Tweet thread by Tiffany Pitts:

https://twitter.com/snickerpants/status/1256755201207201792?s=21

The whole thread; read it. (h/t Tom Mullen)

Ashley Fetters, writing for The Atlantic, with a quote from Nicole Ellison of School of Information at the University of Michigan:

The runaway success of the online Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing also speaks to the appeal of unfamiliar virtual spaces. In Animal Crossing, players can interact with other online players rather than just the characters created by the game, and players who are friends in the physical world can link up in the game and host one another virtually on their “islands.” Crucially, in spaces like this, the norms and communication patterns of face-to-face interaction don’t exist. “We’re not necessarily expecting [a setting like Animal Crossing] to be the real world, and maybe that’s partly why it works,” Ellison said. She added that she wouldn’t be surprised if virtual-reality experiences also become more popular for much the same reason: They can offer people the ability to roam around and interact in unstructured ways, but with just enough novelty to avoid unfavorable comparisons with face-to-face interactions.

The most appealing multiplayer experiences I’ve had have been those that skirt normal real-life situations for something novel or limited.

Animal Crossing’s success stems from its low barrier to entry, simple obstacles, and limitless opportunity. Quite simply, it’s a sandbox. The hook is personalizing and collecting; both of which, by their very nature, are greatly enhanced by social interaction. And for a digital world, there’s no easier social interaction than digital socialization — i.e. social networks.

Social networks are asynchronous; not every post requires the attention of all, nor are posts layered on top of one another vying for attention; and they don’t require speaking, listening, or being bound to a location. Social networks are as individual as they are communal. For a game that’s being experienced in real-time in both hemispheres in every time zone, there’s an endless amount of creativity, exploration, and fun to be shared wherever and whenever you are.

Other novel multiplayer experiences I’ve had include puzzle solving The Witness and chirping in Journey.

An excerpt from Jeff Tweedy’s excellent memoir:

I would feel guilty. I’d sit in group sessions and listen to other patients talk about their lives, and what they’d endured was beyond anything I could imagine. They came from homes where they never felt safe; being physically and emotionally abused was just a day-to-day reality. Food was scarce, hope was scarcer, and it was a toss-up whether there was more danger outside or inside. One guy told us about seeing his father murder his mother when he was nine and that he had his first taste of alcohol that night because his father forced him to drink whiskey, thinking it would make him forget what he’d seen. Hearing a story like that made me ashamed of how little I had had to survive and how much pain I’d derived from so much less actual trauma. What was I gonna say when the group got to me? “Um … I cry a lot. I get scared sometimes. I have headaches, and it makes it hard to make music.” That was the worst of it. I was out of my league.

One time, after a group session, a few of us were in the smoking room and I confided to them, “I feel like I shouldn’t even open my mouth. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I think my situation compares.”

This big black guy, who towered over me, turned around and started shouting at me. “What the fuck is that shit? Shut the fuck up! We all suffer the same, motherfucker!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away. “I didn’t mean—”

“Listen to me, motherfucker, listen.” Getting right up in my face. “Mine ain’t about yours. And yours ain’t about mine. We all suffer the same. You don’t get to decide what hurts you. You just hurt. Let me say my shit, and you say your shit, and I’ll be there for you. Okay?”

It set me straight. I still think it’s one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard. I was trying to put things in perspective by pretending I had no perspective, by denying my own feelings. It’s always going to be important to acknowledge someone else’s pain, but denying your own pain doesn’t do that. It just makes their pain relative to yours, like a yardstick to measure against. It’s a waste of pain. After that I started listening more and I started feeling again.

This knocked me back. Wow.

Andy Robinson, reporting for Video Games Chronicle:

Multiple sources have told VGC that the platform holder is planning to hold an event to coincide with this year’s anniversary, which marks 35 years since the start of the mainline Super Mario series in 1985.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, Nintendo will reveal plans to re-release most of Super Mario’s 35-year back catalogue this year, remastered for Nintendo Switch, VGC was told.

As VGC’s network partner Eurogamer reported in a follow-up to our story, these remasters will include 1997’s Super Mario 64, 2002’s Super Mario Sunshine and 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy.

Nintendo will also release several other Mario titles in 2020, including a new instalment in the Paper Mario series and a Deluxe version of 2013’s Super Mario 3D World.

Speaking of childhood comforts.

Amanda Hess, writing for The New York Times:

Myst Time is the opposite of News Time, Twitter Time and Doom Googling Coronavirus Projections Time. The immersive beauty of Myst feels particularly suited to a quarantine: At a time when I can’t go anywhere, it makes me feel far away, surrounded by lapping waves and opulent rugs and actual mist.

But sheltering in place has also activated a strong nostalgic urge. In this, I don’t think I’m alone. Last week, my colleague Astead Herndon imagined being quarantined with old Windows computer games like Minesweeper and 3D Pinball Space Cadet; I recently caught my husband playing a reconstruction of The Oregon Trail on a browser. (“You died of dysentery,” he told me.)

When I saw Herndon’s tweet, I immediately searched for iPhone versions of early ’90s point-and-click adventure games like Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, The 7th Guest and Myst — and commenced my reversion. The demand for isolation has knocked me out of my adult life and sent me into a state weirdly reminiscent of childhood, which is the last time I was confined to my bedroom, my free will constrained by a higher authority. I used to play Myst hunched over my family’s hulking PC, home-office doors closed to the rest of my family, and now I play it with my phone in my face, mind blinkered to the rest of the world.

Hess is definitely not alone in this. I am now re-examining my media choices since quarantine began.

When quarantine was imminent, I fought the urge to find a functioning CRT television and Nintendo 64 before lockdown. Since, I’ve been reading Jeff Tweedy’s memoir which reads like a long lost journal of my own childhood, at least before Tweedy’s and my musical careers deviated — he has one, I don’t. We’ve been spinning a lot of ’80s records in the house. (As I write these words, we are listening to Apple Music’s ”80s Soft Rock Essentials” playlist.) We watched Back to the Future last night. And like every other Switch owner, my wife and I are escaping to Starrbucks, our Animal Crossing island — serenaded by sloshing waves and an acoustic guitar loop that somehow never overstays its welcome. (Friend code SW-2603-2234-0921. Come visit. Bring oranges.)

I have extremely fond memories of Myst — experiencing it with both step-father at home and my father 350 miles away. (I touched on this in my review of The Witness and a post about a rumored Myst television series.) I’ve jumped into it once or twice on iOS. It is nice to tap into those old memories. And the mystique of Myst (no pun intended) is one that I’m always chasing. (Queue yearning for LOST, BioShock, Annihilation, The Room iOS games, etc.)

What I could really go for is an iOS port of the 1992 remake of Sierra’s Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero and a macOS port of Sierra’s Johnny Castaway screensaver.