Reason not the need, but one of the first things I did when I was properly falling in love with Animal Crossing: New Horizons involved building my own version of the Very Large Array on a far corner of my island. The VLA is a telescope array in New Mexico. I’ve been fond of it for a long time and for a number of reasons. It’s in Contact, and Contact is a good film! And my uncle lives in New Mexico, so I have a sort of familial association. Not that he gives a fig about radio telescopes.
Anyway, one day I was paging through one of the catalogues in Animal Crossing and I realised I could buy a radar dish of some kind. I ended up buying a bunch of them and I set them up at a suitably distant point. Some nights, even now, when I am feeling more than typically emo I wander over to stand by them and imagine what they’re studying deep in the vast expanse of the Animal Crossing universe.
Sometimes, because I am a massive loser, I take a few screenshots. Sometimes, I even pull out the in-game camera and snap away on that. Last night, though, I did something I’ve never done before. I pressed the selfie button – it may not be called that. Instead of pressing + to take a picture, I pressed – and discovered I could now appear in the picture. And I have to tell you – it’s changed a surprising amount for me.
Context: I was worried that when I completed the art gallery I was going to play the game less and less. This game has been a companion to me for almost as long as I’ve had a Switch, or so it feels. And there has definitely been a tailing off of use. Without the art gallery to complete – I care not for the other galleries in the museum – I haven’t had a ritual to pin a daily island trip on. Besides a coffee with Brewster, that is, and it turns out that a coffee with Brewster is something I can handle on a weekly basis.