Stardew Valley

Instead of bouncing between "whatchu playing now" and the Switch thread, I prefer to put my wtf moments and remarks in one place with a clear label, the rest of you do as you please.

Apparently my farmer just appeared in a dream of Emily's (the woman who works at the saloon, with the blue hair) so my screen currently, as in right now, has a dialogue box that reads "El Guapo... There's something special about El Guapo" and tbf of the single townspeople I'm going after with the 2x weekly presents and daily interaction thing, Emily is the third string, backup's backup. Yes I named my farmer El Guapo. And his dog is El Alpo. This game is weird, though.

met another farmer at a mutual friends dinner party on saturday. we're both after Penny. i'm concentrating on honey, trees and cows. he's all about the mayo. apparently the mayo economy is superior?

this is best game.

been wanting this for ages but tbh I never got deep into Harvest Moon whenever I tried it

Did the HM games have a deep mine where you could go fight monsters after you got done watering the plants and chatting up the townspeople

there was definitely some kind of dungeoneering element to HM but I think I get stressed out when my crops fail to thrive

I kind of wish it had a troll option. I like gifting Shane my trash, but he refuses to throw down. I tried to use my watering can to put out the fire in the saloon’s fireplace, no luck. I (accidentally) ruined the soup at the luau, but nobody suspects it was me. What happens if start a bunch of campfires inside the Joja Mart? Can I put fake jobs on the cork board outside the store? (Why does this town have no Sheriff? Don’t tell me Gunther is also the chief law enforcement officer in addition to being the librarian, museum curator and the guy who cosplays every day as a Union cavalryman c.1860.)

Has anybody “lost” at this, like ran out of money and had to sell the farm and move back to a tiny rental?

:D Feeling u. I wish stuff like that for most of the games I've played in my life. For Mario to be able to say "fuck this endless running, I'm going to the pool".

I only dip into this game from time to time. I would play it more if I had a Switch I bet. But I'm almost through the first summer. Every time I try to do mining it's a real struggle to make progress and get to sleep at a reasonable hour. Don't have any farm animals yet :((

This'll sound beyond novice but it's a genuine question: what exactly is the appeal of this? Isn't this just a newer version of Farmville? Which was awful?

Y'all sound so... tranquil.. about it. I like tranquility. But not Farmville. What's going on here?

in my experience mining expeditions are a trade-off between gathering lots of ore and getting to the next elevator stop. you can't really do both in a day's work.

this is not a clicker

This'll sound beyond novice but it's a genuine question: what exactly is the appeal of this? Isn't this just a newer version of Farmville? Which was awful?

This game is basically ... what if the parts where you hang around in town in an RPG were the whole game? Farmville doesn't have any of that. Plus, Farmville is a relatively static experience, while this game gets bigger and more interesting as you go. Plus it has the simple storytelling of your evolving relationships with the townspeople. Plus, some combat!

Combat! Better, better.

Can one get off the track? Can you, say, be depressed and neglect your tasks? And still play on?

you can be depressed and neglect your tasks in real life as you listen to the soundtrack

Heh :)

I haven't quite finished the first spring yet but I'm already loving this. Just cashed out a big crop of potatoes and kale and trying to decide whether to reinvest in fruit trees or a chicken coop. These single player sandbox/sim games don't usually hook me but this one is so well paced and relaxed and has a lot of care put into it. Really inspiring that it was made entirely by one person.

I still want to know if anybody has lost at this, but I guess the fact that you can always start from $0 and get seeds and money from foraging means you can't, really. It's handy not being able to go into debt!

I'd like the option to completely fail tbh. With nothing on the line it feels like it takes away something from the exp?

this is the 13th day in a row that the voice has told you to quit the city and walk down the highway, alone. the sun never goes down all the way. the lake has dried up.

the original simcity's disasters should be an option for every game

I'd like the option to completely fail tbh.

personally i play games to get away from real life

Yes! And maybe not as drastic as that, but a "you should've tended to your bell peppers today but instead you watched reruns of Seinfeld all day, ate crisps in yoru pj's on the sofa, had a mediocre wank, so we really can't progress you to any next level" option would help, you know?

That was an xp

I get that NV, I do too, at times. Yet the glorious, shimmery successful sheen of games wherein you cannot fail only confronts me more with real life most of the time tbh.

(this is also why games mostly aren't for me, I realise, sorry for fucking up the thread)

game needs a The Lottery component

Nah LBI I just couldn't resist a lazy self-zing

I do play games to hang out in cool places more than to win tho

Gotcha man.

I do too. 'Hanging around' in games is underrated, also when it comes down to the play itself. To not forever be thrusted, moved forward in a rat race. I suppose I like "flawed games" best, in that respect.

I’m still holding out for hidden horror content, thanks Sufjan for the reminder

why do you need to win? not everything is a competition.

the point seems to be more about creativity. not winning and losing. you cannot die for a reason. there is no end date for a reason. there are however dozens of activities you can excel at combined with the underlying creativity of the Build Your Own Farm killer app that it is.

imo the only losing you can do is have the game on but not actually play it, just leave the character to endlessly starve in the middle of a static screen. you probably could do that on Twitch and get called a genius while raking into sub $$$ these das.

Re: hanging around, I’ve often felt the worst part of a lot of RPGs is when you get to the last scene of the last act in the narrative and the only real thing to do is fight the Big Bad. I just want to get acquainted with the late game NPCs and check in on my buddies from the villages to see how they’re doing, and not in the “hey, is your family still even alive now that I’ve backed an ancient evil into a corner and forced it to unleash hell across the landscape, upping the stakes for a dramatic, earth-wrecking climax?” sense.

More games need a free play epilogue, after you open the ultimate can on the ultimate boss and whup the demiurge’s ass. I think that might be what this game actually is, and hence the broad appeal.

I’m still waiting for the town to turn into Louran from Terranigma, though. Finally all that stone fencing I crafted (while 3/4 in the bag) could be useful.

Oh hi dere , didn't know there was a dedicated thread!

just found Penny lying in bed by herself at 7pm when its still light out, talking about how hard it is dealing with her mum's shit.

it's like the game is asking me "can you resist wanting to be mr super saviour?" and also "isn't that a bit psychologically unhealthy?"

lol I just remembered one of the first things I ever read about this game was a piece about Haley. Like why would you even

https://kotaku.com/a-video-games-unexpectedly-realistic-take-on-getting-re-1763300489

anyone who goes for haley deserves what they get

i have chosen to live as a hermit, only showing up in town to trade and roundly rebuffing social contact at every turn

art imitates life i guess

Every way of playing this game is #valid, unless you go the JojaMart route, in which case you’re a monster

i uh went that route

How could you

bg found the troll option

A couple of times I've come across Demetrius apparently futzing with the bushes in the park near the playground with a "..." bubble. Is the implication that he's peeing in the bushes?

Also, the dialogue in the cutscene where you go into Linus' tent, offscreen, seems packed with innuendo!

i had to, my farmer is neutral evil

Thinking about restarting before I get any further, since I regret taking the forest farm over the plain one after seeing pics of how tidy other people's farms look in comparison to mine

Finally dived into this last night on the Switch, which seems on contact to be pretty much the ideal system for the game. What's the best way to generate cash early on?

At the moment I'm just throwing all my cash into parsnips and beans and turning a tidy profit, but I feel like there's probably a more productive way to get rich quick?

not a really quick way but i concentrate on building things that give you constant product with minimal effort.

Fruit trees, bee hives, cows and chickens all give you things very regularly (daily for most of them) with very little effort.

make sure to upgrade your watering can when you can, but pick the day before a rainy day to give it in so you don't end up having
a day with no watering can...

This is what I meant about Demetrius and the bushes. Weird! https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/saw-demetrius-walk-into-a-bush-get-confused-and-run-from-it.116354/

how do you know when a rainy day is coming

gotta watch tv like a goddamn human

ok, so i brought this up a while back before a bunch of you started playing, BUT:

what do you all think of the idea of multiplayer? would it be fun to split tasks on a farm with someone? or would you rather be micro-managing everything? i kind of see myself drifting toward the latter in most cases, but i could see multiplayer stardew with my partner being veeeeery fun

Multiplayer is coming next year (first computers, then Switch, then other consoles). Online, not local. I think the model is one person starts the file as the main character and can have "farmhands" with their own huts on the farm and come help. Not sure if the farmhands can steal your boyfriend.

I assume it'll just be like Minecraft multiplayer where you just have multiple people working on building stuff in the same game instance but no additional systems or mechanics added other than the ability to hand off items? Minecraft has a much larger scale to it which I think makes it better for that type of coop gameplay. You can't really do anything with multiple people in Stardew that would be too much work for a single person.

Co-op dungeoning would be fun!

yeah - or just the ability to have one person dungeon/farm/forage all day while the other tends to tasks in the town, at the beach, etc

it's a bummer it can't be local/splitscreen, though. there's no way i'm gonna buy another ps4/display/copy of stardew of valley so that i can play a game with someone sitting on the same couch.

the slow death of local co-op is a real thing and it sucks

this is an idiotic theory but here me out:

is the slow death of split screen happening largely because of the format of modern displays, which are almost always widescreen? 420 caveats apply here, but think about it: in the old days, splitting a CRT squarish display would result in two pleasingly widescreen format viewing areas. splitting today's typical displays, though, which are already widescreen, results in either A) two very wide and short, unplayably widescreen areas, or B) two portrait-style (taller than wide) areas, which don't tend to work well with modern games which are designed for (of course) widescreen.

HEAR me out

oof, sorry

if this disturbing theory is correct, the only way to bring local multiplayer splitscreen back into fashion is to somehow push the display industry to make superwide displays, so that when they're split vertically they result in two normal widescreen areas. and doing THAT would require convincing the general public to buy superwidescreens that are visually repulsive for the sole benefit of playing local splitscreened games. which seems unlikely. fuck, there's no way but down in this age

Hacking multiplayer into a game that wasn't designed for it is tricky enough without the additional UI and game engine burdens of split screen

local multiplayer went out of fashion because of broadband internet and because it's at odds with graphics fetishism. i think the pendulum is probably swinging back currently with the rising popularity of tabletop gaming - there's clearly a growing audience for social interaction + gaming, but i don't know that it's the same people that are paying $60 for the annual mediocre assassins creed game or getting hooked by lootboxes.

Local multiplayer still works for small screens that you can hold in your hands and that share a LAN

like iPads or the Switch

I’m still looking for a local multiplayer Terraria buddy though

terraria was $3 on psn recently but the minecraftiness scared me off

I recommend it. The controls for mobile sucked at first but now I’ve got an apartment building with an attached cathedral with a rose window and an indoor pond and extra fuckoff doors so the goblin army can’t get in

Bought Terraria twice and didn't get on with it either time. Just feels a bit clumsy.

Finally got my ass kicked in the dungeon, that sucked a lot.

I'm guess I'm committed to opening all the packages in the old community center, though I'm not looking forward to the fishing bundles. Also, where the fuck did the Mayor leave his goddamn purple underwear?

Marnie's bedroom ;)

Spoilers I guess, sorry

new update! i think the load times are a lot faster.

i am almost at Christmas. i can't wait to be done with winter and get back to making a garden! in the meantime i have been building up my coops, bringing in chickens and cows. love this game =)

Accidentally chopping down an expensive, almost-mature fruit tree with a single swing of an upgraded axe is a bad feeling :(

when you have an upgraded axe, maybe the whole world starts looking like an expensive, almost-mature fruit tree, you know?

i have the axe in the shop now getting a steel upgrade.

Accidentally chopping down an expensive, almost-mature fruit tree with a single swing of an upgraded axe is a bad feeling :(

― Dan I., Monday, December 11, 2017 11:11 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i did this to 3-4 trees in a row before i figured out that it looks like any other tree you would cut down and i need to pay more attention. i lost like 10k to chopping down trees i had just planted :)

I keep taking way too long in between sessions with this game. I need to be a less busy person

I don't really get into the decorations and landscaping froofery, but now I see that putting a path or something around my orchard serves a useful purpose.

I continue to chip away. I got a Rarecrow at the fair; I finally bought chickens for my coop; and I am wondering where the Big Love cheat code is, because I cannot choose between the Scavenger Artist and the Trailer Park Schoolmarm.

I just started this during the weekend. 14 hours in, I'm still not sure if this game is actually "good" or like, just good-enough variation on bits of design from Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. It's slowly addictive... key being slow...

its a better harvest moon is all. good enough for me. the length of a single day is like perfectly timed to make it addictive

A year in. Soooo tempted to cheat more, I've already looked up some stuff on the wiki - especially for those fish that never seem to appear for the bundles.

I love this game. But I am in autumn of year two, and I have not caught a single fish. Lo, how I have tried. But I cannot do it. Fuck a chub.

You guys have made me feel better about myself

i'm the fishing golden boy. i have 2 left to finish off the fish tank bundles. i still can't get near the super slippery rare fish tho. i think you need to really plan ahead, have that fisherman's breakfast meal on hand. none of the tackles seem to really help.

xp oh god the fish thing drove me CRAZY until I finally understood you can hold down Button 1 instead of mashing it like a psycho

I know I can/should optimize my gardening by growing a single high yield crop in a staggered plan using strategic sprinklers. but I like the idea of growing a varied garden and making wacky dishes to sell back as i need cash. I am sure I will be in year 78 before I get shit right.

No dude playing this game ”optimally” is for wankers. Trust your instincts

I just.. I don't know why I'm so addicted to this game which is ostensibly super boring and repetitive

Starfruit?

i had to stop playing because i was losing days at a time to the lulling, hypnotic rhythm of it

of course now i'm similarly addicted to marvel puzzle quest

at least stardew doesn't have criminally-tempting in-app purchases :(

https://kotaku.com/black-panthers-director-is-very-into-stardew-valley-rig-1823243607

Oh no he’s hot

https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile/

it's finally happening!

https://kotaku.com/stardew-valley-s-multiplayer-has-been-worth-the-wait-1825656907

That explains why SD has blown back up on twitch. I promise to go back to playing it once I do everything else on my list of stuff

yeah i never finished my first year even

So I plumped for this and not regretting it so far.

Fishing is hard, but that's good.

And I cannot seem to get my fence gates to open.

..and will have to try out that multiplayer beta, my godson will be pleased to hear about this.

I started playing this again this week after dropping it for months (thanks Yakuza). Now I’m married to Abigail and I’ve got one of those irridium generators. I also constructed a cabin on my property without realising it was meant for a multiplayer friend, d’oh.

I also want to continue working on my friendships with people, but Abigail was sore about me giving pink cake to Haley.

Also, my cellar is full of cheese and wine and I want to produce more animal products but Marnie is never there.

https://www.fangamer.com/products/stardew-valley-guidebook
I bought this and it arrived today and it’s very lovely and useful.

I stopped playing for months again but am back on it again. Who should I marry next time?

go chaos mode and marry alex

that guidebook looks amazing. if i was 10 i would be absolutely obsessed with it

this is an addictive game. my 8-year-old daughter and i have been playing separate games of it and she's like a season ahead of me already. we bought her that book for a "good job on school this year" present

Have you tried multiplayer with her? I guess you’d have to have two switches, unless cross-platform multiplayer is a thing

i don't think we have a way we can do that

both of my kids are playing this now. the 8-year-old is zooming ahead and spoils everything that's going to happen for me. the 4-year-old makes a new character (we have to spell out whatever names she wants to give the character and farm letter by letter), plays about a day, then goes back and starts a new game to make another new character.

the 8-year-old mainly seems to be interested in building relationships. she already has sam as her boyfriend in year 2. she doesn't farm or mine or fish at all.

big update out. Anyone tried yet? Not ventured into finding out about it yet as i'm ready for bed but just saw it trending

new one from the stardew guy

Haunted Chocolatier early gameplay video: pic.twitter.com/dYws8GgsKB

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) October 21, 2021