Now whenever somebody says they started playing animal crossing I try to visit their town first before deciding what I should gift them bc if somebody's resident serv is still a tent, gifting anything bigger than like 10 ore or fruit feels like I'm violating the Prime Directive.

Like at first everything is new and there is so many things. But also you're limited to appreciating: clumps of weeks, a few fish and bugs, one fruit, and random items from diy and balloons.

Like at first you don't even know other fruit exists. So that when you encounter your second fruit you're blown away.

Same with the bugs.. At first you figure there is just the 3 main bugs, then you slowly notice the bugs are different at night, which teaches you to pay attention to the critterpedia. Also Blathers shows up as a reward for paying attention to bugs & fish.

You can't even go to the outer edges of your own island until a few days into the game. I think it's great that the game limits how far you can progress each day.

Like losing a few hundred thousand bells to me is something to laugh about, but I clearly recall just 2 weeks ago I woulda cried if I lost 30,000 bells or more.

Used to be I would be so excited to get a diy, and I would build it immediately, but now I don't even bother to check what I learned until I need it lmao

It's probably because I spent so much time over weeks appreciating tiny objects and their tiny details that I have such a strong happy association with animal crossing.

Like I'm still excited when furniture can be turned on and off, when instruments can be played, and when my townies wear small things I gifted to them.

Also every town has something cool and unique to offer as far as I've seen. Shopping for clothes and wallpapers at other people's islands has become the core part of play for me.

I've never been to an island's able sisters where I didn't want to buy anything.. I end up buying one of every color of something most of the time. Stuff I didn't even know existed!

Same with townies. Every town I see some townie I didn't know existed, or had only seen screenshots of. It lowkey feels like meeting a celebrity in the latter case.