April 5
Aaawww . . . The Starlight Festival was lovely. Almost the entire town gathered together, even the oddball winter resident, and just sat under the stars basking in the crisp winter air. There was no real goal to it other than enhancing the sense of community that's so important to this particular game in the series.

After that, it was back to the grind - tend crops, keep on giving to villagers, and take care of the critters. I also got some good fishing done, with every fish either given away or fed to my dog. I'm going to start giving him a fish a day, I think. I don't think I'm taking care of him properly, not that the game gives any directions on how to do it, and I'm guessing that my little theft problem might disappear if I treat Ormond (my dog) nicer. Murray, the beggar, shows up almost every day to raid my cooler; I need to figure out both how to stop him from doing that and how to get him back to the home he keeps saying he wants to go to.

At this point I should mention that although I'm sure the odd FAQ is out there, I'm avoiding them. I've experimented my way this far and it's gone nicely; though a hint or two on maximizing the cash flow wouldn't be ignored, figuring out how various things work is one of the big rewards of the game. Of course, there have been a few mistakes along the way, such as blowing what should have been a big purchase made early.

My cow, Mona, started off giving milk. You're told right at the start she's good for roughly a year's worth of milk, gathered twice a day, before the taps run dry. The way to start them up again is to get her pregnant, and either a miracle potion or a bull is the way to do it. I pull in about 400 a day. A bull is several thousand. I have a lot of saving to do . . . .

It's the process of experimentation. Some things work, other things don't, and as you learn you get better. Forgoing a bull in favor of a duck pond (when I've got no way to buy or lure ducks, however it ends up being done) is just one of those things, and only mildly tricky to recover from. It's a long-term puzzle and the path to the solution is different for every player.

April 6

It's a new year, and everything changes.

Day one of year two is eventful, to say the least. Let's see now:

1. Got married
2. Several years passed off-camera
3. Had a son
4. Expanded the house
5. New villagers
6. New buildings
7. Discovered there's been a death

It starts off with a nice long cut scene that begins no matter what you're doing at midnight, Winter 10/Spring 1. You meet your bride, go around to all the villagers to let them in on the news, watch Murray in the background robbing everyone blind, and head back with the wife to your now mutual home. I'd say my biggest surprise was finding out that several years pass by between you going into your cozy little love nest and the game picking up again. I'm now kind of curious about that thirty-year play time. Is it thirty years of actual playing or a thirty-year span of time? It's a long, long road to finding out.

Where to begin talking about the new features?

I've finally got a double bed, and Nami has finally moved in. The character models are the same as they always were, but Nami is smiling more nowadays, which is nice seeing as her standoffish nature made me wonder if she'd be a drag to have around. It's easy to regard any acquired object in the game as another resource to manage, but this is about building a little fantasy bucolic life for yourself more than simple maximization of resources, and having a "wife" that's a chore to talk to lessens that slice of pastoral bliss. So far, so good.

The house now has a couple of rooms - the central room is still a living room/bedroom combo, but there's also a kitchen in the back complete with refrigerator. Apparently I'll be needing to keep it stocked, and Nami will do the cooking for herself and the kid. I hope. There are also two side rooms that are apparently bathrooms, and though the camera doesn't follow you in, there are full sound effects. The "Ploonk . . . aaahhh!" one was a bit of a surprise, I admit.

I haven't gotten to mess with the kid much yet, but you can pick him up and play with him in a few ways. When you're holding him you can toss him up with the left stick and sing or snuggle with the X/Y buttons. He's also got a toybox with one book in it, and though maybe there's something I can do with it later, I've yet to sort it out. So far it's nothing but smiles and happiness from anything I've done, and I hate to admit it but he's a cute little rat.

I was a bit surprised heading out into the day to see that all my crops and animals were identical to what I'd left behind. As I was tending the fields and sorting out the animals I was kind of confused about that whole passage of time thing they'd mentioned, and then I got out into the village itself. The first person I see is a new girl, and then I start noticing new buildings here and there. Exploration time!

So I blow off most of the day finding out what's new, what's changed, what's as it always was. I stumble across a nice New Year's Day cut scene, get a new scythe, and generally get the gameplay cobwebs blown off in the process of getting from one day to the next. I may actually put this down as one of the big Memorable Gaming Moments, maybe not quite on the scale of the ending of Klonoa or the big Aeris death scene, but still one hell of a shakeup.

Continue to: Days 4 and 5