, let’s try to get this over with as quickly as possible. As soon as I started the game, I grabbed as much fruit as I could, preparing for the time-honored tradition of selling all the fruit in my village for pocket change.

There’s just one problem…

Ugh. Fine.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

Making Friends

Now that I’ve completely emptied my pockets of oranges, Tom Nook wants me to do chores for him. While he thinks of what he’ll get me to do next, he’s sending me off to greet everyone in town. Sure, why not?

First off, I have 3 neighbors crammed into one acre, and they’re all weirdos.

Tom already hates me…

Pinky thinks I’m a weirdo too…

And Quetzal, the dubiously Native American-inspired bird who has never reappeared since the GameCube era for reasons I think I can guess, has the charming catchphrase of screaming bloody murder at the end of each sentence.

This lovely trio is right next to my house, so I better get used to them.

Next up, I have Amelia,

Nate,

and Maple.

That’s my starting spread! I actually am already quite fond of these fellows. I’m a little annoyed by the biodiversity, I wish I didn’t have two eagles and three bears, but they’re all cute and having Tom is fun. Also, holy shit I forgot how deep the cranky villager voice in this game is.

Tom Nook asks me to deliver furniture to Tom not-Nook, which I do, and I get a “Spaceman Sam” furniture item in return. Awesome!

Nook also asks me to write a letter to Nate, which I think I’ve done a bang-up job at:

i hate that i got confirmationn that our system connection is back via krowling saying in thee back of my mind re: tom: "step outta the way gayboy im about to get it"

in all seriousness we've never actually played GC animal crossing! our first was WW and we've never given the first a go. looking forward to seeing all of its quirks, esp because of everyone talking about how villagers are TOTAL dicks in this game

Making Memories

Yeahhh, I don’t think I want you showing anyone that letter. I think it would be really nice if you didn’t do that.

Tom Nook wants me to advertise on the bulletin board in front of my house. Inspiration strikes. I know just the glowing advertisement to give him!

Yup, that’s good. That’s really good. I don’t think anyone’s gonna be forgetting that one any time soon.

And that’s it! I finished the tutorial! Now the great big wild world is truly my Boyster, and I’m going to spend my free time the way you’ve been waiting for: decorating my house with the shitty free furniture I’ve gotten from my neighbors.

Here it is: an Amongus, a tumbleweed, and some slightly more hospitable flooring.

The first day that I finally moved into my own apartment, I had no furniture except for what I could carry in a single U-Haul. As such, my first independent meal was takeout pizza eaten voraciously off of a plastic picnic table. It was shit and I was miserable, but it was home.

Animal Crossing has taught me a new thing to tell my self-care app I’m grateful for: at least I had more furniture than an Amongus and a tumbleweed.

Goodnight, Tom. Thanks for storing the record of all known existence for me.

(One of those images was broken but it's fixed now shh)

Okay I really want that giant shitty Amongus now.

I've also never played the game cube game but was incredibly enamored with animal crossing ever since I got wild world.

wait

... what?