Living the Dream, the comparison we had to make

We all remember spending multiple weeks caught in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons spell because there wasn’t much else to do during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. That game intentionally plays itself out across several real-time days, giving players reasons to return to their island every day of the week (with ease of play helped by its portability on Nintendo Switch). Although it was enthralling at first, I got burnt out on New Horizons quickly. After not playing for a few weeks, I returned to an island with missing residents, a lot of landscaping to be done, and substantial amounts of lost currency in the stalk market. I never really wanted to play Animal Crossing again after that.

That daily structure, which once made the game so captivating, quickly became a daunting obstacle to returning. I felt like I lost too much after I stopped playing, and that the game was demanding too much from me daily once I tried to come back. No update for the game in the six years since could do enough to draw me back in, not even the reset feature added earlier this year. Initially, I was worried Nintendo’s latest sandbox life-sim game, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, also available on Nintendo Switch, would repeat the same mistakes. After just a couple of days with the game, though, I suspect I’ll be playing Tomodachi Life for a lot longer.

Nintendo’s latest will feel familiar to Animal Crossing players. You’re micromanaging an island of residents who constantly interact with each other, and there’s a lot of depth to how much players can customize their island. The in-game clock runs in real time, and different shops and events are accessible to players depending on the time of day. But whereas Animal Crossing makes my Villager feel like a participant in that sandbox, Tomodachi Life lets me become the island’s overseer.

You can design almost every resident, item, and building in Tomodachi Life, and most of the fun comes from watching how everyone interacts. Whereas completing my daily tasks in Animal Crossing felt like a slog after a while, Tomodachi Life has yet to replicate that anxiety. I already feel content after booting up the game for five minutes and watching a couple of interactions between Miis.

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

If playing Animal Crossing is like watching a lengthy video essay on YouTube every day, then playing Tomodachi Life is more like entertaining myself with a few funny TikToks instead. The latter is bound to feel much less exhausting over time than the former, even if it’s not quite as substantive. I don’t believe one of these games is better designed than the other, but Tomodachi Life’s structure is better suited to how I play life-sim sandbox games.

I’m sure there will come a day when I have to stop playing Tomodachi Life for a while, whether that’s because I’m finalizing my thesis for my master’s degree or because I have so many other games to experience. While those kinds of distractions and burnout were a death sentence for my enjoyment of the latest Animal Crossing, I don’t think they will be for Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.