Last night, I was bumbling around on Animal Crossing, as usual. Just doing a little night-time fishing, you know the drill. The clock strikes midnight. Well, actually, the clock played the NBC chimes at midnight, because I am a twat.
Immediately, I see something glowing in the distance. Hang on, what’s going on? I grab my net, and swing.
Oh. That’s weird, I’ve never seen them before.1 And suddenly, they’re everywhere. From no fireflies, to being surrounded by them.
A light goes off in my head. Let’s check Critterpedia…
Sure enough, you can only catch them in June. And because we’re now past midnight, and technically it’s June 1st, that immediately means they spring up out of nowhere, ready to catch.
Which I think is… not a great way to go about things.
I mean, look. I’m not a complete imbecile. I get how computers work. But this is surely waaaaaay too artificial. For an insect which is only available in June to suddenly appear seconds after it’s technically June is just weird, and brings me out of the reality of the game entirely. If I can see the numbers crunching in your simulated world, the chances are you should have done a better job at hiding them.
So, let’s pop over to Blathers to donate this specimen. Hello Blathers, look what your programmers have given me. Programmers who I am unaccountably thinking about for some reason, despite the fact I shouldn’t be. What’s the point of giving Blathers amusing character dialogue to make him feel real, if I keep picturing date algorithms in my head?
My solution? An easy way to disguise it would simply be for the fireflies to appear in the evening on the 1st June, 19 hours later, rather than immediately past midnight. Just treat midnight to 5am as an extension of May. That way, the fireflies aren’t going to suddenly appear in the middle of the night while you’re playing; they’ll appear naturally during the evening instead. And surely Animal Crossing should be doing its best to appear natural, rather than just a bunch of numbers throwing insects at you.
Still, never mind. Let’s relax with some fishing. Hmmm, not seen that fish before…
Oh fuck off.
In New Horizons. Yes, I remember them from previous Animal Crossing games. ↩