It was April 29th when I turned on my Animal Crossing game. I received an immediate phone call from Tom Nook telling me about the May Day Tour and to stop by the airport for more information. My first thought was "mayday, mayday, mayday", the international distress signal for aircraft and boats.
At the airport Orville the dodo bird told me I had a special trip to a faraway island organized by Tom Nook and that I had to go empty-handed and that was all I was aloud to know. I have to admit, I wasted some time preparing my pockets with tools before heading to the airport that day. Tom Nook made a rule that you must leave all of your power and knowledge behind. Even if you learned a DIY recipe in the past you’re gonna have to start all over again on this mysterious tour as if your mind was erased.
As I arrived Wilbur the dodo pilot said the whole island was one giant maze and I was not going to be able to use any type of aerial view to get through it. I was reminded once again that I had to start fresh with no prior aquired tools or knowledge. Kind of like a video game set on random play where you are plopped down on a secret mission and told to GO figure it out completely on your own! The blue winged dodo bird proudly told me that his big-shot kind have inner radar to get them around and that it was a pretty nifty trick. This let me know he related to my current situation on a deeper level.
He further instructed, when I got stuck, grounded or lost I could call rescue services on my phone for a seemingly cheap price if 100 nook miles. Thank goodness my phone was still going to work. Nook miles are different than my islands bells. Bells would be relative to the dollar, which is easy to come by. Nook miles are controlled by Tom Nook, the guy who runs your island. Even though you essentially make all of your island's choices, from the villagers who are allow to live there, to where the homes can reside, to controling your local ordinances, Tom Nook dishes out nook miles, which you could compare to frequent flyer miles. Two different currencies.
After paying with nook miles my whiskered allies would reset the maze from the beginning. Kind of like a Groundhog Day or restarting your own personal timeline. Back to the beginning to try again. All of your items gathered are gone and your pockets are once again empty. Only this time you have more information and can use what you learned to try and figure out a different path.
Wilbur went on to inform me that if I needed a little extra intel, he might have a hint or two. Turned out to be an exagerated understatement on his part. I was to later find out that asking the dodo bird, which reminds me of a secret service CIA agent, will not help. He will refuse to let you borrow a tool or offer any kind of helpful guidance that you have not already figured out. I felt like he was just stating the obvious as he went into an all out "Acquiring Knowledge" zone inside his brain communicating with something outside his own mind. As if to see what he was and was not aloud to indulge about the secret maze I was about to take on. Which is ok because after all this is a game and what fun would it be to have an easy solution to a difficult problem?
I was off to see what this maze contained that was worth taking up an entire day of my Animal Crossing game time.
In a nutshell, to complete the maze you need a ladder to acquire the right amount of fruit power-ups to have enough energy to clear your path to success. However, there’s a catch. You can easily reach the do it yourself recipe for the ladder, but you still need the materials to make it. The materials require you to use your power-ups and if you do not do the tasks in the right order you get stuck at the bottom with no ladder, no food and no where to go. Back to square one, restart that timeline. I felt like I was trapped in my own personal matrix. Over and over again until I got the combination of events correct.
I admittedly didn't make it through the maze the first day. I had to try again and again. But my curiosity was spiked. There was a strange blue cat named Rover sitting at the top of a cliff at the other end of the island and I wanted to know what that was all about.
I did finally figure out a path to success. I made it to the cat who told me I had reached my goal. He stated he knew Tom Nook and acted surprise to see me but also seemed to know me all the same.
He told me he needed to give me something. One of his favorite breifcases, but he would have to mail it to me because he would not want it to get lost on the last leg of this journey.
The very next day I had a package in the mail containing the breifcase. It was obviously used. A vintage of some sort. Here is the magic question. Just what is in that briefcase that would warrent not only a CIA agent's escort, but all of the secrets surrounding its origin and contents to lead to the effort to set up a giant maze the size of an entire island? I guess you will have to play the game to find out.
One thing I find very odd is the bell vouchers you can gather on the island tour. They are vouchers, therefore they are not exactly real money. When you leave the island the vouchers are no longer in your pocket. As if you are not aloud to leave the island with any of your gathered belongings. I could not find a way to cash them out while on the island. And when I headed back on the airplane they were just gone. No longer in my pocket. So what is the point of having money if you cannot use it? I was still pondering that when the very next day the vouchers I had found inside the maze were mailed to me via snail mail to my private island's mailbox, as if someone was personally overseeing all of my interactions.
