A musical adventure

I guess it's time to talk about Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Before I finally decided to get an Apple One subscription, we had been sampling the various apps that would be part of it. My husband and I tried Apple News for awhile and ultimately decided it wasn't worth the extra money to get that. Apple Music was the main thing that I wanted to keep. The cloud storage certainly came in handy for my older daughter so with Apple Arcade thrown in, it was a no brainer. 

Over the summer, I promised my older daughter that she could sample up to three new game apps every week. Because the space is limited on her devices, we would just delete things that she decided she didn't love. I was playing Neko Atsume on an old iPad and then I decided to get the Apple Arcade version on my phone but she kept bugging me to get Hello Kitty Island Adventure because she needed someone to play with to complete quests and such. 

I don't know about the practice of other parents but I don't let my children have "friends" in these games that aren't people we actually know so when there are game tasks that require the help of a "friend", it falls to me to be that friend. This is the reason we got hooked on Pokemon all those years ago when Pokemon X and Y came out. My daughter needed someone to play Y so she could have someone to trade with and battle in X etc. In a year, I was the one with the notebook, and all the Pokemon breeding research, with the competitive builds (nature, ability, moveset and strategy) and I wasn't going to let my very smart 9 year old best me in a video game! So when second graders ask me if I know certain Pokemon, I most certainly do. And when they ask why, I just tell them, because I have Pokemon and I even have ones that are older than you :) This is true.

It took me awhile to finally agree to download Hello Kitty Island Adventure. I think one day I just got bored and decided to do it. My daughter was so excited to show me the ropes and answer questions. Until the day came that my progress eclipsed hers... then she was mad. I finally realized that the little bit of power that she had, being ahead of me in the game, that was a big thing to her and I took that away by besting her. She basically lost interest after that. In the meantime, I ended up joining the Discord chatrooms, styling myself a gardener in the game. I do the quests but now the whole point of the game is just breeding all sorts of uncommon flowers. I needed all the colors, all the patterns, all the effects. Don't even get me started on the hybrids. 

The developers for HKIA are really active on Discord. They post all the latest info on it. Announcements, bug fixes, updates. They run games, for fun. This is also one of the ways that you can submit bug reports and where you can turn to for help and information. Devs respond and other players are always happy to assist. Now that the game has been made available on other platforms, the community is larger than ever. 

In front of Hello Kitty's Cafe

Having said all of that, what I appreciate most is that at its core, HKIA is such a well-crafted and maintained game. The theme is cute (Sanrio, hello), the visuals are stunning and although I'm one to turn the volume down to zero often when I'm playing, I have to admit, the music created for the game is a masterful accomplishment. I was thrilled when I found it on Apple Music. I wish Animal Crossing New Horizons had done the same. An entire album, with the core music, the New Horizons theme and all the music for the different hours of the day as they sound in the game. My favorite is 1PM. That bass line. So good. Video game music is its own genre. It's a college major (composition), if you never knew. And breaking news: I heard that there is an update planned for Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch. I'm fuzzy on the details but I know it's coming.

Playlist Recommendation: Hot Springs Zen, from the Hello Kitty Island Adventure Original Game Soundtrack