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so i unlocked terraforming last week in animal crossing and i can't stop thinking about it? like, geologically??
i think, for me, a lot of the fantasy of animal crossing comes from time - not my personal spent time in game hours (of which there are plenty don't get me wrong) but the idea that time is passing with or without me
the magic of animal crossing is that the world is persistent and lived without me in it. it existed before i got there and, for me and the vast majority of players, it'll continue to 'exist' after i stop going - if i come back, life will have moved on
i really like being a small but noticed part of a real place that continues even when your attention isn't on it - that's the dream, right? you move to a town, you become a neighbor among many neighbors
some of the quality of life improvements of ACNH (and every animal crossing game tbh) come at the cost of that feeling - you're given more agency, and a title and role in local governance that sets you apart, even as you have more room to play with the structure of the world
ACNH steps it all up with terraforming, which of course lets you raze your whole island and start from scratch if you'd like. total control about how the earth itself is shaped, total agency over the landscape
i get the design choice, and despite some clunky controls it is not unfun- digging trenches or making waterfalls spring from cliffs- its boingy and satisfying and granular in ways i can get into
but as i started to mess with it, i realized it was breaking the fantasy of time for me- not the month of time since the game came out, but that the island i was on actually ~exists~ in time, like was made from a geologic process and now i'm here on it, much later
being able to smush it all down and start over removes the illusion of the geological before-me time? i wanna be a blip in animal crossing just like i'm a blip in this big world. i guess that is important to my fantasy
so instead i've been thinking about the little procedurally generated layout i was given at the start of the game (which has these big impassable rivers that got me stuck on the lower right section of the map for the entire first week aha)
i've been looking at this thing - the closest thing to geological pressure that animal crossing can provide, which is the generation algorithm - and thinking about if i could make it, like, more itself? split the difference between ornamentation and the metal of the coded world?
i've been really thinking about what this generated map would look like, zoomed in and focused on - given more detail and care. here is what i've come up with, so far :
i want a barrier island and a swamp and these little rivulets that fall down the mountain and form a big river that widens to a delta. its important to me ! it turns out
the game is really set up for squares - the assumption, maybe, that terraforming is for bringing order and a street grid to a chaotic and wild place. it is hard to get a round edge on a patch of land! it goes to minecraft if you're not very careful
but i want more chaos and filigree - i want canyon narrows, and alpine meadows that are a trek to get to and i want them to be full of flowers that are busy living without me looking at them
and i want it all to feel like it was there long before me and that it'll go on, slowly shifting, after i leave. that's the fantasy of animal crossing for me
