The unique world that players inhabit in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons has helped a lot of people cope with the events of the last two years, and the curators at the National Videogame Museum have embedded themselves within this welcoming community, collecting stories from the public for their excellent Animal Crossing Diaries online exhibition.
Recently, the UK-based museum expanded their oral history project with the launch of The Animal Crossing Diaries podcast on Spotify.
From short films to podcasts to full-length features, Documenting the Past tunes in to the history of video games through a documentarian’s lens.
The podcast will feature “in-depth interviews” with Animal Crossing players, with a particular focus on how the game “uniquely resonated with players” during this “unprecedented period of self-isolation.” Three episodes of the podcast have been released, and you can download any or all of them right here:
Woodsorrel Garden Gallery
In this third episode we talk to Sarah Cole, a freelance creative archive consultant and creator and curator of the Woodsorrel Garden Gallery, an interactive art exhibition space imagined fully through Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The interview focused on Sarah’s experiences with creating a slate of art exhibitions within the game, including the challenges and rewards of working within the game’s systemic boundaries.
ACNH Fringe
In this second episode, we talked to Creatrix Tiara, a creative producer, writer, and performance artist based in Melbourne, Australia. The interview covered the creation and creative processes of ACNH Fringe, the first ever Fringe Festival of the arts held virtually in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Kang Gaming
In the first of our interview series for the Animal Crossing Diaries, we spoke with Kang Gaming. Wayne, also known as Kang, is an American content creator, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer based in Orlando, Florida. We talked with him on his experiences of playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons in front of an online audience, and performing a unique baby gender reveal announcement through the game!
New episodes of The Animal Crossing Diaries are being uploaded weekly by the National Videogame Museum.