I am not sure where I could put this but this story needs to be told. Have you ever played Animal Crossing New Horizons? It is a great game where you can pretend you have friends and own real estate. But be careful in how you treat your villagers.
I have played every animal crossing that has come out on every system. Starting with playing on the GameCube when I was a kid. I think that most animal crossing fans would agree that animal crossing new horizons is different from any of the previous games from the franchise. The animal friends have new dialog and many new friends to make. New furniture to collect and that is without going into the new game mechanics that make the game just so much more immersive and nostalgic at the same time.
Like a lot of people, I fully fell into the animal crossing world at the height of 2020. When I started the game I started with two villagers, Maple a loveable brown teddy bear, and Derwin a nerdy-designed Duck. After completing setting up my village and getting through all the tutorials I was able to start to have more villagers move in through my campsite. I was determined not to skip days with my first village so this took me about two weeks of playing on and off. I had three more villagers and now could travel and find new villagers on islands or at my campsite.
At this point, I had five villagers and my husband had started playing with me and added his house to my town. I was definitely best friends with Maple and had a few other villagers I had become close to. One that always rubbed me the wrong way was Derwin. His design was off-putting. A blue duck that squinted, a yellow bill, and a matching yellow-stiped tank top. His eyes are stuck in a squint and he has a brown fan of hair on his head. His personality type is Lazy which I have to admit I generally like having a wide selection of villager personalities in my towns.
But this villager was off… I am not sure if it’s because I was the first player character in this town but Derwin’s dialog options would always take a disturbing turn. I would be doing my daily rounds through the village to say hi to everyone and Derwin would be right outside my character’s house. I would talk to him and he would say.
“Gee you took your time getting up today I was here looking in your windows. I didn’t see anything derrrr”.
Feeling thoroughly creeped out I assumed that this was a one-time dialog I mentioned it to my Husband and we laughed it off. But then he was playing and talked to Derwin. Again Derwin was outside my character’s house.
“Hey, have you seen Rain around? She is cool. I just wish they were around all the time ya know? Does she talk about me?”
My fiancé thought this behavior was odd and showed me the switch as he was talking to the duck. And at this point, we unlocked terraforming. We erected a cliff surrounding my character’s house. Two bridges had to be crossed to get over two separate rivers. We also had a large hedge maze that needed to be crossed to get to either of the bridges in the first place. Typically in New Horizons, you can make certain areas nearly inaccessible to the animal villagers wandering. They also tend to congregate around the town hall and their house.
We moved Derwin’s house to the bottom left corner of the map which placed the city hall between his house and mine which was in the topmost right of the map. After this update, I didn’t see Derwin. I thought I had solved the problem. We still didn’t have a full ten villagers and we also did not have any villagers ask to move out. My fiancé was then playing and he was dropping some clothes from the tailor’s off in front of my house. He saw looming to the left of my house was Derwin.
“Shhhh Can’t you see I’m Sneaking?”
Clicking on Derwin repeatedly the dialog wouldn’t change. And Derwin was holding a butterfly net. When villagers are trying to catch an insect they have a slight crouch and sneaking animation they enter. But there was no insect near Derwin. We decided at that point to plan on getting rid of Derwin as a villager altogether.
For those who have not played New Horizons, there is no way to get rid of unwanted villagers. Still, I went to town hall and complained about everything I could about Derwin his way of speaking, and his clothing. I looked up the easiest way of getting rid of characters and my fiancé and I decided we would no longer talk to Derwin unless there were thinking bubbles over his head as he was thinking. Which had a chance to trigger the moving dialog. This could go significantly faster if you time skipped by changing your date it could go faster.
Again this duck sprite is just in a game. Yes, he was creepy for a kid’s game but I persisted in my efforts to keep true to this first playthrough with no cheats. And to my luck within a week Derwin was at the town hall with the thinking bubbles over his head. I ran over eagerly to click on him and called my husband to look at my switch screen.
“I wonder what would be the best-tasting food. Probably soup I love soup!”
This comment was so normal and it made me feel slightly horrible about all the efforts I was putting in to get rid of a character from my town. Something that I never had actively tried in any of my previous files in any of the other games before. The thought bubbles were still above his head. I clicked on him again.
“The coolest thing about soup is you can make it flavored however you want! I wonder what people-flavored soup would taste like. If I took you could I make Rain flavored soup?”
My fiancé and I just stared at the screen in disbelief.
“ya, we need to get rid of the duck.”
So we started a more intensive plan. We would only sign on as my husband. This would allow us to not be directly freaked out by all the pointed comments on my character Rain. And it would bring some ease to the situation if Derwin started saying creeping to him as well. That night while Derwin was asleep we took turns in-game crafting pitfall seeds, eating fruit, and digging up full-size trees. Then we carefully planted all the pitfall seeds in a three-by-four area in front of the house then planted the full-sized trees in front of those leaving no room for escape.
The next morning I ran to his house as my husband’s character to watch my revenge. Derwin left his house and fell repeatedly into the traps set. I laughed emoted my sprite to his demise. Of course, this doesn’t make him move out any faster but the hope was to introduce some punishment for stalking someone in a kid’s game. I have been stalked in real life and the thought of taking some sort of control of the situation gave me a wave of inner peace.
Animal Crossing only has one character ask to leave once a week. The character chosen seems rather random. Animal crossing is linked to your system’s clock. So Exiting the game I broke my own rule about skipping time. I was ready to get rid of Derwin whatever it would take. I skipped forward a week. I left my house and ran through my island looking for any characters with thought bubbles. To no one’s surprise, it wasn’t Derwin. I told Maple to stay and skipped another week. After five attempts I finally got a thought bubble above Derwin’s head.
“Are you avoiding me? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in over a month!!” the cartoon duck went into a shocked emote.
“I am almost insulted” The shocked expression turned to a red exclamation of anger.
The thought bubble was still present so hesitantly I clicked on Derwin again.
“I’ve been thinking………..
…….
…….”
You don’t want me here. It’s not a question. Ask and you will receive.”
This was different from other leaving dialogs that I had seen. But two options appeared.
-Derwin leave this place
-I am okay with you staying forever
A prickly sensation went across my neck. I picked the first choice nervously. Derwin’s eyes went dark and he stated.
“Okay well I will be off tomorrow will be my last day.”
That seemed a normal enough text even if his sprite looked slightly more menacing. There are a lot of emotions in new horizons. I put the thought to the back of my mind as I went to bed. I didn’t bother skipping forward. Part of me wanted to relish in the packed boxes inside Derwin’s house. I already had tons of nook miles to buy tickets to look for the perfect villager. One who didn’t want a soup made of me.
I eagerly shared my achievement with my husband. He immediately shared in my excitement. The next day I went to work and once I got off I immediately went back into the imaginary world of animal crossing. Once the game loaded the morning announcement came from town hall. Isabella said cheerfully.
“Good evening Rivalia. We only have one announcement today.”
The happy yellow lab looked down at her desk and she looked disturbed. As she slowly read the following.
“Derwin will be leaving today so be sure to get in your last goodbyes…..
…….
…….
…….”
The announcement abruptly ended. I found this disturbing there was no happy sign-off from our favorite town hall employee. And the dots… that I had to click through were just like when I was talking to Derwin. I shrugged the feeling off. There was a new update recently maybe they were trying to make Isabella more realistic. Perhaps she felt sad about a villager leaving? Either way, I ran off to Derwin’s house.
Once I got there I found Derwin inside of his house going through the normal pacing animation. All items in his house were boxed up. Derwin’s sprite had changed. The yellow striped shirt had a white apron similar to one a butcher or maid would wear. I talked to Derwin.
“…….
…….
…….”
Just the odd dots. I didn’t care though. I left his house and he waved eagerly as I left. At this point, my husband got home from work. He sat down next to me on the bed it was rather late in the night and I had the switch connected to the tv in the bedroom. I excitedly ran into Derwin’s house again and showed him that yes indeed Derwin was leaving. I tried to speak to Derwin again.
“…….
…….
Yes yes, I will leave like you want me to just give me tonight.”
A very odd response but at least it wasn’t just the dots. My Husband seemed unperturbed. I saved the game and decided that I would time jump one more time just so I could start using my nook mile tickets. I felt lucky from my recent success. I increased the time by one day. And went back into my game.
The music felt off almost like it was in a minor chord. It is an old TV… I didn’t see any of my animal villagers in the background either. The camera usually focused on them doing activities in the village. My uneasiness began to grow. The colors were not as bright. It was night in both real life and the game at 3 am. I turned off the switch and reopened the game. And nothing changed. I woke up the husband who was sleeping beside me he begrudgingly woke up rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
The first thing he said was “Isn’t the game looking a little dark? You didn’t have to mess with the brightness settings I was out”
Now that he mentioned it as we watched the title sequence continue it was getting less colorful.
“No, listen to the theme song. Maybe I’m crazy but this isn’t normal right?”
“I don’t know maybe it’s because it’s so late?”
I clicked through the title menu. And the music started as what I now know as KK Dirge. KK Dirge is in the base game but you would get it as a special KK Slider song. It’s not a game that just plays in the background of anything unless you placed music players with that song. KK Dirge is an unsettling song see this link if you haven’t heard it. 286 - K.K. Dirge (Aircheck)
For those that don’t know a Dirge is a song meant to be sung right before you bury someone. I have no idea why this is in a kid’s game. But then again there are gyroids.
I exited my house and the game was in greyscale at this point with no color. The morning announcements came and it was just an empty desk. Still in the grey scale. There was no Isabella or Tom Nook that I could see. There was still text to click through each line of periods taking up an individual bubble.
“…….
…….
…….
…….
…….
…….
…….
…….
…….
…….”
At the end of clicking through it exited the announcement screen. At this point, we were studying the screen intensely. I ran my sprite to Town Hall. I had built a cliff surrounding the back, left, and right sides of my town hall. I terraformed water falls off all three that led to my rivers. The cliffs normally covered in flowers were black. There was something strung in between the cliffs.
KK Dirge continued playing in the background and I started panicking. There was a thick rope tied from one cliff to the other and my favorite villagers were hung by their necks. In the order from left to right Raymond, Maple, Tia, Sherb, and Pekoe. My sprite wouldn’t move. It just stared. My switch wouldn’t turn off. My S got up and took the switch off of the port that connected it to the TV. The image stayed on the TV and a smaller version of the horror we were seeing was also on the switch’s screen.
The camera went back to the inside of Town Hall just like with normal morning announcements. There was Derwin… The front of his apron was covered in a dark crimson. The red was vibrant against the greyscale behind him. His eyes looked more realistic somehow. He was sitting in Isabelle’s chair. There was red splattered behind him on the filing cabinets now. The world was slowly becoming saturated in color but only with shades of red.
“Good morning Rain….. You threw me away like common trash. I wasn’t one of your cutesy, perfect, and dimwitted animal friends.
That’s okay….. It’s just a game… Right?
Just a game……
……..
……..
I took away what you loved just like you took away my hopes and dreams. But you get what you want I will leave.”
The camera zoomed out. Derwin then walked out of town hall. My villager was still frozen. But I saw Derwin leave through the airport. The announcement showed the below message.
“…….. is leaving Rivelia are you happy now?”
And I saw the slow movement of Derwin’s sprite walking to the plane. Normally a Dodo would happily wave at you as you would leave. But there was no Dodo just a smear of red near his desk. My character could move. I wandered my once happy village seeing the villagers that were not hanging in random smears of blood across the map. I was able to walk into the character’s houses. The lights would be off and a smear of blood on a bed if that’s where they were murdered. The name plates would say ……..’s house.
I don’t know what to do. I would think I was crazy if I didn’t have my husband sitting right next to me in disbelief. A resounding source of me being sane. I was able to turn off my switch. I then turned it back on. My flowers stayed black with the ones that were already planted. I cannot dig them up. My villagers all returned including the hung ones, Isabella, Nook, and the Dodos.
But their interactions seem off. They will randomly say Derrrr… at the end of their sentences. I have tried on different switches to load my island and it still doesn’t fix. I think it goes without saying but be careful in how you treat your villagers on your island. You never know if you will meet a Derwin.