Animal Crossing is in These Lists
In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Animal Crossing in the following lists:
Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games, is a podcast that offers a candid conversation with game creators that dives deep into the art, craft, and process of making games. It's an amazing insight into the mind of people who understand and highlight how game/play mechanics can do unexpected, magical and surprising things.
This is the list of games they have picked as their Game of the Year 2018-2021. These awards also include board games, escape rooms and game-like TV series. We have included video games here, where we have them on the database. (And in many cases have added video games to the database after listening to the show.)
It's hosted by:
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Nick Suttner, an independent game writer/designer/consultant, who has worked on games like Celeste, Bloodroots, and Carto.
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Andy Nealen, a game creator and scholar, artist and music maker, architect and structural engineer, and professor of cinematic arts and computer science at USC.
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Sarah Elmaleh, actor, consultant and event organizer with a passion for collaborative creation - both as a seasoned performer and as an advocate for best practices in the games industry.
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Zach Gage, who makes deep games that are easy to get into, like Really Bad Chess and SpellTower.
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Douglas Wilson, who is a co-owner of Die Gute Fabrik, a games studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has worked on Johann Sebastian Joust, Sportsfriends, and Mutazione.
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Laura E. Hall, is an an artist, writer, puzzle-maker, immersive environment and narrative designer focusing on the playful intersections of arts, culture, and technology, especially in gaming.
The team is usually joined by Laura E. Hall for the game of the year episodes. She is an artist, writer, puzzle-maker, immersive environment and narrative designer who focuses on the playful intersections of arts, culture, and technology, especially in gaming.
Some forms of play are timeless. Running around with a stick pretending to be in the army. Chasing each other in games of tag. And, of course, hide and seek. The games in this list offer digital ways to play hide and seek with a variety of different twists.
Hide In A Crowd: There are games like
Spy Party,
Thief Town,
Hidden in Plain Sight and
Buissons, that let you play as a range of characters and then challenge another player to find you amongst a computer-controlled crowd, from what way you move and interact. The
Fruit game in
Game & Wario on Wii U has the same mechanics, with one person trying to steal fruit without the other players working out who they are.
Wii Party offers hiding in its Spot the Sneak mode where one player has a secret advantage in the mini-games that the other players have to spot. Another great example is
Wii U Party,
Lost and Found Square mode. One player stands in a crowd of identical people and uses the Wii U gamepad to look around and describe their location to other players, who use the TV to explore and find them. At the end, you see a map of where the players had run.
Prop Hunt: There are games with "Prop Hunt" modes where you can change into the items in the world to hide.
Fortnite has a great Prop Hunt mode, as does
Minecraft. Then there are games like
Witch It designed around this idea of transforming into normal items and hiding in a game world.
Separate Screens: There games like Mario Chase and Luigi's Ghosthouse in
Nintendoland, or
Pac-Man Vs where one person has their own screen while the others team up to hunt for them use the main TV screen. Or games you play online where everyone has their own screen and try to hide from a particular character like in
Secret Neighbor.
Screencheat is a twist on this, where you share the same screen and try to shoot each other, but your characters are invisible.
Hidden Objects: Or there are hidden object games where the computer hides things that you have to find, like
Hidden Folks and
Hidden Through Time. There's a hidden object mode in
Super Mario Odyssey where you hunt online player's hidden balloons. A twist on this is
Here Kitty where one person hides a phone that then makes cat noises until the seeker has found it.
Open World Hiding: You can use pretty much any open-world game to make your own hiding fun. You can hide in
Minecraft (having turned nameplates off), sneak around on public transport in
or simply count to 10 while visitors hide in
Animal Crossing New Horizons.
You can aid the happiness of your brain by taking on activities that generate key experiences and chemicals:
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Dopamine for motivation, learning and pleasure.
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Oxytocin for trust and building relationships.
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Serotonin for significance and importance.
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Endorphins for euphoria and elation.
Without serotonin you can feel unstable and find your mood changing rapidly. It's a chemical that helps us with routines where we accept ourselves and find calm. With low serotonin it is hard to feel confident in who we are. This can mean that we worry more and find it harder to learn and remember things.
Along with getting outside for exercise, eating well and nurturing conversations, video games can also help. Games that generate serotonin are those that give to regular simple activities you can complete each day. Games that help build routine are helpful. We may not play these games for long, but they help structure other things around them. Fitness games also complement this, particularly those games that give us a reason to get outside.
These games offer ways to consciously step outside the day's stresses and pressures to create space for self-care. This may be to distract yourself with calming unpressured tasks or to visit a world that is tranquil and relaxing or maybe just spend time reflecting on your emotions in a safe space.
Fidget spinners burst into the hands of children a number of years ago. While that initial trend subsided, the interest and enjoyment of tactile objects to fiddle with are very much with us.
Fidget toys are like the yo-yo or Rubik's cube but without the focus on skill. The enjoyment comes from doing something that isn't learning or achieving anything. It's no surprise that there are a number of video games that have picked up on this style of play.
Some games, like
The Longing,
Animal Crossing and
Adopt Me, simple slow down the need to progress, so all you do is check-in, fiddle around with the game world and then leave. Then there are other games, like
Townscaper and
Pok Pok Playroom, that let you craft your own structures but with none of the usual video game emphasis on score and winning. Other games, like
Everything and
Proteus, offer a huge world to poke and prod without getting embroiled with progression.
Even games that do offer a strong sense of story and development often include post-game play or side-quest distractions that are simply there for you to spend time fiddling with rather than winning or losing. Games like
A Short Hike,
Alba A Wildlife Adventure or even
No Man's Sky.
The
Besties is a podcast about video games with a focus on a Game of Year format. Although episodes do cover new games like other podcasts, much of the content builds towards yearly Game of the Year shows, and head-to-head showdowns for best games in a series (
Zelda,
Grand Theft Auto and so on).
"It's Game of the Year meets King of the Hill as four of Earth's best friends – Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Chris Plante, and Russ Frushtick – rank and review their favorite video games. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?"
This is a list of the games that they have picked for their final game of the year show from 2014 to 2021. In some cases we didn't have the game on the database, but generally this is a good representation of their picks over the time of the show.
In this series, we are learning how different aspects of video games work by playing games that offer an easy introduction to this one concept. This is designed for people new to gaming, and aims to identify games with the least barriers. In this entry we are looking at big budget games.
These games are big, brash and popular. They have big budgets which means the visual and interactive quality is particularly high. They also have strong and wide ranging player communities.
For new players these can be overwhelming as they combine a number of genres like
Strategy games,
Shooting games,
Adventure games,
Role Play games. Still, they are a good way to see how these different elements combine in a large and ambitious experience.
Each year, journalist Simon Parkin picks the top games for New Yorker magazine. Along with a look back on the major events in video games, these offer a window on the games that stood out for innovation, novel interactions as well as perfect execution.
This includes games from the following years:
2021,
2020,
2019,
2018,
2017,
2016,
2015,
2014,
2013.
Online games are often about immediate communication either spoken or typed in the heat of battle or survival. There are some online games that encourage communication much more like writing a letter to someone.
These games offer players the chance to write a note and then place it in the game world for others to discover. They can also, of course, also read messages and notes from other players.
With a little guidance it can be a lovely way to introduce children to the skill of letter writing, as well as engaging with other players online without the usual bad language (although that can happen here too).
Games like
Subnautica, offer the ability to leave time capsules for others, that include a handful items, a short text message and a screenshot. Similarly, games like,
Dark Souls and
Demons Souls enable you to leave messages for other players to help them with tips. In
Nier Automata you find the bodies of other fallen players that have a customized message left on them when they met their end.
Other games weave the letters and messages into the gameplay.
Kind Words, for example, is a game all about responding to letters that other people have sent.
The Things We Lost In The Flood, builds its play around the ability to send and find messages in bottles. In
Animal Crossing New Horizons on the 3DS you can also put messages in bottles for other players to find.
Although you can play many multiplayer Switch games on the same system. There are some that let you play with or against other players in the same room but on separate devices.
If you have more than one Switch device in your family these are a great way to play together. Or maybe you have relatives visiting for special occasions who can bring their Switch consoles with them. These games are a great way to play.
You each need a copy of the game on the system, and then use the console's local wireless feature to connect directly to the other devices. This means you don't need an internet connection and you don't need Nintendo Online.
Cottagecore is an online term celebrating an idealised rural life. Although games are usually considered to be hard, harsh and technological, many of them play to this aesthetic that is sentimental about traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking, and pottery.
Games sometimes use these rural pursuits as play mechanics, like
Stardew Valley,
Potion Craft,
Terraria and Fantasy Life. Others use Cottagecore as a guide to how they look and feel, like
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture,
The Stillness of the Wind and
Mutazione.
However it plays out in the game, Cottagecore aims to satisfy a desire for aspirational nostalgia and an escape from stress or trauma. The New York Times described it as a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding. The Guardian called it a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors."
These games emphasize simplicity and the slow pace of pastoral life as an escape from the modern world in favour of the bucolic. Unsurprisingly this has become more popular on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some ways the resurgence of retro games could be seen in a similar light, although here the sentimental nostalgia is for virtual entertainment rather than rural lifestyle.
Whether it’s a simple puzzle grid, a battlefield or a universe of planets to visit, all games create virtual spaces in which to play. Some of these are simply the background to a campaign - the game’s unfolding drama, missions or challenge. But others invite you to invest in the worlds they create, move in, tend to and inhabit in fantastical ways.
The games in this section invite you to spend time in spaces that have a sense of place, life and character. Worlds that hold history and lore in their landscapes, flora, fauna and inhabitants; environments that respond to your presence and invite you to restore them to their former glory.