Animal Crossing: Engaging and Fun Gameplay

Abby Cruz
Oct 30
3 min read

Animal Crossing is a highly successful and popularized Nintendo franchise. In this cozy game, the player moves to a deserted island along with other animal villagers and works to transform it into a nice town for the whole community. Resources are able to be gathered around the island, where the player is able to collect wood, shovel fossils, fish, etc. There is no main end goal for this game; rather, it is designed for people to enjoy the experience of playing and serves as a relaxing game to engage with during their spare time.

Community Building

The objective that players are handed from the start is to turn the island into a great community that the player and the villagers enjoy. This responsibility placed on the player creates a sense of leadership belonging to them and makes them more inclined to dedicate themselves to creating a flourishing island.

Along with creating a thriving community, the game highly encourages players to interact with the villagers to the fullest. The player may engage in conversation with the villagers, or the villagers may approach the players themselves. Each villager has their own unique personalities, which help to produce a diverse and dynamic social environment. The villagers that the player may have more of a connection with may encourage players to remember certain things that the villagers have talked to them about. This can be their likes and dislikes, as well as gifting items to them to have them reside on the island for as long as possible. It promotes the building of relationships that the player can have with the villagers and overall builds an intertwined and healthy community on the island.

Creative Expression

Creative expression is extremely involved in the gameplay of Animal Crossing. Players can decorate their homes and all over the island, as well as craft different items from recipes that they discover. They have free rein in doing whatever they would like to do on the island. There is no rush in what people do when playing, so they can take as much time as they like on specific tasks they wish to pursue or do activities, all without a time limit. This allows players to act more freely with what they do with the island due to no restrictions on time, and players can do things at their own pace.

There is also an option found in the player’s NookPhone called “Custom Designs,” where, just as the name suggests, any custom design can be created by the player. It can be designed for the interior of the player’s house, decorating outdoor space on the island, making outfits, and many more unique ideas. This lets players express themselves freely through their own design choices, which they may want to implement when no options are available in the game. Players may borrow the designs of other players if the original designer has opened it up for others to implement in their own islands. It encourages them to share their creativity with others around them through creations they have designed.

Custom Design made by a player named “cailey”

Interconnectedness

While playing, people are able to visit other people’s islands and interact with each other either locally or internationally. They can chat and message each other through speech bubbles that pop up above their character. Even if players may encounter a language barrier between each other, they can also use the Reactions, which are similar to emoticons, to express themselves and communicate with gestures instead. It gives people on different continents a chance to interact with each other without physically being there in person. This game helps people from different cultures and different parts of the world to play something that they can enjoy without any barriers to stop them, and encourages social interaction with other players.