This morning I woke up to find that the snow had melted in my Animal Crossing town, and I realised that Spring is just a week away. I pedalled away on my mini exercise bike, while eating breakfast and running my usual island errands – this has been my morning routine since March.

Luckily, the pandemic hasn’t really affected my day to day life – I can work from home quite easily and I never really went out all that much to begin with. I had only moved out into my own apartment at the beginning of the year, so I was pretty keen to spend more time at home once I’d settled in. 

But I’ve found that I’m a bit restless, I used to go for an hour walk after work each day, so I bought a little pedal exerciser and kind of just idle on it throughout my day for a few hours. This way, I can feel a little less guilty when I’m scrolling endlessly on my phone with a Let’s Play on in the background for hours at a time.

When Animal Crossing New Horizons came out earlier this year and Switch consoles were out of stock everywhere, I kind of hounded my boyfriend to buy it for his Switch so I could enjoy it vicariously. He was kind enough to let me set up a house on Comet Quay and dick around fishing until I got my own.

My console finally arrived one morning in early May, just before I was meant to sign on for work. The beauty of working from home has allowed me the joy of multitasking product setups while I sort out firmware updates. I was fairly strict on myself and only played for a few minutes that morning, but once lunch rolled around…all bets were off.

I’ve been playing it before work, during lunch and every weeknight, every day since I got it. My job actually got busier (thanks e-commerce), so I’ve ended up working longer on average. But I don’t have to wear a bra, and can have whatever dumb music or podcast in the background while I do so, so it really doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should.

Every morning, I set aside an hour to check in on Tulip Town while I pedal, drink one (or two) long blacks and eat an apple. It’s a bit of a ritual that has put me in a better mood to start the day, except that the Able Sisters aren’t open until I need to be online. 

When I first picked up ACNH, I was in a mad rush to catch up. I was already a month behind – everyone else was terraforming while I was plucking hundreds of weeds like a chump! But work was so busy that I could only schedule an hour or two a day to play, so I kept chipping away at my loan and trying to fill my museum. It was a nice way to keep my mind off of everything in the downtime I refused to give myself. 

So I might have lied, the pandemic did change my life. I was meant to be in court in late March, finally getting closure on years of child abuse after my trial had been postponed last year, due to my father having an aneurysm days before I was to appear. With just over a week until my trial in March, I got a call saying all trials were postponed due to lockdown and that I’d have to wait another year. I expected to take it about as well as I did last year – which was to go into a very self-destructive period of mixing valium and binge drinking, and then going to sleep watching Threads each night. Other than a slight anxiety attack and the overwhelming pressure of the universe telling me I will never get to move on with my life, so I took a day off work to decompress and do what usually makes me happy – think about playing video games for several hours until I’m too tired to actually play them.

I’ve spent a lot of my free time this year replaying the same games over and over because it forms a bit of a routine. When Resident Evil 3 came out while my Switch was on backorder, I played it well over a dozen times until I could unlock the infinite rocket launcher. I loved it, but the second ACNH finished downloading, I wanted out of the virus game and into the land of absolutely no stakes.

It hit me that what I really wanted from gaming this year was to play something that feels cosy. Animal Crossing has filled that need for me ever since I got it with my DS life for my eighteenth birthday. 

My island isn’t perfect (though it does have a five star rating), and even though I was comparing mine to some insanely customised ones on instagram – I feel more content with something that’s kind of bumbling and haphazard than organised down to the single custom tile. There’s no aesthetic there, no colour scheme or thought into where I really put anything. Sometimes I think of redoing it and my head starts to hurt.

Just as I was beginning to get a little burned out last week – nothing new to catch, not enough energy to redesign – something appeared on my Twitter feed, an adorable game called A Short Hike.

As a former wannabe game designer (but lifelong games design degree student debt haver), I’ve been terrible at keeping up with indie games. There’s so much that I’ve looked at and said ‘I’m gonna play this!’ and then forget about it entirely. But A Short Hike came along at the perfect time, so I jumped on the eShop right away.

I was immediately taken in by the atmosphere. It was bright and flowy. The dialogue felt natural, and the low-poly art style scratched a very specific nostalgia itch. Claire’s reactions to other characters and challenges felt pretty familiar, and the reluctance to climb a big mountain when she could be on her phone rang very familiar.

What I liked most, is that even though there was the clear goal of climbing Hawk Peak, you could easily get lost in exploring the beach or chatting to visitors on the way. 

Very early on, I picked up a stick and waved it around, hitting a beach ball. It made such a satisfying thwack that I hit it along the shore. Then I came across a kid wanting to play ‘beachstickball’ – exactly what I had been doing but with a volleyball net and unlocked a mini-game. I wondered if this was some emergent gameplay, or had been planned from the beginning.

While I enjoyed going at my own pace, I was very curious about reaching the top of Hawk Peak – so I headed over and found that my busywork hadn’t gone to waste and the golden feathers I’d received made the climb that much easier. When I eventually reached the top and found out why Claire was on the trip in the first place, it made me realise yet again there was no point in rushing – I could play at my own place and still have a great time.

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It’s certainly been a while, huh? I really haven’t felt like writing because I felt like I had nothing interesting to say. But rest assured, I’ll eventually get around to ranting about how great the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes are, because I’ve still got a lot of feelings to scream into a void about.

As thanks for making it this far, please enjoy this sweater I designed to commemorate how great a year it’s been.