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Its recent version, New Horizons, is immensely popular having sold over 32 million copies worldwide, with many players attracted to the opportunities it provides to remotely socialize during the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand players' increased positive emotions and social interactions, we surveyed 119 of them betweenMay and December 2020 and conducted remote interviews with 25 respondents. We identified the social dynamics among players and with non-player characters (NPCs), and analyzed how positive social interactions were facilitated under player-generated narratives and game-determined narratives. Based on our empirical analyses, we have extended our understanding of how to create positive, safe, and friendly interactions: (1)the design of mood-improving game worlds with flexible game tasks, (2) implementation of game-determined activities with social implications, (3) provision of player rewards to reinforce their social interactions, and (4)creation of opportunities to integrate NPCs' game-determined narratives into player-generated narratives.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3474711","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,6]],"date-time":"2021-10-06T22:59:48Z","timestamp":1633561188000},"page":"1-23","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Players' Stories and Secrets in Animal Crossing"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Xin","family":"Tong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Diane","family":"Gromala","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carman","family":"Neustaedter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"F. David","family":"Fracchia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University, Surrey, BC, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yisen","family":"Dai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Netease Inc., Guangzhou, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhicong","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","unstructured":"[n.d.].1m 1.5m 2m - the different levels of social distancing countries are following amid Covid.https:\/\/theprint.in\/theprint-essential\/1m-1--5m-2m-the-different-levels-of-social-distancing-countries-are-following-amid-covid\/449425\/"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","unstructured":"[n.d.]. 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The University of Maine. https:\/\/digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu\/etd\/277[13]Arpita Bhattacharya Travis W. Windleharth Rio Anthony Ishii Ivy M. Acevedo Cecilia R. Aragon Julie A. Kientz Jason C. Yip and Jin Ha Lee. 2019. Group Interactions in Location-Based Gaming: A Case Study of Raiding in Pok\u00e9monGO. InProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). Association forComputing Machinery New York NY USA 1--12. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3290605.3300817Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. Vol. 5 No. CHI PLAY Article 284. Publication date: September 2021.","DOI":"10.1145\/3290605.3300817Proc"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1471--1842.2007.00733.x"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","volume-title":"Brown and Bj\u00f6rn Berg Marklund","author":"Ashley M.","year":"2015","unstructured":"Ashley M. L. Brown and Bj\u00f6rn Berg Marklund. 2015. Animal Crossing: New Leaf and the Diversity of Horror in Video Games. 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