This weekend has proved finally to me too the addictive powers of Animal Crossing by Nintendo. Discussing with cute (or irritating, depending on your view) little animals in a colourful little town that you learn to know and which learns to know you, decidedly carries much charm. In terms of addiction creating qualities, AC:
- is easily accessible, yet immediately rewarding
- provides a form of personalised content and characters which you form personal relationships with
- is endless in offering new upgrades or extensions into your house, clothing, fashion designs, insect & fossil collections and so on.
This last part got me thinking about the similarities of this game with so-called real life. You all have seen how people spend their free times acquiring, fixing and maintaining their houses, cars, clothes and other belongings, while their working days are providing money to get more of those things. AC is one of those games that nicely captures the endless and addictive character of our lives as consumers: running around in our little errands, trying to get the new parasol with the design of this summer’s fashion. There is something deeply rewarding and even instinctual in all this; maybe some kind of echo from our hunter-gatherer days?
Btw – Nikon has been promising a late April release of an upgrade for D70, as well as an entry level digital SLR (D50?) So, I might wait until May to see the situation before getting my new system.
Tried to shoot some extra-close details shots of earth, sand etc. today, but Ixus and its optics just cannot handle so close macro work. Particularly the auto-focus did not work at that range. Well, here are some Easter-time pictures instead: the first spring potatoes and the first spring beers in a (freezing!) terrace by our merry hyperlab group.
frans goes blog 