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For example:īut how do designers twist work and grind into an experience that’s not just enjoyable, but helps to relieve anxiety? What are the parameters that ensure we experience joy and comfort from these repetitive actions, instead of the annoyance of a grind?Īnimal Crossing: New Horizons’ release and success is a great excuse to dive into the art of gentle progression, so let’s break down what makes this kind of design so effective.
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Just getting started in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? We’ve got you covered with a boatload of guides. It’s a good life lesson, as well as a way to calm yourself and others, and it’s all achieved through game design. I’d love it if we could stop referring to the work people put into the games designed this way as a “grind,” and start calling it a more accurate term: “gentle progression.” Games that feature gentle progression give us a sense of progress and achievability, teaching us that putting in a little work consistently while taking things one step at a time can give us some fantastic results. With just a few design twists, the work behind collecting hundreds or even thousands of items over weeks and months becomes an exercise of mindfulness, predictability, and agency that many players find soothing instead of annoying.
#Animal crossing dolphin sync clock series#
You could argue that the Pokémon series - one of the biggest franchises in gaming history - also focuses on the grind.
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Or at least, in certain games.Īnimal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the most successful games of the year, after only a few days of release, and it’s a game that focuses almost exclusively on grinding. People love to complain about grinding in games, until they decide that they love to grind in games.