Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Can a Game Take Care of Us?(Replay)

Can a game take care of us? And do we want it to? Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released on March 20, 2020—just as a pandemic kept many from family, work, restaurants, and the rest of their regularly scheduled lives. At its height, the game averaged one million copies sold per day, as players sought comfort, escape, and a virtual means of connection. In this book, game scholar Noah Wardrip-Fruin, isolated with his family by both lockdown and disability, explores the power of this game and the mixed emotions of a player and a parent trying to make it from one day to the next—while his kids’ obsession with Animal Crossing creates conflicts between them and pushback against family rules.   Wardrip-Fruin helps both Animal Crossing fans and newcomers understand the unexpected beneath the game’s surface: like the story of the first Animal Crossing, codesigned by an absent father seeking connection; like the hallmarks of video game manipulation, from “streak” bonuses to game-determined playtimes; like the appeal of endless shopping, in a kind of “safe” capitalism; and, of course, like the character quirks of a raccoon dog, Tom Nook, who provides a world of both safety and strange paternalism.   For many, this blockbuster game offered a comforting world compared to a reality of danger. In this first entry in the Replay series, Wardrip-Fruin offers an absorbing investigation of a game’s role in contemporary social life and a book that belongs on the shelf of anyone who loves or is puzzled by this Nintendo sensation.

Table of Contents:
Preface: I Hated Animal Crossing Part 1: Journal of the Game Year 1. COVID Crossings 2. Narrow Horizons 3. Life Before Progress 4. How We Can Know 5. Selves and Shelves 6. The Meaning of Life Part 2: Paternal Play 7. Mediated Fatherhood 8. Making Progress 9. Compelled to Play 10. The Crossing Contract 11. Outside the System 12. Flying Away Afterword Author’s Note Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Noah Wardrip-Fruin is professor of computational media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he codirects the Expressive Intelligence Studio. His books include The New Media Reader and How Pac-Man Eats.

Review :
“A book that gets to the heart of what play, progression, and fun mean. Within the context of a single game in a singular time, Wardrip-Fruin shows us the two-way nature of a game’s world: just as we can enter it, it can enter ours. The book is a pleasure to read as a game designer, a parent, and a gamer.” “In Wardrip-Fruin’s hands, Animal Crossing: New Horizons becomes a fascinating lens on how games simulate ecosystems of community and mutual care—including how complicated those things become with economics intersecting. It’s also a unique memoir of the early COVID-19 pandemic, where mass isolation and the loss of communal spaces saw ACNH become a crucial ‘third space’ for millions. This book adeptly captures a crucial time and place for game design in history.” Wardrip-Fruin has a great eye for identifying undercurrents in games and digital media. . . . As [he] reminds us, games are rarely just games. They’re usually games about something, they bring the real world into the game.” “A significant contribution to game studies and game design.”