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?

Don't be crass he means Timmy and Tommy who, to be fair, would totally break your knees

Everyone loves watching Timmy and Tommy hit each other with pool noodles in the backyard until Tom Nook upgrades it to lead pipes

IMO Tom had to negotiate with them to downgrade to the pool noodles

Hi everyone! Wow it's been a month. No I did not drop or forget about this, my life just got massively derailed.

I still have a bunch of already screenshotted events to catch up on so I'm hoping to do that soon. It might be a bit before we get to the time skip.

The Flame Shirt Timeline

It’s another beautiful evening in Hell, and I am ready to make loads of money.

AW YEAH! Check out my awesome shirt I got in the GARBAGE! Now I can sell all these other stupid shirts!

I swing on over to Tom Nook’s and eye this beautiful couch. The kiddie furniture was always my favorite, but it’s even better than I remembered it.

Then the worst happens.

I can’t move. I can’t leave. Something about the kiddie couch has sucked me into its orbit.

The game is frozen.

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

Moving on

I try to make small-talk with a new neighbor, but I’m tormented by the parallel universe that was wrenched cruelly from my hands. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.

Today is the fishing tourney, which would be super duper awesome if I had a fishing rod, but I don’t.

Nate Wrote:If I'm remembering correctly, this is a good spot, yawwwn. I caught some good ones last year!

Pinky Wrote:All the bass in this pond swim away at the smallest noise!

Quetzal Wrote:Will! The fish I'm gonna catch, it's gonna be so big that I'm gonna need you to help me carry it!

Mail

Dinosaur Summer

Hey, the museum is a great way to make money, right? I’ll just identify all my fossils and flip them back to Nook for a fantastic profit.

are you kidding me

Mailbox

Daily shopping

26 inches? What kind of sick and twisted place is this…

Still no fishing rod today. I found this really cute umbrella in the garbage, though!

Errands

Gabi Wrote:Our first project will be planting lots of flowers around an important site... My house! Tee hee hee!

Pinky Wrote:Sneaking around like that, with a wicked little grin on your face... You're up to something, I can just tell!

You know Maple, don't you? Well, I want you to go ask that moocher for my picture book back!

… but Pinky’s miserable when I get back, so I have to wait.

The present

A present flies overhead. I start kicking myself: of course this would happen now, when I don’t even have a slingshot yet!

But wait, this is Gamecube, and they hadn’t added the slingshot yet. You just wait around for it to land in a tree and then you can grab it.

Now I can have a pear tree!

I can see why they added the slingshot, to spice up the gameplay even just a little bit, but I’m realizing it feels more like a downgrade for quality-of-life. It’s just another tool that takes up space in your inventory, and now you can accidentally shoot it into the river.