I want to keep playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, despite the major hurdles

polygon.com:

I want to keep playing Disney Dreamlight Valley. I’ve spent days collecting supplies to help Donald Duck rebuild his houseboat that’s washed up on the shores of Dazzle Beach; I’ve upgraded Goofy’s vegetable stalls; I’ve collected flowers for Minnie Mouse to give to Mickey. Look: I’m doing this for the power of friendship — even for the Disney and Pixar characters I couldn’t care less about, like stinky Kristoff from Frozen or Rapunzel’s evil mother who keeps telling me I look awful.

Dreamlight Valley has drawn a lot of comparisons to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and for good reason: It’s the Disney and Pixar-ified life simulation that’s filled with beloved movie characters instead of Animal Crossing villagers. You do a lot of the same things — fishing, gardening, collecting flowers and recipes, and making friends with the folks in the area. It’s a comfortable sort of repetition that fans of the genre know and love, something that’s easy to slip into and out of, even with the ever-present pull of “I’ll just do one more thing.”

The big difference here is that Dreamlight Valley’s Disney and Pixar characters all have their own friendship quests, alongside the game’s overarching main quest. Even as a middling Disney fan, someone who has nostalgia for the franchises but has a waning interest as an adult, it’s delightful to mingle with beloved characters — Minnie, for instance, who ends most conversations by telling me she loves me, or Moana, whose cheerful, adventurous spirit makes me giddy. Pair these interactions with the instrumental swell of Disney’s classic songs and the child inside me gets chills.

The main thrust of Dreamlight Valley seems to be building relationships. It’s what composes the fabric of life there, a