Have you ever heard of or seen The Sims, by maxis? In the commercials they show people with a giant green crystal over their head and usually the guys go over to a chick and get slapped or something. But yeah, same thing, but by nintendo, which means animals instead of people.
The sims:
Animal Crossing (a sweat shop)
Only the characters you control are ....what may or may not be considered human. Everyone else are animals. Freaky animals. Especially Tom Nook, the loan shark of the town.
Key Difference
When you start the sims, you get tons of money to build and customize a house.
When you start in AC (Animal Crossing), you start with 4 walls and a roof and a mountain-high debt. As soon as you get out of that debt, you get a bigger debt because he took the liberty of expanding your house. Do this a few times and then after that it's just messing around and trying to improve the feng shui of the house (they score it or something).