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I recently dug my Nintendo GameCube out of storage to revisit the first Animal Crossing game. Things were mostly as I remembered, but the game's heavy reliance on a clunky on-screen keyboard quickly wore my patience thin.

Unwilling to accept this subpar experience, I did what any rational person would do and ordered a rare, Japan-exclusive, keyboard/controller hybrid on eBay, then used a Raspberry Pi Pico to 1. listen for keypresses and 2. send simulated controller events to the GameCube, automating typing in Animal Crossing at a Tool-Assisted Speedrun level.

Of course, this oddball controller's keycaps didn't map perfectly to Animal Crossing's in-game character set, so I watched a 10 hour FreeCAD tutorial at 2x speed, then modeled the 7 keycap profiles to create 81 custom, 3D printed keycaps, taking care to include even the most esoteric Greek and Old English characters that Nintendo chose to include in the game.

And then, having solved my original problem, I decided to sniff out some new ones. I used my homemade TAS device to automate the entry of customizable "Town Tune" melodies, took advantage of a cracked encryption algorithm to give on-demand access to (almost) every item in the game, and, in a Club-Mate-fueled haze, whipped up a Python script to convert arbitrary images to the game's 32x32 pixel custom design format.

Even at superhuman speed, those 1024 pixels took about 3 minutes to input, but that didn't stop me from extending the concept to video - playing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", Bad Apple!, Shrek, and even a short gameplay video of DOOM very, veryyyy slowly (about 7.5 hours to render 30 seconds of footage at 5fps).

Then, realizing that DOOM at 0.0056fps probably wouldn't be the most "playable" thing in the world, I set out to get some kind of video game running within Animal Crossing, and ultimately landed on Snake.

Since it only needs to update 1 pixel for every frame of animation, I was able to get Snake running at around 1ish* frames per second (for technical reasons, it runs at a variable framerate). Maybe not the most primo experience the modern gaming world has to offer, but without a doubt, technically a video game. It even has its own, in-memory high score ranking (so far I'm undefeated).

The code and design files are distributed for free on GitHub[0], and a build/demonstration video[1] is out now on Youtube.

[0] - https://github.com/hunterirving/pico-crossing

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8Alf_lolA

It started as a "quick, simple project", then quickly ballooned into 7 or 8 "quick, simple projects", but I had a ton of fun putting it all together. Thanks for checking it out!

Comments (21)

mlaux · 2h ago

This is so cool! AC and ACWW were a huge part of growing up and I dare say have a little impact on who I am today. Back then, I went on Tumblr’s AC community and found all the little debug menus but didn’t know how MIPS worked at that point to go any further. <3

xp84 · 17h ago

You are absolutely mad, in the most wonderful way possible. And great video as well. Just astonishing how much work went into this, out of what I can only assume is pure hacker spirit.

I played a lot of this game a long time ago, and I completely agree that anything that required using the OSK was incredibly tedious.

hunterirving · 16h ago

That's exactly it! The hacker spirit definitely took over on this one. I guess it did take a lot of work, but IMO the absurdity of going this far adds to the humor of it all. So glad to hear you enjoyed the video!

dylan604 · 17h ago

This is the most ridiculous expenditure of time in the most hackerish way and I love it! It was a very interesting way to see a game I had never played, and after seeing this, I'd never want to play it without this hack.

hunterirving · 17h ago

Yes! That's exactly what I was going for :-) Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

benrutter · 14h ago

I love how much this keeps on going. Faster typing? Check! But what about image upload? Check! Ok, now what about video somehow? Check! Ok, what about a video game inside the knitting UI?

hunterirving · 13h ago

It seemed like a pretty logical progression to me! I half considered adding a two-player mode to the Snake game, but of course that would be ridiculous.

dylan604 · 13h ago

To keep it relevant, using some AI to help make the best pixelated images was the chef's kiss moment

geoffpado · 21h ago

I’ve never played the original Animal Crossing, but this is neat! You’re basically hacking quality-of-life improvements into an old game running on original hardware.

hunterirving · 19h ago

Thanks! Yeah, I was surprised how much utility I could get out of it without directly modifying the game or console themselves. The first Animal Crossing has this great, simple charm. I would definitely recommend it!

hnlmorg · 12h ago

I have one of those ASCII keyboards too. They’re awesome.

Though I use mine for Phantasy Star Online (PSO) rather than Animal Crossing.

Amazingly, there are still PSO servers available which are still very active. All the more impressive when you think that Sega discontinued their official servers around a decade ago.

hunterirving · 7h ago

I've been meaning to try that out as well. I recently picked up the FlippyDrive Deluxe, which comes with an ethernet connectivity kit. I think the software only supports using it to transfer files over a local network for now, but the idea is that eventually it'll be usable for online play.

askl · 10h ago

For a second I assumed you'd be Hunter R. [1]

Maybe you should do a collab.

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/@Hunter-R.>

hunterirving · 7h ago

I'm a big fan of Hunter's work! His videos definitely informed this one. I would love to do a collab given the chance.

dilDDoS · 20h ago

This is so cool and impressive. I loved the original Animal Crossing but also feel like the clunky keyboard input hasn't aged well. Thanks for sharing!

hunterirving · 19h ago

In a way, I'm glad the OSK was so tedious, since it drove me to create this whole crazy project. Thanks for checking it out!

b0a04gl · 8h ago

snake at 1fps is probably the most cursed form of patience training i’ve seen.

hunterirving · 7h ago

Could this be a new hit game genre? :-) I'm not sure it comes across in the video, but it's actually surprisingly fun. I say "1ish fps", but it actually runs at a variable framerate – faster when the snake's head and tail are closer together, and slower when they're further apart. This means that, on your way to the next apple, you can try slithering close to your tail for a short speed boost. It can be a little risky, but I think that adds to the fun.

b0a04gl · 4h ago

honestly that’s way more design depth than i expected from a cursed snake clone. dynamic pacing tied to head,tail distance is kind of genius. an actual tension mechanic.

agold97 · 11h ago

i love love love animal crossing

hunterirving · 7h ago

Same! It's such a special game. There's something about the original that the newer ones never quite recaptured. Maybe it's the slightly rougher edges that give it character.