My wife mentioned the other day that I hardly use the Nintendo 3DS that I receive two Christmases ago. Truth be told, I was just biding my time for one “killer app”, which happens to be the sequel to the game that got me buying a Nintendo DS so many years ago (and as a result this gaming blog known as Nineoverten.com). Yup, that killer app happens to be Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

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The joke was having being in cold storage for so long, the 3DS’ internal clock was reset to 2011. Upon charging the device and starting the game for the first time, the game’s time was set to the current date (but the device date was still stuck in 2011). It took me a week to realise that the device clock was way off and I decided to change the device time and date to reflect the current time and date.

AnimalCrossing

However unintentional, fans of Animal Crossing would know what I did right there. I inadvertently caused a 2 year time-jump in my Animal Crossing save file! Time-jumping is allowed in the game as the game is robust enough to tolerate it. Some players say that it’s cheating, while others hold the opinion that it allows faster access to things that otherwise one would have to wait.

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I for one didn’t want the time jump, but I had to laugh at the Rip van Winkle look my villager was sporting. Now I’m stuck at cleaning out both the town (full of weeds) and my house (cockroaches), getting reacquainted with the townsfolk and restarting a long delayed public works project. Talk about being an absentee mayor. LOL.