I can’t imagine that my horned doppelganger had a fantastic night’s sleep – spent as it was on plain wooden planks surrounded by a pile of cherries – but I for one was eager to get back and see what devilish task Tom Nook had for me next. Slightly earlier than last time, and interested to see what difference (if any) it’d make to the hustle and bustle of my new home, I span up the disc and ventured forth…

19:53 – Checked the notice board on a whim to discover that someone had left a “pitfall”,
whatever that may be. Wait, isn’t that the thing from Smash Bros that traps me in the ground while Zelda punches my ears off?

19:56 – Emerald, one of the frogs I met yesterday, expects me to stop by every morning and fill her in on my life. That’s a legitimate excuse for being late to work, right?
Still, she’s informed me that I can visit other towns if I put a second memory card in Slot B. Hrrrrrmmmmm….

20:02 – Discovered the run button! And also, an “MVP shirt” at the dump. My first thought was Most Valued Professional, but it’s not green and white… Oh well, I swiped it anyway.

20:05 – Dashed over to Pompom’s with my new-found speedy legs. She gave me a “merge sign”. My first furniture! It’s a road sign!! My house looks like a bad restaurant!!!

20:07 – Next up on The Animalprentice… an advertising task. Lord Nook wants me to write some exciting copy to help market his sale. Art imitates life, folks.

20:13 – If Nook were a better businessman, he’d build his shop in one of the map’s chokepoints. Maybe next to the body armour.

20:27 – Fetch quests! Well, map training, really. Do these things ever actually happen in
reality?

20:37 – ENOUGH FETCHING! Back to see Nook for another job. Might this be the longest tutorial of any Nintendo game?

20:40 – A rug! Chow gave me a rug! That’ll minutely decrease the crippling arthritis horn- boy feels from sleeping on the floor. Still, there was a flash of genuine excitement, which is worrying.

20:52 – And just like that, I’m done! Released from the shackles of forced labour… well, I still have a mortgage to pay off, but La Vita Nuova, and all that. Having finally dropped all of my scavenged cherries and sand dollars into Nook’s clenched paws, I head back home a free man. Of course, house upgrades do sound tempting…

…a bed’d be favourite. Goodnight from the rug, Twycross.