Cute Chronicles – Taking it Easy

Su-per cutesy happy fun game and craft time!

When faced with a looming deadline marking the end of your academic career, the only thing to do is look towards sources of escapism.

Basically, I have an MA dissertation due in September, and there are very few things keeping me sane at the moment. One of them is knitting. Another is catching up on my favourite shows. A more recent one is playing Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City, an old favourite.

Animal Crossing is a cute little game, and if you think about it, not actually a lot happens in it. You escape from your world of chores, jobs and making money to go to another virtual world of chores, jobs and making money. Almost as bad as playing Grand Theft Auto and obeying all traffic laws. You decide to make a new life in a new town populated by animals… A fresh start, if you will. There’s something so soothing about Animal Crossing. Harvesting fruit, decorating your house, fishing… Ahh, relaxing.

My little village is called Rabbitry. Like all Animal Crossing villages, it has a river that runs through it, a mixture of high and low ground, a beach, lots of fruit trees and various amenities. There’s also a bus to the city where you can change hairstyle, watch a show (and get emotion animations for your character) and get ripped off at a ’boutique’ where everything is over 100,000 bells for the sake of designer fashion.

Animal Crossing encourages you to do things at your own pace. Village life is idyllic and trouble-free. You can make money to pay off your ‘mortgage’, or you can leave it be for a while. There’s no rush, but when you do pay it off you get a bigger house to decorate. It’s a really lovely, relaxing way of passing the time. Call me silly all you like, but I actually really enjoy Animal Crossing fishing and bug-catching – it’s summer and there are bugs everywhere that can be sold for money or donated to the museum’s collection. And while you’re at the museum, you can grab a cup of coffee but you need to know the barista Brewster a little better before he gives you his special blend. Ahem.

It’s really chilling me out at the moment. I was trying to unwind by playing Rage, a recent cheap purchase but somehow, playing Fallout’s shallower sister and trying to kill mutants isn’t really that fun or relaxing. I can always rely on the Wii to give me something clean and pure sweet fun, without any hassle of achievements or gore or notifications. Virtual village life is where it’s at. Plus, K.K. Slider plays gigs once a week!