Why I Love: Holding Ceremonies [Animal Crossing: New Horizons]
‘Why I Love’ is a series of lessons I’ve learned from my favorite game mechanics.
I wanted to skip my university’s commencement. I probably would have if my parents weren’t going. I couldn’t help but think that the whole process was completely unnecessary. Sitting outside, in the sun for 3 hours for your name to be said aloud wasn’t really how I wanted to spend my Saturday. No, back then, if New Horizons had come out then, I would have taken the opening ceremony for Blathers’ museum over my own graduation any day of the week.
Ceremonies in New Horizons aren’t exactly monumental occasions, but they do a serve a purpose. For any building to open, the player must put in work. The museum, for instance, requires the player to donate a certain amount of items before it will open. Once the ceremony is held, all the islanders gather to hear a speech from Tom Nook. Most importantly, the speech congratulates the player for their hard work and celebrates the opening of the facility. This is, after all, what ceremonies are for.
Think back to your last ceremony. Mine was my university’s commencement. I remember sitting in lawn chairs with my friends, waiting for our turn to go up on stage. I also remember other things like sitting in the lab late at night finishing homework, calculating just what percent I needed on my final to pass the class, and failing some classes I couldn’t get right. I still get those nightmares where I’ve forgotten to do an important homework assignment. I’d wake up feeling like it was for real. But then I’d remember my graduation ceremony and remember that, yes, I did in fact finish school already. The ceremony brought attention and confirmation for past effort much in the same way they do in Animal Crossing.
Some ceremonies, however, aren’t as obvious as others. Certain tasks, like picking a spot for a bridge, make the avatar do a little dance and cheer instead. These “micro-monies” are much more prevalent: a simple and obvious one like obtaining key items in Zelda; or a subtle and complex one like carving the monster at the end of a hunt in Monster Hunter. A ceremony’s act of calling attention to itself heightens the player’s attention and confirms that what they’re doing is correct.
Lesson: Ceremony brings attention, confirms action, and, most importantly, adds weight.
How does the player know that opening the museum in New Horizons is a big deal? The game shows them via the ceremony. How does the player remember that there’s a museum now? They can remember the ceremony. More like the highest form of feedback, ceremonies bestow weight on past effort — the more extravagant the ceremony, the more weight is placed on that effort. A graduation ceremony isn’t just to celebrate a graduation. It’s there to show how important an education really is.
