{"id":122532,"date":"2020-12-25T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-25T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/12\/best_of_2020_6_things_my_three-year-old_taught_me_about_video_games_via_animal_crossing"},"modified":"2020-12-25T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T13:00:00","slug":"best-of-2020-6-things-my-three-year-old-taught-me-about-video-games-via-animal-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/12\/25\/best-of-2020-6-things-my-three-year-old-taught-me-about-video-games-via-animal-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Of 2020: 6 Things My Three-Year-Old Taught Me About Video Games, Via Animal Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the holiday season we’ll be republishing a series of Nintendo Life articles, interviews and other features from the previous twelve months that we consider to be our Best of 2020<\/a>. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to catch up on pieces you missed, or simply enjoy looking back on a year which did have some highlights \u2014 honest!<\/em><\/p>\n

This feature was originally published in April 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

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When a cutie-bunny-hedgehog-kitty game comes out alongside Doom Eternal<\/a><\/strong> and Doom 64<\/a><\/strong>, it\u2019s a test of self-confidence for a grown man to take it to the shop counter. Failing that test despicably, I invented the weak and unnecessary excuse that I could play Animal Crossing: New Horizons<\/a><\/strong> with my little boy. Working at home during the UK’s Coronavirus lockdown, I saw a great chance to make him collect weeds and sticks while I was in meetings, to take the edge off that early-game grind for me \u2013 oh, and to bond with him, I suppose.<\/p>\n

The first part of that plan didn\u2019t exactly come off: his stilted bumping around and forgetting controls was painful to watch and he couldn\u2019t harvest for toffee. Sure, there were some cute moments in there \u2013 he called our character \u201cMoo\u201d and modelled him on his baby brother \u2013 but there was a lot of frustration, like when he named our island \u201cWater\u201d, condemning me to an eternity of being asked \u201cWhat\u2019s a water airport? What\u2019s a water museum?\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n

But as I tried to teach him the grammar of gaming, his \u201cWhy? Why? Why?\u201d forced me to challenge the dusty assumptions of a gamer who accidentally became a retro gamer. Here are the six lessons he<\/em> ended up teaching me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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1: Voice acting is not necessarily better<\/h3>\n

Of course, we all love the delightful Animalese, but you still have to read \u2013 and to read out loud if you\u2019re with a small child. This was like our storybooks and my little sidekick loved it. Helpfully, we cohabited our island with an elephant called Axel, who shouted WHONK! At the end of every sentence. Usually, I\u2019m mashing A with all my heart, but now we took our time together on all the dialogue.<\/p>\n

Having played games since before talkies were possible, I still associate written text in games with technical or practical limitations that have now been surmounted. How misguided! Storybooks aren\u2019t written down as a compromise when audio would be preferred. Text does work that spoken words can\u2019t do, communicating specifically while leaving room for your imagination.<\/p>\n

Seeing my small associate\u2019s glee, I took away a revived appreciation for text in games.<\/p>\n

2: The divide between gameplay and narrative is a fiction<\/h3>\n

For me, the story of New Horizons is one that unfolds over days and weeks. It\u2019s the linking together of all the significant events on your island over time. Critically, those significant events are ceremoniously set out in cut-away dialogue, set-pieces and cutscenes \u2013 as in so many games since the dawn of time. So I considered our first day of play to be the start of a long, sweeping narrative about community, friendship and aspiration, which hadn\u2019t really got started.<\/p>\n

However, when I tried to elicit a retelling of what had happened on day one \u2013 prompting for where we went (island), how we got there (plane) and where we put the tent (beach). All I got back was the story of Moo running around: he ran on the grass then he ran on the sand then he ran on the rocks\u2026<\/p>\n

This sounds like a stupid story \u2013 and it would<\/em> be in a film or a novel \u2013 but that\u2019s how videogames tell stories. Yes, it can be incredibly dull to watch but that shouldn\u2019t be a criticism. Just as a musician can love playing a piece they\u2019re sick of hearing or someone recounting a thrilling dream will bore you, the direct experience of doing it is almost endlessly engaging, even if the surface is the opposite.<\/p>\n

For this one, he taught me not to wait for the story to happen but instead to tell it for myself.<\/p>\n

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3: A real-time clock beats saving and loading<\/h3>\n

The real-time element of Animal Crossing was a groundbreaking concept for the N64, as was the idea of making persistent changes to the gameworld. This is robustly realised on Switch but back when I first met the idea, it was confusing to a ’90s gamer: What if I don\u2019t play every day? How do I pause? Can\u2019t I force a respawn by leaving the screen? I still have to consciously recalibrate my expectations to play in those mechanics.<\/p>\n

My short second-in-command, on the other hand, for a precious rare moment, had no reason to ask \u201cWhy?\u201d To my concern about Moo\u2019s wasp-stung eye, he answered \u201cMaybe it will be better tomorrow\u201d. It\u2019s so obvious!<\/em> And it\u2019s free from the second-guessing of the game mechanics and technical limitations that I can\u2019t help but run through in the back of my mind.<\/p>\n

Conversely, imagine explaining save and load! If you would like to tutor my \u201cpride\u201d and \u201cjoy\u201d on the metaphysical concepts of alternate temporal realities and branching hypothetical timelines then I will wish you well and pray for your sanity.<\/p>\n

Moo\u2019s eye was indeed better tomorrow. My lesson: stop overthinking the mechanics \u2013 modern games will look after you.<\/p>\n

4: Push up to go up is a skill<\/h3>\n

As much as I appreciate there\u2019s a grammar of gaming to be learnt, and some specific skills associated especially with action games \u2013 like managing two thumbsticks for an FPS \u2013 the absolute basics of movement I had taken as a given. Certainly, if you can\u2019t comprehend the fundamental press-that-way-go-that-way then there\u2019s nothing further I could teach you. Either you\u2019ve got it or you haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

My dad, for example, whom I have never managed to get to play a game, saw this kind of skill development as a chore \u2013 and one with meagre reward at that. \u201cOh. Great. Now I can walk towards a stick at will.\u201d My compact wingman says the same thing but without any trace of sarcasm.<\/p>\n

So I learnt that there are really, really<\/em> basic gaming skills that I take for granted, but also that those can be learnt. They\u2019re even fun to learn in the right environment.<\/p>\n

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5: The little tricks actually work<\/h3>\n

When you\u2019re transported to the fantasy world of a game, there\u2019s always the little merry dance of ignoring the gamey paraphernalia. For our part as players, we politely let menu screens and save game management go by without bothering our suspension of disbelief. We erase from history the times the hero ran into a wall or stood blankly while we took a phone call. Game designers, meanwhile, help out by dressing their menus up in thematic imagery, having player characters tap feet or snooze if we don\u2019t move them, building save mechanics into the game world through computer terminals or stone sofas, and so on.<\/p>\n

But Animal Crossing: New Horizons pulled off two gameworld magic tricks that delighted the innocent mind of my diminutive accomplice. First, it presented its inventory screen as a thought bubble floating from Moo\u2019s head. I didn\u2019t even notice until my tiny mentee told me \u201cHe\u2019s thinking about a pear and an apple\u201d. For him, there was no break in the gameplay \u2013 thinking about pockets is as much a part of it as running clumsily in circles for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

Second, when the islanders all have a vote on the best island name suggestion and pick yours \u2013 a little gimmick to paper over the oddity that you<\/em> should be calling the shots and not one of the other package-tourists \u2013 my miniature sidekick was squealing with pride. Even though naming the island \u201cWater\u201d was utterly stupid.<\/p>\n

I learnt not to be so dismissive of the ingenious sleight of hand developers come up with: it really is magic to the unjaded.<\/p>\n

6: Games are fun<\/h3>\n

Now, I<\/em> love videogames, but I loved them when it really wasn\u2019t \u2013 how should I put this? \u2013 socially normal<\/em> for a late teen to be playing Game Boy. As a result, I now realise I\u2019ve been on the defensive about games for all my adult life. Again, I think of the patient but immovable confusion on my dad\u2019s face as I would try to demonstrate the joy of them.<\/p>\n

The direct thrill of the movement, sounds and animations were always up against old-media expectations of narrative development, passive consumption and authorial control. But they shouldn\u2019t be! Games are fun. Never mind grand visions and epic stories and clever mechanics and awesome worlds: Moo picks a flower and it goes pop<\/em>. I\u2019ve learnt to see the essential fun of that again.<\/p>\n

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Old dog, new tricks?<\/h3>\n

All this has changed my perspective for the better. I suppose it\u2019s obvious when you spell it out \u2013 so obvious a 3-year-old could see it \u2013 but I needed to finally drop my last-century-gamer baggage. Now, I have all my old favourites lined up so that he can teach me to enjoy them like a kid again. Maybe I\u2019ll hold off on Doom 64 for the moment, then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the holiday season we’ll be republishing a series of Nintendo Life articles, interviews and other features from the previous twelve months that we consider to be our Best of 2020. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to catch up on pieces you missed, or simply enjoy looking back on a year which did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}