I've been playing a lot of Animal Crossing New Horizons lately. I think back when I started playing (2020), there was a lot of hype around maximizing efficiency to create the best town (timetraveling, etc). While this isn't a bad thing by any means, but I've subconsciously applied the belief that I must proceed with the game as fast as possible, which is the exact opposite of how ACNH is intended to be played. ACNH is a slow game. There is no dialogue skipping, you can only make one bridge/incline change a day, you must wait 2-3 days for a resident to move out. These days I'm trying to reverse this mindset and sloww the fuck dooown.
After all, the slow pacing, the little things, are what make the game so good in the first place. Actions like writing letters to friends, talking to the townsfolk, and collecting 1 new K. K. Slider vinyl every week are... basically useless game progression wise, but we still do them, no? Not everything as a use, not everything NEEDS a use. The game is a reminder of that.
But, that's not even what I'm here to write about. Nearest to the present, I've been making a conscious effort to build my island in a way that feels logical and lived in. For example, the interior of my house's basement if full of haphazardly placed random crap harvested straight out of storage. I made this choice because assuming my character in-game needs to keep all this stuff somewhere, so wouldn't it be interesting if I made the clutter a fundamental characteristic of my house? I've been trying to flesh out the little information I know about the characters in the game; putting objects as if the characters themselves had placed them there. Uhh maybe I just reinvented storytelling haha.
In Animal Crossing, this ability to make somewhere that is fictional feel like it has history is a little difficult, but in other games this can literally just come naturally. I think Minecraft is a prime example. Especially with friends. You can make a world together that is, to the average passerby, ugly as hell, but yourself and your friends can look back at it fondly. What you build or destroy is not actually what holds meaning, it's the memories you've made that are forever captured in the game. Maybe that's why there's such a high demand for a return to physical media. The desire to have something you can grasp. Something tangible that represents a part of you that will, as long as the physical item remains, be a symbol of your existence on this Earth. Yes, your belongings, they echo your holler: "I was here!".
Maybe I'm looking too deep into it.