Like books, movies, any other kind of media, it's interesting to reflect how video games — the subject of this week's show — can really feel right in one moment and totally turn you off in another.
"Animal Crossing: New Leaf" came out for the Nintendo 3DS in June 2013, the same month that my now-wife and I moved away from our home state of Wisconsin to Chicago. We both grew up near Madison, Wisconsin and it was a daunting challenge to learn the rhythms of a newer, bigger city — away from all our friends back home, but with new friends and family in the greater Chicago area — and nearly all of our time was consumed by setting up our new apartment, learning how to get around on the CTA, basically making a life in a totally new and unfamiliar place. I played the game for a while — mostly because it was a great way to stay in touch with a close friend back home — but ultimately burned out on the loop of a game that was also about moving to a new place, learning how everything worked, arranging a comfortable life, and thriving while living it well.
Flash forward to 2020, and a new Animal Crossing has the situation flipped in every possible sense. My close friend recently moved to Milwaukee, and the game has become a lifeline to staying connected with her in a way that is more than just occasional Zoom calls and beer-based care packages. We're about as settled back in Madison as you can possibly be — we bought a house here three years ago, and now we literally can't leave it barring exercise and grocery pickups. With limited possible engagement in our real-world community, the virtual community — one of animals working in a loosely-collective community bonded by an approximation of village debt in 18th century Japan — has been a welcome place to find comfort and routine. Sell the fruit, check the turnip prices, build out a new part of the town, repeat.
It's common to think of how we all have a "finite basket of worries" that we can possibly carry around with us every day, but I think we have an inverse — a necessary complexity to each day. Without jobs to commute to, lunches to pack, outfits to choose and conversations to have with people we run into along the way, our daily routines can feel formless and deprived. It won't be that way forever, but the fact that there's a game that can offer that sort of daily rhythm is a kind of virtual refuge that I haven't experienced before now.
What's giving your days form and routine these days? Let us know.
—Mark