Talking points – Animal Crossing
You don’t have to play to discuss the games with your kids, but they may not share with you the vast knowledge they’ve learned in game without some well positioned questions. Here some ideas:
1. Find anything fun for your house today?
Collecting and finding objects in Animal Crossing is a fun component of the game. You can purchase items from the store, be given them as gifts, or find them. You can find all sorts things – spaceships, musical instruments,
2. Which dinosuar bones have you found? Did you donate them to the museum?
Find a fossil, mail it off to be checked out, and donate your new found bones to the museum! The museum accepts art, fish, bugs, and bones. Go in game and check out your kid’s contributions to the museum.
3. Have you tried planting anything? Is it true that if you plant a bag of “bells’ (monetary units of the game), it may grow into a money tree?
You can plant trees that bear fruit, and yes, if you plant a bag of ‘bells’ it may just grow into a money tree.
4. You don’t have any cockroaches in the house, do you??
If you don’t play for a while, you’ll find bugs in the house. Ew! More time out of game, and more roaches. Just gross, but you can stomp them and take care of it quickly enough.
5. Did you get a chance to design any clothes? Or an umbrella?
By far my daughter’s single most well loved part of the game. Using a clever litebright/magnadoodle like interface you can create your own designs. Put them on display in the shop and you might see them on other critters in town. She LOVED creating a design that her in game friends wore!
It’s a rich game with fantastic hidden wonders….well worth spending 15 minutes of exploring with your little gamer. You’ll be astonished at how much they know!
