Introduction
In the comments under an Animal Crossing music playlist on YouTube, someone wrote:
"Animal Crossing music, free; psychotherapy, expensive. With Animal Crossing, who needs psychotherapy?"
Well, how is it that this sounds so reasonable?
Even before Animal Crossing was released, I had made a commitment to write about it. Although the new title unexpectedly "went viral beyond its circle," with various media outlets already noisily and tediously chasing the trend from all angles, and I've already written one experiential piece myself.
However, I still have so much more to say.
Especially since Animal Crossing means something different to each person.
So I plan to start a series dedicated to it.
A Fresh Way of Breaking the Fourth Wall
It all starts with that subtle sense of reality that's both there and not there.
I'd most like to use K.K. as an example: he's a renowned musician in Animal Crossing whom you not only hear mentioned and discussed frequently, but whose new records you can always purchase from the daily updated online shopping list. He appears in your dream when you first move to the deserted island, telling you that "the happiest thing is still everyone being together," and in a sense, all your efforts on the deserted island are directed toward hosting that final concert where he visits your island.
In other words, K.K. is a virtual idol successfully shaped by Animal Crossing. Before you truly meet him, he has already entered your world and even become an important part of it. Who said Nintendo doesn't understand marketing?
But that's not all.
We now all know that K.K. is actually Animal Crossing series music director Kazumi Totaka, who appears in the game as a white dog with a guitar, thick black eyebrows, and a narrow face, naturally carrying an artistic air.
Most of that music—the music that may have already evoked nostalgia for your deserted island—is his creation. Those familiar yet never tiresome melodies, with their variations across time, weather, and events, are a genuine musical feast presented by the Nintendo Sound Team represented by K.K.
In a sense, those K.K. records truly are K.K. records.
For me, this example well illustrates one of the core designs of this game, which is also the foundation for our ability to experience it as therapeutic:
Animal Crossing is virtual, but this doesn't diminish its authenticity.
Starting with real time, Animal Crossing has already invented a fresh way of breaking the fourth wall.
K.K. is virtual, but K.K.'s records are real; the animals are virtual, but interactions with them are real; your avatar is virtual, but the feelings it represents about yourself are real; cherry blossoms are virtual, but the season when you can see them is real; the island is virtual, but the time spent on the island is real; fishing, catching bugs, building the island—all these verbs are virtual, but the healing received is real.
We'll later discuss how Animal Crossing represents true play, how it serves as a transitional object, and how it constructs identity...
But this subtle sense of reality is the foundation for everything.
True "Play"
In English, "play" versus "game" have completely different meanings. If we translate both as "games," we're really blurring their distinction.
Winnicott uses "play," which in this series we'll translate as "zhuashua" (play). In contrast, "game" follows the traditional translation as "youxi" (game).
We all know that Winnicott consistently emphasized play; he even believed that before patients enter therapy, the first preparatory work they need to do is learn to play.
Games typically have very clear rules and goals, thus emphasizing competition and winning or losing. In comparison, play focuses more on using creative forms to symbolically express inner states. For example, using Lego toys to build an imagined world.
At this level, painting and writing are actually forms of play. In supervision discussions, we're also often asked to "play with the words and the idea."
Of course, with the development of modern games, we've seen many attempts that lean more toward "play" rather than "game."
An easily imaginable type would be sandbox games represented by Minecraft, but there are also artistic expressions like "Mountain."
I still remember a Game Jam where a developer made such an attempt—players could create different audio-visual effects by striking the keyboard with varying intensity and frequency.
At first glance, Animal Crossing actually seems to be somewhere in between.
It has rules, but since there's no actual winning or losing, experientially we often feel that the rules exist more like a background.
We certainly remember to repay loans, but in reality, Animal Crossing's rules are countless, to name just a few macro ones:
- Two currency systems: Nook Miles and Bells,
- Two upgrade systems: loans and ratings,
- Friendship levels,
- Random drop collection systems,
- And partially asynchronous social systems based on these random drops.
Randomness is particularly noteworthy because randomness can potentially break down an entire system, but Animal Crossing's choice is to let it break down.
This also leads to its creative aspect, but this creation isn't based on rules, and actually has many limitations. Besides patiently waiting for drops or exchanging with friends, there are almost no better methods, and this is exactly what the game wants you to do.
This set of rules shapes the process of your gradually investing in the life you truly want, while the random aspects ensure it isn't entirely determined by you, thus bringing exploration and surprises.
Yes, I don't consider Animal Crossing to be some sort of sandbox, but I still view it as true play rather than just an odd design somewhere between play and game.
—Because almost everyone can find their own place in Animal Crossing, living a life of their own, and this life reflects a person's inner world more clearly than island design, and this is true creation:
The spectrum of Animal Crossing player types is surprisingly broad, with all sorts of players: there are casual, irresponsible players; those dedicated to filling their creature catalogs; those immersed in cosplay, arranging furniture, and playing house; those who visit others' homes everywhere to leave messages and socialize; those who play with mathematical modeling to optimize orchard output and turnip investments; those who hunt for rare items to flip and resell to others; those who hack save files and cheat mods to collect illegal items to sell on online marketplaces; those who imitate Minecraft or Mario Maker gameplay to transform their islands into platform game levels... via indienova equation
If we were playing Animal Crossing with a child in the therapy room, I would notice their style, arrangement, but I would equally notice their island life: do they spend a lot of time chatting with the animals? Do they compulsively complete task lists?
This explains why we can play such a healing game so "intensely," to the point of opening online shops, getting removed from platforms, and various animal abuse behaviors.
As for whether all this indicates the game isn't healing, we'll discuss that later.
Good Feelings Aren't Complicated
Although the protagonist's halo is ubiquitous in games, the halo in Animal Crossing is still different.
You are certainly the most important—you're appointed as the island representative, you choose the tent locations for everyone, everyone applauds the island name you give, you lead everyone in building the museum, shop, and tailor's, only you can decide on island construction, and if your data is deleted, this deserted island ceases to exist.
But what's even more worth emphasizing is that this is your island, and what you do is seen.
"Yesterday you were busy on the island all day, you're really energetic."
"The news that you were stung by wasps twice has spread all over the island."
If several people visit the island together, you'll also hear the animals gossiping about your companions:
"So-and-so calls himself a half-hearted enjoyer, wouldn't this attract the attention of the entire island?"
Gifts you give to the animals will be displayed in their homes as decorations, and they'll wear the clothes you give them.
When they hear you're helping with island construction, they'll even send you gifts to show support. (Although I need iron ore for weight training, I'd rather donate it.)
Even small matters like changing clothes will be noticed; and you'll face sincere questions like: what kind of movies do you like?
Although they're just simple programmed interactions, they convey a rippling warmth.
Compared to games with complex plots and juicy character designs, Animal Crossing truly seems to have done very little. Even with hundreds of different animals, each character's basic design would fit on a single card. Yet those delicate feelings required such an enormous text volume to contain. Nintendo is actually using an almost piling-on approach to do something with a simple principle.
I often wonder why such a childish, clumsy design can evoke such an emotionally binding experience. In comparison, games like "The Last Guardian" take ten years to hone, using sophisticated complex AI, and we all know how difficult it is to prevent players from experiencing a character as just a program.
The answer may be that this isn't its true goal: even knowing those moments of being "seen" are just procedurally generated, they still sound heartwarming.
Sometimes, that little bit of good feeling we need about ourselves and others may truly be uncomplicated. Or perhaps only the uncomplicated can be pure and beautiful.
Cultivating a New Habit
Initially, perhaps because some animals looked strange, some players began spreading rumors that teasing them would cause them to leave the island. And after the internet thoroughly divided the animals into hierarchical tiers, various forms of population trafficking activities were already underway on online marketplaces.
Yes, this has actually happened, and as some have pointed out, Nintendo hasn't designed anything to prevent it. But setting aside real profit, just considering an ordinary player's experience: on the deserted island, being evil isn't fun; being friendly is much more enjoyable.
Compared to hitting animals on the head with a bug net, exchanging gifts and chatting about gossip is clearly more interesting.
As we all know, how boring would it be if someone was teased but didn't get angry?
—And in a Nintendo game, boredom is already the greatest punishment.
Yes, I think the Animal Crossing series teaches us the rules of interaction on deserted islands through such game settings.
And in developer interviews, series producer Katsuya Eguchi has said that he hopes players will take the interactions with animal neighbors as "practice" and "demonstrations," with the mindset that "it would be nice if such fun exchanges could happen both in-game and outside," creating opportunities for communication with family and friends around them or online.
Whether or not this demonstration manifests outside the game, we've more than once fallen in love with the ugly little animals on the deserted island.
Chi Cheng (TouchArcade) describes her process of trying to drive away a bird:
"I thought about it and sent a coprolite fossil. When sending it, I still felt a twinge of guilt—what wrong had the bird done? Nothing, just got a little closer to my daughter. However, after sending it, the bird still showed no reaction. A few days later, when I went to look, guess what? There was a complete piece of dung prominently displayed on his table!"
The result, unsurprisingly, was of course "I bowed my head before this kind of almost naive idiocy and Nintendo's unfortunate programming."
Coming back to the topic, what habits have we cultivated on the deserted island besides friendly interaction? Each player's interests are obviously different, but at a time when the internet popularly defines this game as demanding, we've actually learned the following:
- Only when not holding tools can you make wishes upon meteor showers;
- Even if neglected, flowers will naturally grow, but watering them brings more colors;
- Don't rush around running, or you'll even knock off flowers;
- There's no way to quickly farm items, there just isn't;
- Even so, the animals still remind you, "Slow down and enjoy life occasionally";
- And so on.
As for the significance of the time setting: a purchased game doesn't need daily retention; what it really wants to teach us is that beautiful things are worth waiting for.
Identity in the Game World
When feelings about oneself are established and defined through actions, this becomes a new identity.
So, on the foundation of constant mirroring and friendly mutual aid, you can also choose to paint your own colorful layers.
Some people want to reconstruct their own lives on the island, like musicians enthusiastically collecting guitars, or female players completing it as a dress-up game; others prefer to experience completely different lives, or express wishes unfulfilled in reality, like office workers realizing their unfinished middle-class dreams in the game.
Animal Crossing is essentially a playing house game; those items that can only decorate but have no practical use are destined to provide only imagination, but those answers about "who am I" are carved out in imagination.
I buy a record every day, mark every Saturday night on my calendar as K.K.'s concert, so I love K.K.'s music. I talk to my little sheep sister every day, give her gifts, and hang her poster in my room, so I'm a good friend. I fill my room with records and various instruments, so I'm a music enthusiast. I visit the museum alone, carefully looking at each exhibit, so I'm a museum lover.
This is also why fashion has such a heavy proportion in the game—it has always been an important means of shaping self-identity. The title system is the same. Although just simple combinations, it's enough to play with creatively.
All this is to satisfy one's own interests, but also a social identity presented to others.
House design is already a symbol of identity; the game initially used building houses and showing them to each other as the main gameplay, and as for the later-opened "island designer," it's more like turning the entire island into a derivative of the player's identity.
Many games have customization features, but Animal Crossing takes it to the extreme. From the initial random map, to Northern/Southern Hemisphere selection, helping animals choose tent building locations, every plant can be transplanted, every building can be configured, animals can change their clothing and catchphrases, clothes you send will fill their homes, they'll give you special nicknames... Time passes, years flow, tiny changes gather into rivers—this is an island thoroughly belonging to you.
It's not just the "SimCity" that players jokingly call it, but more represents a kind of life you yearn for. Building a bridge can tangibly improve travel efficiency, and living next to a particular animal also means increased frequency of interaction.
The life you're living itself is perhaps the highest level of identity, isn't it?
Discussing Transitional Objects from a Narrative Perspective
We know that the transitional object is a concept proposed by Winnicott, used to refer to "the infant's journey from subjective world to objective world," first appearing in children's play, and also the precursor indicator of artistic experience.
There have been some discussions about digital games and transitional objects, possibly unfolding around different themes, such as the connection between reality and virtual space brought by avatar characters and game operations, or players compensating for the availability of the virtual world through certain forms of fantasy.
Animal Crossing has all the characteristics of digital games and strengthens its aspect as a transitional object through various designs. For example, the much-discussed real time and social interaction enhance the sense of reality in the virtual world.
In this series, although we haven't discussed transitional objects in great detail, I hope the previous discussions have already explained this concept to some extent. For example, players can imagine and create to a certain extent according to their own wishes, and use this imagination to fill the distance between virtual and reality.
The previous article also mentioned that those items without practical functions provide a stage for imagination. This imagination can be very real, including not only the identity players construct in it, the behavioral habits formed, but even when players gather to talk about island life, to those who haven't experienced this game, it sounds like they're talking about real weather, mortgages, friends, home furnishings.
Today I want to discuss from another angle how player imagination gives meaning to game narratives.
One of the pleasures of Animal Crossing is befriending the animals. Certainly, this is partly because the scripts, though concise, can vividly portray each animal. Another aspect is that those mini-scenarios' subtle performances and randomly appearing unexpected events always leave much room for imagination.
The game doesn't have a so-called main storyline, and what kind of friendship players encounter depends entirely on fate. But if invested, players will definitely discover "stories" within.
Whether they favor certain animals, how they're moved by their special care, or the interactions between different animals. Although clearly just randomly arranged by programming, when narrated by players, they've already been imbued with a special meaning.
Just taking the example of animals expressing wishes to leave the island: if it's an animal you secretly love, a natural reaction would be to reflect on whether you've recently neglected them. In fact, the basis of the rumor that treating an animal harshly would cause them to leave is the belief that animals have feelings.
We've heard players tell their stories with the animals more than once: one evening, a player visited a little horse's home, lay on the horse's bed, and so the horse sat on a nearby chair and began reading a book.
Every event in this fragment is random, with seemingly no truth to speak of, but with the flickering lights, that evening suddenly bright and warm, the player seemed to read that the little horse understood her loneliness, was willing to tolerate her willfulness, and offered companionship.
This is actually a manifestation of a transitional object. If we recall some of Winnicott's descriptions of transitional objects:
"The infant imagines that they can control the object... unless changed by the infant, it must never change. ...It must make the infant feel warm, movable, or textured, or make them feel that these items are alive, are real. It doesn't come from our perspective, nor entirely from the infant's perspective. It doesn't come from within, nor is it an illusion."
At this point, when we recall Nintendo's "unfortunate programming," we suddenly feel it's a manifestation of wisdom and gentleness.
Almost Became Existentialist
Honestly, Animal Crossing is quite existentialist in popular legend. Whether it's the claim that mortgage repayment is unnecessary, or the enticing pitch of living however one pleases.
—But once you've been in the game for a while, you'll find something's not quite right.
Thus, many editorials accuse it of being merely a microcosm of early capitalist social development, or fundamentally a consumerist trap. When you increasingly understand why Tom Nook has ascended the pantheon of villains, you might deeply agree with these accusations.
Is that really the case?
If we truly reflect on island consumption, we'll find that truly important things can't be bought with money, and even the money you can spend is very limited.
—If not for this, online sellers probably wouldn't be so crazy, would they?
The truly important things can't be bought with money; invested time and emotion are perhaps more important.
Brilliantly colorful flowers need careful watering to grow; only by heartfelt interaction with the animals can you truly understand them and build friendships; too many buildings and events require waiting, even just randomly waiting for chance arrivals; even "advanced" players who spend much time meticulously crafting their islands might receive surprisingly delightful gifts from players logging in for the first time.
Honestly, isn't this the essence of the Animal Crossing series? If money were useful, what would be the point of social interaction? Not to mention, it has two currency systems itself.
In contrast, the money you can spend is actually very limited.
True, mortgage is a large sum, refurbishing the island also requires constant expenditure, and the game continuously introduces high-end items to prevent inflation issues. But think about it—if you truly achieved financial freedom, what could you buy on this small island? The store and tailor's shop only update a limited number of items and clothes daily, other buying and selling transactions must wait for merchants to visit the island, and even then, it ultimately returns to the limited randomness issue. As for those large-scale constructions, they all take time, don't they?
Indeed, Animal Crossing isn't an existentialist game, but it's not necessarily so linked to the evil consumerism either. The reason it's criticized this way is probably just that we want a utopia too much.
After landing on the island, K.K. tells us that from now on it's a free and easy life! In the end, we find ourselves sinking into the same comparison trap as in reality, isn't that very disappointing?
But there's a problem here, which is the difference between social network narratives and true narratives. In other words, that consumerist story appears more in social networks, unrelated to each individual's real life.
This is actually a phenomenon we frequently encounter now.
Social network narratives mostly blur focus, grasp commonalities and corresponding emotions, and dramatize extensively. We certainly don't rule out that some people really play Animal Crossing this way, but emphasizing only these ignores the fact that some people are happily living on poor, troubled islands.
In the end, we can't help but ask, is this a mechanism issue, or the boring problem of human nature? I think it's a mechanism that conforms to human nature. This is also why we say it almost became existentialist.
If it were completely existentialist, then this mechanism would be entirely absent. We've had games with higher degrees of freedom, but for a broad player base like Animal Crossing's, freedom might mean getting lost. A truly existentialist game might mean an existentialist crisis.
However, even if it only almost became existentialist, we already have some choices that make us happy, don't we?