Animal Crossing is a series that gives players the freedom to live their own tiny, adorable life, at their own pace. We all find our own ways to do that.
Perhaps you’re a dedicated fisher and bug catcher, insisting on completing the museum‘s collection of critters as quickly as possible. Maybe you’re just in it to mess with the neighbors, teaching them questionable catchphrases and ensnaring them with those pesky Pitfall Traps.
As for me, I’ve never been concerned with getting a five star score in my Island Evaluation in the cozy game masterpiece that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I've let flowers spawn absolutely everywhere on the surface of my island, in fact, and I have zero remorse for it.
There’s one feature of the series that I’ve always taken absolutely seriously, though: The art of interior design.
My reasoning is, I’m giving Tom Nook more Bells than Mike Oldfield (of “Tubular Bells” fame) ever dreamed of having to expand my home. It’s only right that I make the best possible use of all that space.
For me, there probably isn’t a greater pleasure in gaming than securing a full set of themed furniture, customising it to my liking, and then painstakingly arranging it in a room. Adding in as many complementary pieces as possible and adjusting angles and lighting isn’t exactly thrilling gameplay, but I’ve spent hours doing just that.
It was for people just like me that Nintendo saw fit to release Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer in 2015. In this 3DS spin-off, the player character is a Nook’s Homes employee, and the goal is to design a home according to their clients’ preferences.
The franchise’s hundreds of different villagers each have their own tastes, as shown in their homes in the mainline games. In Happy Home Designer, you’re given a limited prompt or theme – a 30th anniversary party for Mario, for instance – and then get to work.
You’ll select a plot of land, a design for the building itself, limited decor outside, and of course, the interior design.
Other than a couple of pre-supplied objects, you have free rein. I didn’t feel there was very much substance to it all, as there’s no scoring system and the villagers ultimately approve of whatever you do.
Feng Shui And Everything
Really, it’s one of those experiences that you get as much out of as you put into. Kind of like the seemingly inexhaustible Minecraft, except instead of building elaborate blocky cityscapes, you’ll combine the full Kiddie series with every toy item in existence to make the perfect playroom. Well, I did, anyway.
That’s always been my approach to the Animal Crossing series. I never quite thought I was playing it ‘right,’ because the Sims-esque part of the experience was mostly lost on me. I have my favorite villagers like everyone else (Sherb my beloved), but I don’t really log in every day to read their dialogue.
I have several lazy villagers, and as much as I can support their personal mantras of “sleep, eat, and … that’s all,” it gets a little tiresome to read the same things from them all.
I enjoy the games for their chill vibes and enjoyable customization aspects (I was indecently thrilled when I finally found the Mermaid Roof to complete my garish house design in New Leaf), and New Horizons was a source of great comfort for millions when it launched. Still, it’s all about tweaking and designing the rooms of my house for me. I’ve done everything, from horror themes to a wedding-themed room based on absolutely everything from Wedding Season in New Horizons.
As such, I was delighted when Happy Home Designer launched. It seemed that it was made just for me, but I’m relatively confident that it sold more than just the one copy.
After all, it warranted a sort-of sequel in the shape of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Paradise, the sizable 2021 expansion for New Horizons. An expansion on the idea, it instead has the player working for Paradise Planning, the better to suit the game’s island theme.
With Happy Home Paradise, the suite of design options was greatly expanded. Rooms can be made larger or smaller, the likes of pillars and partitions can be used to further vary layouts, and the famous sparkly polish from the trailer can also be applied to objects.
Unlocking sets of items to use as you complete more vacation homes is a pain, because it means that your first ones were created with a strictly limited selection. Still, you can go back to edit, and you’d better believe that I did. And still do.
Typically, spin-offs of series I enjoy don’t do much for me. I’m a big Pokemon fan, for instance, but you won’t find me sinking much time into the likes of Pokemon Dash.
These two Happy Home escapades, though, trimmed away everything I find a little too much like busywork about Animal Crossing. What was left was an experience that solely consisted of my favorite part of the series, and that’s not something you see very often.
So, yes. It took a spin-off to make me truly appreciate the beauty of Animal Crossing. Lots of gamers of late were engaging in high octane gunplay in the Battlefield 6 beta (as the enormous group that gathered to gain access to it made clear), but I’d rather while away a couple of hours making a space station-themed living room for a chicken named Benedict.
