My year in Aliahan

Saturday, December 16, 2006 » gaming thought

It was one year and a day ago that I moved into Aliahan, my Animal Crossing: Wild World town. If I had known at the time that it was going to be such a long-term and enduring game, I would have better documented things like game progress, but also impressions about playing style, the community, my perception of Aliahan's virtual world, etc., because it's all been very fascinating (at least to me).

For instance, in the beginning I'd play several hours a day while trying to discover what there was to do in the town. The game had that same feeling of being overwhelmed, just like logging into a new MMORPG for the first time. Eventually I realized that the game was best played in smaller but regular sessions. I currently only play for maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day, which is enough to do my gardening and talk with any special visitors. I remember reading an interview where one of the game's producers said one of his goals was to make a game people could keep coming back to day after day, so I'd say he was 100% successful. I actually haven't missed a day for an entire year.

Of course, there have been a few lulls where I've thought about putting it away. The game does introduce new bugs and fish to be caught every month along with seasonal events, but the basic daily activities get repetetive after a while. So, I started thinking more about longer-term goals, like creating a hybrid flower garden. That turned out to be a good plan; although I'm no longer excited to see what the store has on sale every day (since I've bought most of the items), it's still fun to walk around town and look for new, rare flowers that have sprung up. My remaining goals at this point are to find the last two paintings for the museum, and stow away 100 million bells (Aliahan's currency) in the bank to get the associated reward. (There's also a 1 billion bell prize, but considering how long it's taken to get this far, I don't think I'll be up for that one.)

So, the conclusion of Animal Crossing on the DS has gotten me thinking about the upcoming Wii version. I have a few ideas of what I they could do with it to make it even better than ACWW, including fixes to problems with the DS version, as well as steps to make it just as accessible and easy to return to, despite no longer being on a portable. I'll share those a bit later.