Islands Apart: Exploring Animal Crossing
Take your seat on Dodo Airlines and come visit the islands of some of our creative friends in this special Nook-friendly City Guide.
Nintendo’s charming social simulation game for its Switch console Animal Crossing: New Horizons has offered perhaps the most globally successful respite during our current period of isolation. While the franchise has been around since 2001, having originally debuted on the Nintendo 64, its ethos of spending time with people you care about—the game’s original inspiration according to game-co-creator Katsuya Eguchi—resonates more now than ever.
Each player is able to customize their own island with an emphasis on inviting and visiting the islands of friends and family who also play. As such, the game offers a chance to take a quick on-screen vacation, which we’ve decided to do with some of our creative friends. From appreciating a pixelated iteration of artist Chris Burden’s Urban Light installation with curator/creative director Evan Garza, to enjoying legitimate pop-up experiences with musician/photographer and @animalcrossingfashionarchive founder Kara Chung, to betting pink slips on photographer/publisher Vanessa Granda’s Tokyo Drift streets, we’ve got you covered for your next digital trip.
Animal Crossing gameplay is sort of like maintaining a bonsai: you can grow it and edit it into any composition you like, and the next day a little more will appear that you can trim back.
Evan Garza
It's a happy game, and anything that makes you feel good and creative should be viral.
Vanessa Granda
Interview: Alexander Lendrum
Images courtesy of: Kara Chung, Evan Garza, Vanessa Granda