Stardew Valley

About the Game

Players are given an online journal in which their current tasks are inscribed: the successful completion of each ensures that you can claim your reward – so satisfying to click to claim! – and see the next task come up.

In the extremely simplified calendar, there are four seasons, each lasting about twenty eight days and within each season certain tasks should be done, and certain crops can be grown. It is impossible to grow products out of season without the greenhouse. Use your journal as an in-game guide and to-do list to ensure you water what needs watering, plant those crops that need to go in that particular month-season, and harvest those that are ready.

Be careful not to become too exhausted when you leave the farm without food to hand – if you run out of energy, you will need to spend a sizeable amount of gold to be transported home to recover. A large amount of gold and a number of your precious inventory items will be taken too, which should be warning enough for most people not to do it more than once!

Multiplayer Benefits

While the game works very well as a solo player game, the addition of multiplayer some time after the initial release was an excellent idea. You and your real life friends can form a farming community online, working next to each other, gifting each other excess produce and crafted items and working the land to create what feels surprisingly like a real community in which everyone works hard and gets the benefit of friendship and extra goodies when they are needed.

Stands the Test of Time

Sometimes these farming (or building or construction etc) simulation games can be great at first, with plenty of engagement initially, that sooner or later dies down into boredom at doing the same old things all the time, creating the same items and farming the same crops. Stardew has niftily avoided this by keeping the immersion levels high in a number of ways:

• Go on a date: The village is full of surprisingly realistic characters, some of whom will like you, while others avoid you and need to be pursued in order to get chatting to them. You can date an NPC in this game, wooing them and bringing them to live at your farm with you.
• Build a bridge: As you progress in the game, previously broken bridges are repaired, giving you access to new areas of the game where you can forage, clear the land and generally explore about a bit. There are other ways to expand too – do not neglect the old bus station!
• Mine for gold: Finding a sword leads your character into a mine, where they best increasingly more powerful enemies the further into the mine they descend. Booting the enemies out of the mine, gives you metals, which you can use for new crafts, including some astonishingly sophisticated items.
• Keep on farming: The daily grind does continue, with your loyal journal giving you a nudge whenever you need it, but even here there are new crops to plant, new techniques to master and new recipes to gather the ingredients for, keeping your interest high enough to keep coming back, day after day to feed the chickens, plant the seeds, harvest the crops…