The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss Stardew Valley. What aspects do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? Are there other games that gave you similar feelings? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
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I love this game (500 hours played), but I have to bring up a point of criticism…
One aspect which has not aged well IMHO is the “kindness coin” mechanic: The exchange of goods for the NPCs’ friendship and/or affection. You give the NPCs stuff, then you give them more stuff, then some more on top, then you get a cut scene and then you get back to giving them stuff until you trigger the next one.
Yes, the requests on the blackboard and the occasional personal quest mix up things a little bit, but overall the mechanic remains the same and for me over the years this has cheapened the interaction with the NPCs for me somewhat: They are mostly transactional and predictable to the point where you can calculate their outcome.
You have to give character A so-and-so many objects X to romance them. It takes so-and-so many days to do that.Sure, the “kindness coins” mechanic was industry standard at the time, but I wish there were more variety in regards to the interactions with the NPCs, because they are amazingly written and I wish there was more to do with them besides giving them stuff over and over again.
I’m sure he’ll probably use a different mechanic for Haunted Chocolatier, probably too late to change it for Stardew Vallery, given it’s age and the existing complexity of the game.
Are there games which don’t use this mechanic? Might be interesting to check out.
The most famous one ATM is probably “Baldur’s Gate 3” which offers a wide variety of mechanics and stats to measure if an NPC member of the player’s party is romantically interested in the player character. Two examples given in the talk I linked are the VNs “Monster Prom” or “First Bite”.
My understanding of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that everybody is romantically interested in the player character.
Maybe I’m just a catch?
Yes and no. Like in Stardew Valley, technically you can romance every NPC in your party, but in practice you have to meet certain criteria to do so and those differ from character to character. Of course, it is possible to “game” that system.
If you haven’t played since relatively early in it’s release, I believe that was a bug that has now been fixed.
Hmm…440 hours on Steam…probably another 125 on the Switch…
I love this game. It’s so cozy and comfortable. I found SDV after my divorce just when it had originally released and I was drawn into the cute world and how much character oozes from every corner. Every person you meet has something going on or you can just be a weird hermit building out your farm in peace. There’s enough of a story to propel you forward but never overbearing and it gets out of the way when it’s “done”.
As time has gone on from my first playthrough, I’ll typically dive back in when the itch strikes or a new content update comes along. The last few playthroughs I’ve done a lot to mod the game and introduce new things into the world to discover, some of which just feels indistinguishable from the official content and others that just help reduce barriers that I want to skip over (like fishing).
Stardew Valley is a game I will likely always go back to. I’m sure it will eventually eclipse my current most played game (Team Fortress 2 @ ~800 hours). I’ve tried other games like it and while they’re fun, none seem to have the staying power that Stardew has over me. While I will absolutely check out his next game, I’m hoping Stardew Valley never really stops being updated over the years.
One of my all time favorite games from a wonderful developer. Haley, my beloved.
Yes! Haley is the best, tho sometimes Abigail can make me reconsider 🤭
Abigail is best girl
Oh man.
I put way too much time into this game. I’ve never hit the post grandpa endgame stuff (because it wasn’t really there at the time) but I have hit the grandpa milestone on each farm type.
Weirdly enough, the farm always ends up being an ancient fruit brewery by the time I’m done. Speaking of, I’d better boot up my newest save and throw some of those fruits into the seed machine, that greenhouse won’t fill itself! Game’s alright.
It’s been a while, but here is another “Let’s discuss” post! I hope everybody is doing fine and these posts are still appreciated :).
I haven’t played this myself, but I know so many people who are extremely passionate about it that it felt like a good candidate! Looking forward to all of your musings!
It’s an incredible game, a love letter to all the best aspects of the Harvest Moon series. My only real gripe is the NPC characters can feel a little stale and robotic after a while, but during a first playthrough they are all full of life.
You should try that mod that adds thousands of lines of lore-friendly dialogue across all NPCs.
Thank you for keeping these up. I enjoy seeing these threads a lot.
As to stardew, I’ve only played a little bit, never past the first season pretty much. I’m not one to play it solo and group session always die very quickly. When most of my friends are unemployed or don’t work full 9-5, it’s hard to coordinate with them.
That all said, I love this game and it does so much right and Dev is awesome. This game feels to me like a lot of what game companies should strive to be.
Stardew Valley is the game that keeps on giving. At this point, I wish there was just more. More towns to visit, more activities, more everything.
The only thing that does kind of suck is that after year 1 I feel like I’ve kind of mastered whatever I was attempting to do. I’ve heard some people say after year 1 is where they enjoy the game the most, but idk I feel like by that point I’m making more money than I need and the only thing left to do is collect stuff or attempt the skull cavern.
But man. That first year is a blast. I’ve been thinking I should try out more mods or possibly a jojamart run at some point
i’ve poured hours upon hours into this game. it’s just a chill game (if you want it to be), and it’s fun to keep track of stuff to collect, talk to the NPCs, and go fight some baddies occasionally.
I enjoyed a lot of the game objectives… Automating the farm, going to the bottom of the mine and the desert thing, completing the community center, courting a spouse etc.
A lot of the grindy bits weren’t as fun, such as missing some season-specific cutscene or event and not having the exact right item, the feeling of needing to speed grow certain crops at the beginning of each season, etc.
Overall it was a chill and positive experience. The music is awesome, character interactions not too laborious. This game plays great on SteamDeck and with proper settings it sips battery. For a long flight, I would pair this title with stuff like Animal Well, Dead Cells, and Cave Blazers.
I am absolutely addicted to this game. Summer year 3
Mining is fun
Cavern is a bitch
Coffee go brr
Fuck joja
Its a really relaxing game
I really want to love this game. The artstyle is amazing, the music and sound effects are to die for, it’s truly magnificent. However, the gameplay seems too mechanic for me, like there’s no actual freedom to the game, you need to do these tasks on these days at these times or else you’re playing it wrong.
To be fair, that’s just the culture that’s come up around the game. You have to plan how you play if you want to “win” in the first 2 years, but the only thing you get is a few candles lit in your backyard, and you can still “win” in later years if you play more slowly. You absolutely can just plant some stuff around a sprinkler, sleep until they are grown, and do everything you want to do without being at all efficient with it
100% agree, i personally just don’t enjoy that background feeling that i have saying I’m doing this wrong and the stress i feel over having to get certain things done everyday. i already feel enough of that outside of videogames, I’d rather my time spent gaming to be an escape from the norm. Love the game, love the community, heck I play it semi-regularly, it’s just not my cup of tea, that’s all!
I realy love it. Its just so chill to play, but at the same time can get realy grindy
The weird thing about Stardew Valley is I cannot understand why I don’t like it. I’ve tried to like it. I’ve poured many hours into games in the same genre, but I haven’t even managed to get 2 hours into Stardew Valley and I do not understand why. I can’t point at anything in particular that doesn’t work for me, and it’s exactly the kind of game I love to play, so I’m honestly perplexed as to why I don’t like it.
The forced day-night cycle timer perhaps?
I don’t think so. My Time at Portia has a day-night cycle and I love that game.
The first time I tried my time at Portia, I found building stuff took forever. I was trying to build a bridge(iirc?) And I felt like it was just going to be a lot of waiting. Was I playing it wrong?
The first time I played My Time at Portia, I had the same issue, and it felt like it took ages and ages to do the bridge. It was much easier on subsequent playthroughs. Basically what I did was build about 6 furnaces to get the crafting going early on, and always had at least 2 of each subsequent crafting station (more as space and resources allowed, although there were a few that just one was sufficient for. Making sure you get a crafting commission every day really helps as well, because that’s your main source of income, which makes it easier to afford more land, inventory upgrades, etc. Fishing is also ridiculously lucrative once you get good at it.
What my Portia daily routine normally looks like is something like this:
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Wake up, check mail (if any).
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Grab resources that have crafted overnight (if any).
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Go to town hall and pick a commission, looking for something that I have most or all of the materials to craft. The plan is to get it made and delivered that day if possible, so if there’s a choice of something that doesn’t pay well but can be done immediately or something that pays better but will take 2-3 days to make happen, I pick the low paying one.
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Check map to see if any locals have quests that day. If they do, go and get the quests.
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Go home and craft the commission item, plus any items required by other quests picked up that day. If any crafting stations have finished production, set them going again.
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Deliver crafted item to recipient(s).
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Gather resources for the rest of the day. I usually pick one activity and stick to it, say mining, fishing, hunting (the sound of dying colourful llamas makes me sad, but I want their pelts), etc.
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Check crafting stations when stamina has run out. Set more crafting going if needed.
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Go to bed.
The other thing is that the big “main” quests for building those major projects aren’t necessarily meant to be done quickly, as they’re the bigger story events that gate your progress through the game. Once I stopped trying to get them done as quickly as possible, and let myself get sidetracked on other stuff, I enjoyed the game a lot more. I spent quite a lot of time just spending whole days on, say, just mining, or harvesting wood, or fishing, while ignoring the bridge entirely. (I actually think I spent about two weeks fishing once. I got really, really into it. It then took me another week to sell them all.) By the time I thought “oh yeah, I should do that bridge thing”, I had more than enough of all the resources needed, and then it felt really quick to do. I ignored quite a lot of main quests for a really long time, including one that narratively I should have done much quicker. Let’s just say that
spoiler
Portia went without clean drinking water for so long that everybody should have died
Speaking purely from my own experience, the mistake I made with My Time at Portia the first time I played it was I was too focused on being goal-oriented by following the main quest. But the game’s not really about that. I had a much better time when I slowed down, focused less on the main quest, and more on crafting stuff for the locals (so many stone stools) and selling them preposterous amounts of fish.
Sorry for the late reply! This is an incredibly extensive list, thank you so much! I’ll have to give the game another go at some point here. It seems super charming, so maybe if I go into it with this added knowledge, I’ll be able to get my bearings. Have you tried the new game that just released a while back? I think it was called my time at Sandrock?
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I love the game, but I like extremely slow progress, so I use mods and modify the wealth multiplier(?) as well in the vanilla to make it more challenging. I also really love mods that add content, and there are quite a few out there! it’s annoying to always update mods manually (as compared to the steam workshop) but I did really enjoy when I was playing with my partner and we had 30+ mods!
a family member who I’m close to who also plays Stardew Valley likes to refer to me playing “Dark Souls Stardew Valley” which I thought was funny, especially because I’m terrible at Dark Souls.
overall I really like the game on it’s own. it helps that ConcernedApe has kept adding to it even though he absolutely doesn’t have to (it’s a big game as it is!) and I appreciate him for that. I do get a tiny bit stressed about the timer on days (notably when I’m playing with someone else and they’re really stretching the time thin) but it’s a very, very small thing. I had never played Harvest Moon or any other farming sim games before SDV, so I have no point to compare, but I just really appreciate the game being chill and a change of pace from games I’d usually play, that are almost entirely based on combat.
