Video Games, Art, Minimalism, and Where the Middle Ground Is - Part 6

Hello! I hope that you're enjoying my Video Games, Art, Minimalism, and Middle Ground series regarding Animal Crossing: New Leaf. If you care to see all previous posts, click below:

Part 1 - Interior Design
Part 2 - Patterns and Designs
Part 3 - More about Patterns and Designs
Part 4 - Introduction to Town Decor
Part 5 - Pattern Design in Town Decor
Part 6 - Gardening in Town Decor

Onwards!

***

I am so disappointed in myself. This blog is supposed to be quality, and I don't even have anything funny to show in the beginning. I mean, gawd. Can't have a totally serious post without the preface of some kind of hilarity . . .!

Wait a sec, have we seen this before? Are we time-traveling again?

LAST TIME, ON T.J. RAMBLES ABOUT ANIMAL CROSSING . . . we talked about Outpoint, and about pattern design's involvement in Town Decor. Today, we're going to focus more on the actual gardening involved in town decor, and in order to do that, we're slipping along to Bumbury.

No offense, Luna, but considering how freakin' bright out it is, I really doubt it's that "sleepy".

Okay, I gotta ramble a little bit about this town first. Bumbury is freaking cool. It's probably one of my favorite Dream Towns ever, and that's because it does everything so perfectly it's amazing. As you can already tell, the player does a lot of work with pattern design, and to a point where it's detailed and beautiful. It's super cool; they even show off their QR codes so you can nab them too. I actually mentioned the QR codes while I was making one of the parts - I think it's in Part 3 . . .

 Katya, never be a model.

Like I did in Outpoint last time, I opted to change out of the pyjamas and into a dress of my own design. Yes, yes, it's not that good; I was just fooling around that day. Behind me, there are THREE TYPES OF PERFECT FRUIT. Apples, cherries, oranges . . . that takes devotion, and a lot of very kind friends. Again, like I mentioned last time, perfect fruit is absolutely precious.

 Carnations, and-! What's up with that stump . . .?

Now, my town's carnations are beginning to bloom now that I've STOPPED TRAMPLING THEM . . . but I don't have many of them yet. However, Bumbury has a LOT of carnations. Not only that, but they took advantage of the silver axe; the regular axe breaks easily and chops trees rather plainly, but with a silver axe, it's not only more versatile, but also makes these patterns on stumps. Pretty sweet, huh? Yeah, this is why I brought up gardening here. You can even sit on them! (Yeah, I don't have a picture of that right now.)

Prince Ahlee, da dadah da, da-dada Babah . . .

So as is obvious, this reminds me of Aladdin . . . but again, this is the town hall, upgraded via a PWP. This is the fairy tale remodel, which looks pretty neat, in my opinion. Again, look at those designs littering the ground - a straight walkway to the beautiful castle.

Oh hey, it's Stonehenge! Yes, Jeanne would be PERFECT here, with her witchcraft and all . . . 

I love this bridge. I think it's a Zen Bridge, but I don't have the PWP for it.

I should point out, as well, something you can see in the above picture; see the stuff that looks like bamboo? Yeah, that's bamboo. It's rarer to find and get, but if you're into that Asian-y feel, then you can plant it all over. The only downside is that it tends to grow like CRAZY, aka out-of-control. You really have to pay attention to it. I ended up taking down all of mine; it was just too much of a hassle to deal with.

B-But golden roses . . .

Katya looks about as heartbroken as I feel, because she found GOLDEN. ROSES. These actually aren't hard to get; you just have to get black roses to wither and water them with the gold watering can. So it's not hard, but here's the problem: I have a beautiful town ordinance, meaning nothing wilts. EVER. And considering my devotion to keeping my town perfect . . . UGH.

So. Many. Golden. Roses . . .

Anyways, this is definitely a good way to see a player's devotion to the game. It's not difficult to set up some pathways and call it done, but seeing the effort to get all of the fruit, all of the angles, the roses . .. if you're going for a very aesthetically-pleasing town, this is definitely the way to go. That being said, that's not to discredit Outpoint, because Outpoint is SWEET. It's just got different priorities, that's all. I love them equally~

BLUE ROSES TOO?! OH, COME ON!

Once again, a testament to just how much work was put into this: BLUE. ROSES. I mean, these technically aren't a thing in the real world, but you can breed them in AC. Problem is that it's SO HARD. I am groaning from over here . . .

Oh hey, it's my twin!

So I was feeling really down about the roses thing, and then I found my twin! No idea what this character's name is (you can find the player characters walking around, just saying their standard catchphrase), but hey, I thought she looked a lot like Katya. Gotta be weird for Katya, though, 'cause she has a brother . . .

Hey, look, it's Jamie Hyneman! ...I apologize to Jamie Hyneman...

While I was wandering around, I ran into Wendell. In past games, Wendell would beg you for food and give you a  custom design in return, UNLESS you gave him something special, setting off a treasure-hunt-esque adventure to getting other sorts of cool items. In New Leaf, though, he just journeys around the dream world and gives out "copies" he's made of the designs in town. That means you can get dresses or other patterns designed by the player characters in town. This is an optional thing, though; if you upload your own dream town, you can decide if you want your designs viewable or not. Anyways, I decided to take Wendell up on his offer and nabbed a sweet dress on my way out.

Hey, I think I look pretty cute in this, don't I? 

Darn, look at that tree!

One last thing I should mention before I leave: see this tree? As mayor, you plant it your first day in town. It grows over time, either with playing time or time in-game. It's sort of a visual representation of how long your town has been around and building. Obviously, Bumbury has much more time on my own town, but y'know.

The Dream address for Bumbury. Go check it out! Do it now!

So that's all there is to Bumbury, leaving out some of the other details for the sake of, y'know, going and seeing it yourself. And that's actually it for the Town Decor talk, which is sort of our last topic for Animal Crossing and art. This, of course, leads to the question we've been pondering this whole time, and why I've been dragging you through town and dream.

Can we consider these towns to be artwork?

Let's look at the evidence:

• There's an obvious appeal to aesthetics, even if you just consider the floral evidence. I mean, flowers grow in your town without your even needing to try. So the game is clearly designed to make your town look pretty, and that's a pretty important part of art, at least to some extent.
• It's very customizable (yes, I know that's not a word). That has a lot to do with PWPs, meaning that you can make your town however you want. Basically, it's going to look different from everybody else's unless you TRY to make it look like somebody else's.
• Town Decor allows interaction, especially with your ability to garden how you like and the potential to interact with your PWPs. You can even lay down your own paths! You have as much control over how your town looks as you want, and you can make it look absolutely amazing - and THEN share it with the rest of the world.

Right now, I think the evidence is very clearly pointing towards the answer. BUT. There's one more thing I want to talk about, and one more thing I want to show you. I've had these posts arranged for a long time; they will be the final parts to this conversation. They've been waiting in the wings for a while; it's time to reveal them.

Next time: I'm dragging you down with me into Aika Village . . .