Stardew Valley - review @ Destructoid

joxer · March 8, 2016

I guess you just like farming.

Dunno how much I net from fishing but estimated it's 2-3K per day. Of course I don't fish all day long - I go fishing mostly when fortune teller says it's my lucky day so I'm out to seek treasures in the water.

Watering plants is easy as pie. Get some metals and improve tools. Instead of one by one place you get AoE with improved tools. Improved hoe comes nifty during winter where with (iron? gold?) holdbutton you dig 3x3 square at once - and there are items under the show those worms don't mark! Don't dig snow just on your farm, there are items under it also at the beach and in area where the train is.

Since you got rich by farming, you don't have to go dungeons just buy ore at blacksmith. Well… Copper and iron… For gold you will still have to mine. Or go fishing then loot it from treasure chests like I do.

And visit gypsy in woods. Friday and Sunday. Sometimes he sells sprinklers. Best ones. Apparently, you have enough $ for those.

Oh and things asked in Community Center bundles… I filled cheese and goat milk spots although I don't have those animals at all. You got it right, I bought those products from gypsy when were available.
I do keep chicken - because eggs. Everyone likes eggs so I'm using those as universal gift (except Sebastian, dunno what he wants, nor care so far).

Farming game with this/that elements it probably is for some. For me… Farming simply isn't the major aspect. Not saying I don't plant anything, I do, I need some things for Community Center bundles, but am I getting rich on farming? Absolutely not. Tend a few crops then leave me alone and lemme explore more. I need more ancient seed to get before I go some serious farming. And even then, it'll be when I unlock the greenhouse and grow blueberries during whole year.

Hexprone · March 9, 2016

joxer said:
And visit gypsy in woods. Friday and Sunday. Sometimes he sells sprinklers. Best ones.

Holy ****! The best thing he had when I visited was a single unusual seed, so I haven't been back. Setting up a sprinkler system is my project for the winter, and I'd expected to be working the mine for ore every day.

arthureloi · March 9, 2016

Sprinklers help a lot. Also, if you find feeding the animals boring, the deluxe coops and barns autofeed them as long as you have stocked hay.

joxer · March 9, 2016

I feed them only during rainy days, but probably for the winter when they can't eat outside I will have to go deluxe coop.
Just coop. As said, I have absolutely no interest in keeping cows and pigs. Not yet at least. I bought the coop when 1st year passed. Didn't want it before.
And I have three silo. Filled to the top. Overkill I know, but I just wanted to be sure.

arthureloi · March 9, 2016

I really like animal breeding so I invested on them a lot. I found that manufacturing stuff from animal products earns a pretty good amount of constant cash, with the added benefit of working on winter too.

joxer · March 9, 2016

But it's a chore plus I used the first winter to mine/woodcut/fish.

But okay if deluxe feeds them automatically... Will upgrade coop first thing tomorrow.

ChienAboyeur · March 9, 2016

joxer said:
I guess you just like farming.
Dunno how much I net from fishing but estimated it's 2-3K per day. Of course I don't fish all day long - I go fishing mostly when fortune teller says it's my lucky day so I'm out to seek treasures in the water.

Watering plants is easy as pie. Get some metals and improve tools. Instead of one by one place you get AoE with improved tools. Improved hoe comes nifty during winter where with (iron? gold?) holdbutton you dig 3x3 square at once - and there are items under the show those worms don't mark! Don't dig snow just on your farm, there are items under it also at the beach and in area where the train is.

Since you got rich by farming, you don't have to go dungeons just buy ore at blacksmith. Well… Copper and iron… For gold you will still have to mine. Or go fishing then loot it from treasure chests like I do.

And visit gypsy in woods. Friday and Sunday. Sometimes he sells sprinklers. Best ones. Apparently, you have enough $ for those.
Oh and things asked in Community Center bundles… I filled cheese and goat milk spots although I don't have those animals at all. You got it right, I bought those products from gypsy when were available.
I do keep chicken - because eggs. Everyone likes eggs so I'm using those as universal gift (except Sebastian, dunno what he wants, nor care so far).

Farming game with this/that elements it probably is for some. For me… Farming simply isn't the major aspect. Not saying I don't plant anything, I do, I need some things for Community Center bundles, but am I getting rich on farming? Absolutely not. Tend a few crops then leave me alone and lemme explore more. I need more ancient seed to get before I go some serious farming. And even then, it'll be when I unlock the greenhouse and grow blueberries during whole year.

The product is about maxing out everything that can be maxed out.

Skipping a career is a bad idea. One way to do is to push farming off, just farming what is necessary to complete goals and have at least one single copy of each item.
Adventuring, mining and fishing must be completed first.

arthureloi said:
Sprinklers help a lot. Also, if you find feeding the animals boring, the deluxe coops and barns autofeed them as long as you have stocked hay.

You still must speak to animals on a daily basis.

joxer · March 9, 2016

I "speak" to chicken daily just to get their hearts maxed. Reasons?
1. They lay big eggs instead of small ones
2. With many hearts, you may sell chicken for a great price (if you want to and I don't, yet)

Storing one copy of each item is not enough. I store 5 of each because I had a few "radiant" quests where one item was asked for by several villagers.
However the game is set so you don't have to do those quests if you don't want to, but most of them add a full heart to NPC so you don't have to bother with talking/gifting much.
Also some are pretty challenging. For example you're asked to bring a red snapper in next 48 hours, but if you don't have it stored already, it might happen as an impossible task. These fish appear only during rainy days in ocean. Without ran calling totem at your disposal, noone guarantees you'll be able to catch one at all.

With minerals however it's enough to store 2 copies after you get/build a machine that doubles any mineral. So one you'll use to solve a quest, and you'll put another to be copied. This includes donating a mineral to museum, if it's something superrare, no gifting till you copy it.

arthureloi · March 9, 2016

Chien, the way I see it, you're not obliged to do anything you don't want to in these kinds of games. It's not a competition. There are no deadlines. You don't have to turn your farm into the most lucrative possible enterprise. Leave that to farming simulator.

I see it as a laid back, do whatever you like thing. If you'd just like to fish and interact with people, go ahead, you can do it. Animal breeding is your thing (personally, I love it)? Go ahead. What about just cutting wood and selling it? You can do that too.

Part of the charm of this game is letting you develop (or not) however you like. You shouldn't follow a path that does not please you. Not in this game. If you're interpreting this as min maxing, I think you're quite off mark here.

Swann · March 9, 2016

Reading about all this tricks and strategies to maxing things, I have discovered why I like so much this game. You do not need to be an Überfarmer. You can simply relax and do the things you want. You can earn more money as farmer than Joja CEO, but you can simply be a normal farmer and/or a mediocre miner. You can marry or not, you can be the most popular of Stardew Valley or a lonely misanthropic. You don´t die if you choose the loser or the aurea mediocritas way.

purpleblob · March 9, 2016

Definitely! I'm playing two different characters. My first one is trying to be friendly and rich uber farmer whereas second character is super popular but poor mediocre flower farmer.

Hexprone · March 9, 2016

Unfortunately my completionism prevents me from feeling this freedom. I didn't want to raise pigs, but one of the Community Center donation bundles has a truffle in it, so I sighed and upgraded my barn...

I'm a prisoner of the grind, even when it comes to pixelated vegetables!

rune_74 · March 10, 2016

This isn't a kids game....not really, but it can be if your kids want to play it, lots of adult humor hidden in the game.

The fact one person made this and it is so good I have no problem with them giving it a 9.5. The fact the dev personally helps people who are having problems(I haven't had any)

He plans on adding MP and other things as the game goes on, I don't think he is done by any means....

On steam alone it has sold over 350k...that is amazing so far in my book, and I'm willing to bet he gets over 1 million total sales.

joxer · March 10, 2016

Hexprone said:
Unfortunately my completionism prevents me from feeling this freedom. I didn't want to raise pigs, but one of the Community Center donation bundles has a truffle in it, so I sighed and upgraded my barn…

Tell me nothing.
I've been visiting the gypsy so many times I can't remember, bought pretty much everything I didn't have (and didn't even expect he'll offer!) there, but he never ever sells truffles. Different milk, fish, veggies, fruit… Even iridium sprinklers, rare herb from hidden forest and +3 luck dish sometime appears in his store, but truffle absolutely never ever.

So yesterday I finally built that bloody barn.

Doesn't mean I'll grow dozens of pigs in it. One and that's it.

ChienAboyeur · March 11, 2016

arthureloi said:
Chien, the way I see it, you're not obliged to do anything you don't want to in these kinds of games. It's not a competition. There are no deadlines. You don't have to turn your farm into the most lucrative possible enterprise. Leave that to farming simulator.

A grinder is a grinder, coming to a grinder for something else than grinding, especially when so little beside grinding is offered.

I see it as a laid back, do whatever you like thing. If you'd just like to fish and interact with people, go ahead, you can do it. Animal breeding is your thing (personally, I love it)? Go ahead. What about just cutting wood and selling it? You can do that too.

It is a grinding laid back in the way that it requires so few skills it might be done without giving thought to it. All it takes (with a controller) is to press down one button. Beside, the risk-reward thing is low, the environment is secure, as long as the player grinds, the player is rewarded.

That is how it is a laid back experience as a grinder as it requires no skills to grind (a record as the grinder genre already does not require much skill)
Excellent time sinker, comparable to tv as it gets the same level of involvement.

Its design disqualifies it from being a laid back something else as everything is capped through money and time.

Some games are laid back, they usually offer the player everything that is needed from the start or quickly enough for the player not to bother about acquiring and focus on what they want to do.

SV is the opposite of a do what you want product. It is a grinder governed by the rule of grinding fastest, biggest is not yet big and fast enough.

In SV, a player must wait dozens of hours before being given an access

Part of the charm of this game is letting you develop (or not) however you like. You shouldn't follow a path that does not please you. Not in this game. If you're interpreting this as min maxing, I think you're quite off mark here.

It is about maxing everything that be maxed out out.
It is interpretated that way because that is what the product is about.

joxer · March 11, 2016

ChienAboyeur said:
It is about maxing everything that be maxed out out.
It is interpretated that way because that is what the product is about.

No.
It's you who is "about maxing everything that be maxed out". We, who play and enjoy the game, couldn't care less about maxing everything. If we did, we'd remove "no respawn" mod and continue to grind in FO4 after finishing it.

arthureloi · March 11, 2016

joxer said:
No.
It's you who is "about maxing everything that be maxed out". We, who play and enjoy the game, couldn't care less about maxing everything.

Exactly. As a matter of fact, I think he just proved our point.

Hexprone · March 11, 2016

I'm only four seasons into the game, but so far much of the plot (such as it is) has been tied to community center unlocks, which require you to pursue all forms of production.

I understand that you can join the corporate baddies and buy the stuff for the same effect, but if you just bumble along doing what you like and don't make an effort to unlock all the bundles, how different would your experience of the story be in the long term?

So far I've only seen one plot point that was time-based rather that being tied to meeting specific conditions in what you produce.

Wisdom · March 12, 2016

joxer said:
Tell me nothing.
I've been visiting the gypsy so many times I can't remember, bought pretty much everything I didn't have (and didn't even expect he'll offer!) there, but he never ever sells truffles. Different milk, fish, veggies, fruit… Even iridium sprinklers, rare herb from hidden forest and +3 luck dish sometime appears in his store, but truffle absolutely never ever.

So yesterday I finally built that bloody barn.
Doesn't mean I'll grow dozens of pigs in it. One and that's it.

http://prntscr.com/ae46hx

The wonders of RNG.
First time, and don't have enough cash to buy it.

Hexprone · March 12, 2016

In other news, I just collapsed unconscious at 2:00 a.m. because my cat was curled up between me and the bed, and when I tried to shove her aside she just started glitching out and wouldn't move.

In short, this game is too much like real life.

Stardew Valley - review @ Destructoid

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