Game Review: Animal Crossing New Horizons (Pt. 1)

VO: Get ready for your semi-regular dose of random ideas from the guys at Codelation. We like to talk about big ideas companies that are winning, and those that aren't along with current events in our crazy world of software startups. So come along with Erick and Josh, who challenge you to think big, start small and turn your ideas into something on this episode of, from idea to done.

Josh: I'm Josh.

Erick: and I'm Erick. And this week's idea is social distancing tactics. And so I think I like many people have had a lot more time to play video games right now. And I just bought a game. That's been very popular forever that I've never played the franchise before. And it's animal crossing for the Nintendo switch.

Josh: I don't know what animal crossing is. And I had to look up what Nintendo switch was before we shot this podcast. I might just need to duck out of this one.

Erick: So Josh is out and that absolutely makes sense cause he has never played any of this. So I brought in our, from our team, Maddy, who's the resident expert on animal crossing. And so I bought, I bought animal crossing from Replay Games, which is a small business in town and they, you can rent by the hour to play all of these classic and current video games, but they're still able to order new stuff. So we ordered these through this and I've never played one before. Maddy, can you give me a brief overview of this game before I jump in?

Maddy: Okay. So the new one right here, see that that's animal crossings, new horizons for the switch. It's the first one on the switch. Um, so basically you land on a deserted island in this one and you get to like start it from the ground up. Basically. You're like the ma almost like the manager of the, the island and you keep making improvements to a town. Like instead of everyone living in tents, now we're in houses and you get a shop and you put the shop and um, you have to collect a lot of things. So it's like kind of like a collect-a-thon, chill, chill time, cute animals, make friends,

Erick: You can make friends. I miss that. I think that this lovesick reconnection with me making friends and it's kind of weird cause it's like, if you were on a desert island, what would you do? And so that's kind of interesting. I mean, just based on your brief description, it kind of sounds a little like Minecraft, is it kind of comparable to anything else you've ever played before?

Maddy: Um, yeah, it's kind similar to games like yeah, like Minecraft or Stardew valley or if you've ever played harvest moon kind of in the same vein. And this one is the first in the series that has involved crafting. So that's another way that it's similar to Minecraft now is that you can collect the resources from the island and you have to grab weeds and sticks and then stones and make your tools and you gotta make your way up in the world.

Erick: Like if you fell on any of that. And so that's kinda how I'm interested to play this. And these have been kind of popular big from my DS when I worked at toys R us when it was new. And I read somewhere that animal crossing is it's kind of one of the turning points in the gaming industry. And it was the first game that kind of got girls into gaming and you're kind of part of that stat. So that's my weird, like I remember when animal crossing is the reason, like it turned from boys just playing video games to everyone and like that's equal rights. Um, see how what's your overall grade for animal crossing right now?

Maddy: So right now, if I were doing like a five star, I would probably give it like a 3.5 or a four. They keep on adding new things. So like there's a patch coming up with some updates and the updates are all free. So that's pretty cool that they're going to be adding more things probably throughout this year, into next year, just to freshen it up a little bit. So that's why I'm there's room for improvement and they might improve those things.

Erick: Okay. I, I absolutely respect your opinion, but I should probably just do this and great at myself. So do you have any final thoughts on animal crossing?

Maddy: Um, final thoughts. I really enjoy it. And if anyone wants to be my friend on animal crossings, I will give you fruit and we can be friends.

Erick: I have no idea what that means, but we're going to be friends soon cause I'm going to crack open my title. And so, yeah. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Thanks Maddy, for jumping in for Josh and yeah. If you know a startup that could use our random advice and thoughts, how to subscribe and leave a review on iTunes.