I ♥ ANIMAL CROSSING

I first played Animal Crossing when I was nine years old because I was gifted Animal Crossing City Folk for Christmas of 2008 (unbeknownst to me, it had only just been released a month earlier).

I played it off and on, and in general didn't fully "get" it. I didn't know what was scripted, and what was unique to my own experience. I had some fun, but it was nothing next to what would come next.

Cut to E3 of 2011. It was the first year I'd ever watched E3 presentations live. During it,Animal Crossing was announced to have a game coming out for the 3DS... and the trailer sparked something in me.

I bought a 3DS right after, for the expressed purpose of having one when this Animal Crossing game released (this also meant I bought one directly before the price cut.)

The wait for what we now know as Animal Crossing New Leaf was arduous for me because of how excited (and young.. so time felt like it passed slower) I was, which was only exaggerated by the game being released November of 2012 in Japan, while North America got it months later in June of 2013. When the game did release however, I threw a release party with my friends, and continued to play the game daily.

NOW cut to September of 2018. Animal Crossing New Leaf had been out for five years, and after Isabelle was announced to appear in Smash Brothers Ultimate, a new Animal Crossing game was announced for the Switch, but no gameplay of this new game was shown.

But I was STOKED.

I had nightmares where the game would release, only for it to be bad. And it only got worse after Nintendo hosted a Direct in February of 2019, only for Animal Crossing to not be shown.

This is all a long winded way to say, E3 season of 2019, I was bursting at the seams to see Animal Crossing for the Switch for the first time, and I channeled that energy into making this piece.

The apples on the trees are an ode to my first Animal Crossing town (my City Folk town) having apples as the native fruit.

Shep is my favorite villager, so it only made sense for me to have him appear, and Isabelle is Isabelle, so y'know, she had to be there too (though, the way she appears is in reference to the boxart for Population Growing).

And speaking of Population Growing, in the wait for New Horizons, I'd bought a copy of Population Growing to retroactively play, and became endeared to quirks like having a gyroid at your door, or having your house at an angle, so I included those here as well (though the gyroid is a Tootoid as opposed to Lloid, because Tootoids are my favorite of the original gyroids).

Finally the roses on the ground are a tribute to the way I decorated my New Leaf town, and the player character is how I wanted my Animal Crossing character to look, which ended up being feasible even in specificities like the wings, which appeared as an item in New Horizons.