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Life & fun · June 12, 2025

Tool-Assisted Speedrunning the Boring Parts of Animal Crossing (GCN)

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…

Tool-Assisted Speedrunning the Boring Parts of Animal Crossing (GCN) launched on June 12, 2025 with 159 votes, #226 of 7,999 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 3% of June 2025

In plain words

This project automates text input in the Nintendo GameCube version of Animal Crossing using a Raspberry Pi Pico connected to a rare Japanese keyboard-controller hybrid. The creator designed custom 3D-printed keycaps to map keyboard input to the game's character set, then programmed the Pico to intercept keypresses and send simulated controller commands to the GameCube. It's built for players frustrated with the game's slow on-screen keyboard who want to streamline typing during gameplay. The project combines hardware integration, microcontroller programming, and 3D modeling into a specialized input solution.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

hack Animal X-ing with a Pi Pico and a GameCube Keyboard Controller - hunterirving/pico-crossing

What if the GameCube Keyboard Controller worked with Animal Crossing...? It started out as a "quick, simple project", then quickly turned into seven quick simple projects. Compose digital diary entries in style with this set of 81 custom, 3D printed keycaps that map perfectly to Animal Crossing's in-game character set. See the separate pico-crossing-keycaps repository for FreeCAD project files and OBJ exports. Cycle through your favorite Town Tunes without having to futz about with e-Reader cards. Type the name of (almost) any item, and this little raccoon-looking guy will give it to you for free. Convert any image to display in Animal Crossing's pattern editor. The script automatically…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

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…

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