During my spring break I ended up playing a lot of video games. With the my newly founded free time I spent it relaxing and chatting with friends. While playing these games the one thing I always remember is how much time I have during break and how much time I don’t have after break. As Chess states in Ready Player Two “Video games, one would think, fall under this purview—while one might schedule free time for playing video games, the game itself is rarely full of the everyday obligations implied by the monotony of time management. Thus there is a push-and-pull when video games are specifically designed with women in mind. They are often designed with an understanding of the complex relationships between women and time, but also with an understanding that time is what is necessary to draw in more players and create a depth of play.” (Ready Player Two 61)  During the semester me and my friends will always have to coordinate around when is the best day, usually the weekend, to play video games/board games together. I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older, it’s become more difficult to find time to play video games, as I am stuck with either work or school work.

Some of the games I got into were Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. Both are similar in that you have villagers but your end goal is different for each of them. For Stardew you can choose to remove Jojamart from the town or just focus on your farm. As for Animal Crossing, other than paying off you house debt there is no other main goal. The player can set their own goal for themselves and set out to do it. For me currently in my New Leaf file, I’m working on collecting all bugs and fish to get the golden fishing rod and bug net. I’ve already expanded my house to the max and paid off the debt so I’ve set that as my goal for the game. Within both games the player can choose to express themselves through the clothing they wear. As Chess states in the first chapter “Unsurprisingly, many of the gameplay assumptions made by game designers reflect suggestions based on Ray’s Gender Inclusive Game Design. Some of the game-play elements discussed by game designers include: • increased use of social elements; • fewer constraints on time; • less in-game risk; • simple mechanics; and • emphasis on creative expression.” (Ready Player Two 44-45) Both of these games include some portions of these attributes within their games. Animal Crossing is more elaborate in allowing the player to customize their character. Stardew on the other hand allows for more social options as it allows you to romance a selection of the villagers in the game.

Within both, time is an aspect that controls the game. For Stardew the time is an in-game clock, and Animal Crossing uses a real world clock. Due to having the concept of time, but seasons certain animals are only available which adds to the gameplay. As the season passes that animal will be gone, incentivizing the player to continuously play each day in order to find that animal or plant.