BogusMeatFactory
Member
Welcome To Renga
Overview
I had this strong desire to revisit the old Animal Crossing games and experience them in a very different way. I love to take old games and apply modern technology to change the way we see them and, hopefully, allow us to be able to use the full range of features and mechanics in an easy way. Using the dolphin emulator, three friends and myself are playing Animal Crossing a little differently. With myself living in the midwest of the United States, two friends living on the East Coast and one living in Australia, it isn't easy for us all to connect on a regular basis, so I devised a way for us to connect in a very unorthodox way. I pitched the idea of us playing the original Animal Crossing together, with each of us getting the save data to play for one week before passing it on to the next person. This way, we prevent any burnout, let the game have a more natural progression and also allow us to experience the original game with all of the features fully fleshed out.
So many people play Animal Crossing as a solitary experience and yet, the game offered the ability for 4 people to play together in asynchronous play. Villagers would talk about the other players to you, letters would be shared and the world felt even more fleshed out when you had full residency in that little central plaza. Add to it, we are highly encouraging other friends who aren't able to play on our game to make towns of their own so that we can visit them and continue to get the full breadth of the game's features in order to really emphasize this sense of community and belonging.
What's in a Name?
So we set off to make our town, but we were hit with the first big hurdle. What do we call the name? Some names were thrown out like Hotdog (who doesn't want to live in Hotdog Town?), Renato, Gala, Esher and Renga and we put it up to a vote. We decided to go with Renga, which is a style of Japanese poetry were individuals write a series of stanzas before handing it off to another to continue. The concept fit perfectly with our intentions and it was almost unanimous! We had our name, we had our philosophy and now we needed to set up some rules.
The Rules
The rules were fairly simple
- No hate speech, bigotry or inappropriate content. We are keeping it strictly PG. This means no crass letters, inappropriate designs for flags and clothing and no inappropriate catch phrases for the villagers.
- Do not be unnecessarily destructive. Accidentally destroying a flower here and there is no big deal, but don't go chopping every tree or intentionally destroying anyone's projects. We are all here to have fun and it doesn't help to be counterintuitive to everyone's ability to enjoy the game.
- Try to use the features to their fullest. This means go out and make some shirt designs, write in your journal, write letters to players and villagers alike. A lot of times folks fixate on hoarding bells as quick as possible, but what we are trying to do is let the game go at a natural pace and not force anything.
- No Time Traveling. This ties back in to the last rule. We don't want to force things into being. Let things happen naturally and time travel can really muck the game up ESPECIALLY when it involves other players in the same town.
- Look out for your fellow villagers. If someone is looking to complete a furniture set and you see a much needed piece for them, grab it for them if you can. Finding stuff in Animal Crossing can be very tough some times so it helps to keep an eye out for each other.
- Do not hog the content. It can be easy to binge the game, but with the original Animal Crossing, villagers only have so many jobs they need done and it can take a long time for new activities to pop up. The same can be said for Museum donations. We don't want one person to hog all the fun, so try your best not to binge everything at the expense of other people's fun. (The exception is fossils. If you've got one the museum doesn't have, donate it. Getting those all in can be a grind!)
- The player who has the game for the last day of the month is responsible for raffle tickets for the rest of the players. Everyone should have their tickets in their gyroid or out available for the redeemer to turn in for prizes.
- Be careful when travelling to other towns. If we get an invite to another village, be sure to come prepared. Every visit results in one of our villagers moving out, so be sure to limit yourself to a single trip so make sure you bring everything you need.
The Town Itself
Being the creator of the idea, I had the honor of going first. It was exciting to see what sort of town we got and overall, I was super surprised by our layout. It was easy to get to the places of interest with the river being very straightforward. There aren't a lot of nooks and crannys to lost in and a lot of open space to work with on projects. Our native fruit is the peach and I forgot just how endearing all the characters are. They really had strong personalities and stood out amongst each other in great ways. Copper and Booker, Phyllis and Pelly, Sable and Mable.... they all embody such different personalities and it really feels great to interact with them.
The Villagers
Here was my initial breakdown of the villagers we had at the start of our town.
- Bob the Cat - The very first villager created, Bob is a purple cat with a flower shirt. He's the resident stoner and we love his laidback attitude.
- Mitzy the Cat - Lives directly next to Bob and while I am pretty indifferent to Mitzy, the idea of her living next door to Bob made her a bit more endearing to me. They were besties.
- Cookie the Dog - The sweetest dog on the planet and don't you dare talk bad about Cookie! Seriously though, she was a sweetheart who we loved dearly!
- Lobo The Wolf - Art thief extraordinaire. Lobo the wolf is a cool dude. He got the reputation for being an art thief because he gave me a pop quiz early on and acted a bit cagey when handing off my prize, which was a perfect painting! I donated it to the museum and it seems the cops have lost the trail. Lobo is cool.
- Boots the Alligator - Never met Boots before so it was a treat to see a new face. He does the head-down-eyes-up thing which I think is very silly. He is the sporty type but his energy is off the charts on a whole other level! Was super welcoming from the get go and even made me the coach of his swim team. Boots and I are best friends in this one.
- Friga the Penguin - She sniffs her own farts. I do not like her one bit. I dislike her so much that I wouldn't even want another town to have her because I wouldn't wish her on anyone!
- Rowan the Tiger- Our tropical island resident. He is a latin lover and exuding way too much cool. Love being able to use the GBA link features in the game on dolphin so I have spent a lot of time already with Rowan, helping him dig up treasures and fish.
My First Week
My first week was a rollercoaster of emotions.
- Day 1 began with Tom Nook holding his end of the month raffle, which I didn't know about so I couldn't purchase any tools whatsoever. Shook trees, talked to the villagers and did odd jobs for them. Got a pear and an orange right out of the gate which was amazingly good luck! Planted those in a C-1 in the tiny nook there. Let everyone know as well so they didn't get chopped down.
- Day 2 Tom Nook sold only a single shovel, but it happened to be April Fool's Day so I got to hear everyone's little pranks and jokes. It is funny that every single character has something, even folks like Booker and Phyllis. Got my copy of Super Tortimer and.... man I really wish we could play that game hahaha! What I loved most about the holiday was that they wrote the characters to not all be good at pranking. I loved when Booker tried to play a prank about his weight loss and it fell flat so hard that he felt embarrassed. That sort of stuff adds some real personality to the world. Not everyone is the most charismatic and perfect and it makes it feel really special!
- Day 3 Tom Nook sold an axe.... and a shovel. Three days into my week and I only have a shovel. I have the worst luck! Copper tells me Katrina is coming to the town soon and I am dreading that moment. I have never had a good fortune from her in my entire time playing the series! I trip a lot in my life. I put a call out though to some folks on my social media to see if anyone had a town save I could visit and suprisingly someone did! A good friend of mine who lives in Japan had a north american save from a town they started with their friends in 2021.
I was so stoked to visit Bevin 67, which was a serendipitous event because I am a huge fan of the Massively Multiplayer Online Adventure Game, Myst Online URU Live, the Myst MMO (yes that is a thing that exists) and Bevin was the name for community neighborhoods players would get placed in to at character creation. It was in fact a reference to one of those and was where the group met up when they played that together. It made me so excited! Got me some cherries, mailed lots of letters and sent lots of gifts and I cleaned up their town for them completely. I also got a fishing rod from their store... YES!!!!!! They hadn't played in 3 years, so there were a lot of weeds! Sadly, Mitzi and Cookie moved there, but we got Maple the bear in exchange! - Day 4 Tom Nook is selling an axe... and a shovel. Glad I got my fishing pole somewhere else! Katrina is here as well as a new villager, Astrid the Kangaroo. She had major David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust vibes and I looooooved it! She was too cool for school though! Katrina gave me my fortune and it was surprisingly not the worst luck. I don't know if it was her or not, but I caught nine red snappers in a row and two barred knifejaw. In the end of my fishing trips, I netted over 200,000 bells incredibly fast. My luck was off the charts. It came at a cost though. All the lady villagers stalked me. Astrid, the too cool for school kangaroo was following me everywhere and trying to make me jealous by talking about her boyfriend and being very desperate. Even Friga was trying to get too cozy. It was terrifying! Luckily, the spell wore off within the hour and the went back to their normal weird selves.
- Day 5 Tom Nook closed for remodeling, but we got another kangaroo named Marcy. She seems nice and nothing at all like Astrid. Very cozy!
- Day 6 Tom Nook's store is finally open and WE GOT A NET! A miracle! It also was the cherry blossom festival and it was so nice to see all the villagers hanging out at the fountain feasting on food, dancing and having a great time. At this point, I've already paid off two house loans and got my basement, so I've started to hoard my stuff instead of selling it. My basement is full of stuff. Storage was a nightmare in this game!
- Day 7 last day of my week before I had to go say goodbye. It was time for me to lay plans for the next player. I put a few things up on the community board to set the stage for some fun stories in the future. I communicated my little head canon for the villagers on the board, talking about Astrid being a stalker and to please respect my space signed "You Know Who." I also put up a haiku competition for all the players from the, "Haiku Master" and I'll be giving out a reward to each player for their Haikus when I see them next.
The other one was a scavanger hunt from, "The Animal Man," who spoke in riddles and seemed a bit unhinged. I buried a boot behind Tom Nook's store. You can see the hole, but only at juuuuuust the right angle. He is going to be a recurring character for when I get to play. Before I left, I made sure to write in my journal and talk about my feelings about this journey. It is a really exciting idea for me, but also a little anxiety inducing. I've never really played Animal Crossing in this way where I had so little control over what happens, but I know my ability to embrace the chaos of it all will surely lead to some fun stories!
Before I left, I said hi to our new villager, Tangy, the Orange-headed Cat and got my song from K.K. Slider. I listened to Aloha K.K. and said goodbye to Renga before I uploaded my save.
Initial Thoughts
Animal Crossing Gamecube is so drastically different than the later games in the series. Villagers had such a broad range of emotions ranging from enthusiastic and welcoming to outright hostile. Some took time to open up and be accepting of me, while others shared their constant distaste for me. Regardless, it is so refreshing to have everyone feel so different, even if they shared a similar personality type and some of the same dialog. I loved the little things like how the post office works and how animals would respond to the things you would write to them about. When I thanked Lobo for his painting and how I delivered it safely to the museum, he reacted to that in a way that felt genuine. He talked about how great the museum is for the preservation of things.
Fishing is a lot more challenging than in any other entry to the game and I actually embraced it. It required focus. I spent so long fishing almost on auto-pilot relying solely on sound to catch things and now, I needed to be completely engaged with the process.
I can not wait to see what people do with the game and I hope we see the town evolve in fun and exciting ways! Fingers crossed
Final Stats
Population: 8 - 2 Cats (Bob, Tangy), 2 Kangaroos (Astrid, Marcy), 1 Penguin (Friga), 1 Alligator (Boots), 1 Bear (Maple), 1 Wolf (Lobo)
Fruit: Peaches, Pears, Cherries, Oranges
Items Donated to the Museum: 8 - 2 Paintings, 3 Fish, 3 Fossils
House Upgrades: 2 - First floor expansion and Basement.
I hope you all enjoyed. More to come!