Welcome back. As the year draws to a close, we revisit some of the experiences that made the biggest mark in 2020. Illusionists are working a little magic to translate their acts for Zoom. And some vacant hotels turn out to be suited for a new life as small, affordable apartments.

Note to readers: This is our last newsletter of the year. The Experience Report returns Jan. 6. See you in 2021.

As the coronavirus forced people to spend more time at home and often alone, visiting virtual worlds became a defining experience for many people, Ann-Marie Alcántara and Katie Deighton write in their look back at the year.

The release of “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” on March 20, for example, couldn’t have come at a better time. The massively multiplayer online game lets players build island homes and perform tasks like fishing.

“Most games try to build stress and ‘Animal Crossing’ was kinda the opposite,” said Mike Davidson, vice president, partnerships and community, at InVision App Inc., a product design and development platform.

Other key experiences of 2020 include Covid-19 dashboards, advances for accessible design and new content moderation in social media.

Magic has gone online while in-person performances are on ice, Katie Deighton reports, and that is changing most things about being a magician.

Illusionists are learning how to levitate on screen, choose a remote audience member and practice virtual sleight of hand—all without making people suspect they’re using technology to cheat.

Andrew Evans, founder of the San Francisco theater the Magic Patio, said he began filming his virtual shows with multiple cameras, but stripped back to a single camera set-up by fall. The move aims to focus on the magic, rather than calling attention to technology, which could make viewers suspicious.

“My job is to convince the audience early on that what they are seeing is not only impossible, but that it doesn’t take advantage of the medium,” Mr. Evans said. “They need to believe it’s exactly what they would see if we were together in person.”

There are some built-in benefits, however: Audience members are better behaved on Zoom, and magicians can mute hecklers.

Some hotels in crisis during the pandemic are being bought by investors and turned into rental apartments, Will Parker and Konrad Putzier report.

One such buyer, Vivo Living, is often looking at older motels with open-air corridors and staircases shunned by big hotel brands.

“There are so many of these exterior-corridor motels throughout the U.S., and it’s a functionally obsolete product type for the hotel industry,” said Dan Norville, president of Vivo Living. “But when you look at them, and you look at a garden-style multifamily right next to it, they’re almost the exact same property footprint and type.”

Twitter is trying out encouraging civil dialogue with “humanization prompts” telling users about the interests they share with people they’re replying to. [Mashable]

Twitter is also testing audio-only chat rooms, joining the growing ventures into new audio experiences. [TechCrunch]

Amazon’s Alexa will play Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas Day Message for those who ask, the first time a voice assistant has had direct access to the speech as it is broadcast. [Voicebot.ai] 

The Amazon Echo Show smart display, meanwhile, added Netflix to the services that users can stream by voice command. [XDA Developers]

Fitness studios being pushed to the brink by Covid are coming up with creative experiences to survive. [WSJ]