Mental Eelness

I do not expect this post to get a lot of attention lmao. I love a lot of new horizons and i have been playing since day 1 of the game. But i have issues you see. Every time i play this game i get burnt out VERY fast, and i don't know why. I try to relax, not min/max the game, just chill and vibe and not overdo it. So how am I getting burnt out??? I think i know why :

The game is too tedious but not enough reward for that tedium, not only that but its TOO random so there is no use in effort

let me explain. 1- you want to decorate your island for the fall season. 2- it takes forever to GET fall materials because its all RANDOM and you can ONLY get this shit from balloons and villagers. you have to roll a dice if you get the item you want. 3- once you finally get enough materials to decorate your island, it takes FOREVER to terraform everything, get stuff placed to look good, etc. 4- whoops! its winter now time to rip everything up and start over!

there is nothing ENGAGING about collecting the entire collection of furniture in this game. Either i get to waste my time sitting around hoping the DIY recipes appear-ify itself into existence like its Homestuck act 3, Or Nookazon which isn't a part of the game.

"but Kat! " you may yell for some reason "its animal crossing! you are supposed to chill! " with all due respect nonbinary strawman i came up with on the fly, what IS there to do in new horizons other than decorate ? The villagers don't appreciate your decorations or sit in chairs, their dialogue is horribly repetitive, and all the interactions you have with them are just copied over from new leaf. the core game play loop of new horizons is get on, do chores, collect materials and decorate. there is nothing wrong with that, but the problem lies with the fact that you have no way to influence the items you pick up, and its tedious to ACTUALLY decorate. Its not relaxing its a chore. this brings me to my second problem:

The game mistakes tedium for challenge.

- Total lack of atmospheric perspective (things don't fade into the distance)

- Very realistic shading but no or only very faint shadows cast by ambient light.

- Limited interaction between objects and environment (shadows, ripples etc)

- Flat textures and consistent lighting used for backgrounds that would usually show a lot of variation in lighting, colour and texture

- Bodies apparently modelled piece by piece rather than drawn from life, and in a very stiff way so that the bodies show the pose but don't communicate the body language that would usually go with it. They look like dolls.

- Odd composition that cuts off parts that would usually be considered important (like the person's head in the snowy driving scene)

- Very precise drawing of structures and perspective combined with all the simplistic elements I've already listed. In other words, details in the "wrong" places.

What's fascinating about this is that in early or bad CGI, these things come from the fact that the machine is modelling very precisely the shapes and perspectives and colours, but missing out on some parts that are difficult to render (shadows, atmospheric perspective) and being completely unable to pose bodies in such a way as to convey emotion or body language.

my impression is that colville did see the world as an unsettling place and a lot of his work was fueled by this general ~malaise?? but in a lot of cases, he was trying to express particular fears or traumas. for instance, this painting (horse and train) was apparently inspired by a really tragic experience his wife had:

Violet Behavior

Watercolor On Black Paper

2023, 9"x 12"

Ideal World Blue   -  Stefan Kürten , 1988.

German, b.1963-