Game Review: Stardew Valley

A One-Man game that gives me hope for One-Man games.

It would be pointless for me to review a game in the same way that typical gamer-ish websites and magazines would so I’m not going to try. This post is only supposed to be a few of my personal views about Stardew Valley.

Having made a few games now I am finding that when I play a game these days I can never stop myself from seeing the cogs and gears and other inner workings. These are sometimes texture glitches or freely available textures that I myself have used popping up in AAA games. Those always give me a giggle. Other times I find that I end up seeing the game’s mechanics in a different light than the average consumer might see them, assuming they are aware of them at all. Whether it’s seeing the little flaws like that or even admiring the craftsmanship of the game and mentally taking notes about things that I like this automatic ‘peering behind the curtain’ can be super annoying as it very much takes you out of the moment.

However none of this happens for me with Stardew Valley.

The Main Reason you Should Play Stardew Valley:

This game just pulled me in. All the way in. And even though I can still see tiny flaws in many parts of the game (the whole combat system maybe?) those flaws simply don’t bother me. Not in the least. If anything they make me love the game all the more. Love has always been like that for me in many ways. There are flaws in people and movies and games and in all things really; but if I love something, the flaws are either a big part of that love itself, or at the worst they go unseen.

Stardew Valley has plenty of flaws. Glitches, dead end skill trees, balance issues, some main mechanics that get in your way almost constantly (ever destroy a plant with your pick? Yeah me too…hundreds of times). But despite its flaws the game itself is so damn charming and beautiful that I could probably forgive it for anything.

For one thing, I find it impossible to stay mad at a game that has an actual story. With an actual message. I don’t even care all that much about the message myself, but playing a game in which the characters feel real and the struggle you are going through feels truthfully motivated by real-world factors is lovely. And on top of that, somehow all of that story, all of those characters and all of those motivations are not intensely depressing which is just so damn refreshing.

Stories that reflect reality are so often about the most dramatic and depressing parts of this daily shit we all go through called life. We all know that life often feels like climbing a mountain with broken legs, but equally-so, it feels pretty dang great sometimes. And those good times have stories too. Stories that so often go untold. Even though struggle is ever present, we don’t always have to let it break us.

For me, this is one the parts of Stardew Valley that keeps me coming back again and again. In Stardew Valley all the characters, and the stories that are told around them, look at both the darker parts of life and all the beautiful ones too. And even the exact moments where those two extremes intersect. And they show how even though bad things can happen in our lives we can always keep moving forward and improving our lot.

I would provide examples of places where this happens in the game but to be honest, after reading in a wiki some of the main story points myself before experiencing them, I feel like you would be best served seeing them fresh, without spoilers. And if you have played it at all before reading this you will probably know that practically every line of dialogue in the game is like this. Fraught with struggle, even the small every-day type struggles, but at the same time filled with hope and promise for the future. All while being fairly light-hearted but still carrying a potent and relevant overarching message about modern day consumerism.

The game mechanics however I can spoil the hell out of.

The Tightrope of Player Guidance and Hand-Holding.

One of the most lovely things that Stardew Valley gets right is ensuring that the player can never really make a wrong choice, but all the while making the player feel like their choices carry serious weight, both narratively and mechanically. As with almost every farming simulation ever devised the core game loop is as so; player plants seeds, grows plants, harvests plants, sells harvest, buys many more seeds or more valuable seeds and repeats the process.

The most obvious pitfall here is: what happens if the player throws their harvest away? Maybe they failed to water or otherwise maintain the plants. Maybe they intentionally destroyed the plants for some reason. Maybe they chose a sub-optimal crop and have earned far less than the developer might have expected at a certain amount of game time. Either way if the player has no current funds, and has no potential income the game will grind to a halt.

Now most entries into this genre do have some way to deal with this. They usually involve grabbing the player by the hand and all-but forcing them to understand the basic strategy and play the game the way the developer wants them to play. But in contrast to that Stardew Valley has one of the most elegant implementations of player guidance I have yet to see. Simply enough, if you mess up and end up with no money, it doesn’t matter.

Why doesn’t it matter? Well I could say that it’s because of the numerous other income streams that exist besides farming, things like fishing, mining and foraging all of which can make you a decent buck, enough to buy another small crop at least. But really, having other limited income streams is fairly basic and most of these games have a similar system. The improvement that Stardew Valley has made (which might not be exclusive to this title, I’m unsure, but it certainly is one of the largest reasons that I have put so many hours into the game) is that at the end of the day, you, as a player, have exactly zero time pressure.

The normal idea with this sort of game, ever since Harvest Moon way back on the SNES, was that you have about two years of game time to do everything you want to do. After which you are essentially graded and scored, weighed and measured. And usually found wanting. However the whole point of farming games like this, at least in modern times, is to have a stress free chillout session. To just enjoy petting your digital cows and romancing your digital love interest and watering your nice little plants. Who the hell has ever wanted to rush, rush, rush and get everything done and earn optimal money on every crop and go super hard to maximise every in-game minute?

Well the answer is… a lot of people actually. Playing perfect optimal games has also been a staple of the genre for nearly as long as it has existed. But it has also been a number one annoyance for many players. In fact it’s probably the most hotly debated element of the genre on most forums; should you play a relaxed game where you don’t care about how much you made each day, just chill out and enjoy the game, design nice layouts, do all the side activities and all that nice stuff. Or should you be trying to earn the most cash you possibly can in the first season? Always trying to beat the record and make the most money in the least time possible? To me, the question here is really about the intentions of developer, what market are you trying to cater to? More often than not, as a developer it can be pretty difficult to create an experience that is everything to everyone.

However in Stardew Valley, because the time pressure isn’t enforced by the game itself you can switch gears whenever and however you want with no perceived loss of standing in the game. You can play for a year of game time just chilling out and enjoying yourself (approx. 30 real hours of play time). You can then decide that you want to buy some of the more expensive buildings in the game and go through your second year (or even just one season perhaps) trying to get the absolute most out every grid-square of your farm. And you can swap back and forth between these two gears however and whenever you like. And with that small detail the game actually manages the often impossible task of being all things to all players. And for me at least, it manages to be even more than that.

I should probably explain that I’m a pretty fickle person sometimes. You might ask me one day, ‘Hey Ben! Do you like [insert brand name] candy bars?’. And I might respond with ‘Hell yeah! I love those so much!’. And then a few months later you might offer me one of said candy bars, since you bought too many and don’t want to feel fat. And I will say ‘Gross! I hate those bars!’ I have been informed that this is one of the most infuriating parts of my personality, but I’m pretty sure I top this all the time. I can be a bit of a shit.

But this flippy-floppy part of me is ever-present. One day I love something, next day I hate it. This only really applies to entirely irrelevant choices like food preferences or Australian political candidates. But it is still annoying even to me. Anyway, Stardew Valley, probably without intending to (but who knows), manages to cater perfectly to my ever changing internal desires. I can go super hard and research what the most profitable crops are and plant out a huge field of them. Or I can spend hours and hours of game time trying to organise my field plots and barns and chicken coops so they look just right and then spend some time fishing, even though you earn much less dosh that way.

All the while I feel like I am in control, I am making all my own choices about what crops to plant and what to do with each day of game time. But in reality the game is directing me towards every little option that I can experience. And it ensures that no matter what crops I buy, or what skills I choose (still some balancing to do with the skills though I admit), I will still have a good game of Stardew Valley. I won’t get 30 hours into the game and just feel like my whole farm is rubbish and that I should just delete my save and start again. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s rubbish. It’s still mine. And I can always change it and fix it. And it doesn’t matter how many times I rip up all my sprinklers and redesign my whole farm. I don’t lose any standing or progress in the game.

This also appeals to the inner OCD sufferer within me since if I hate something about the way I’ve setup my farm I can fix it right then and there and not feel like I’m wasting my time or ruining my end game or any such horrible thing.

Final Words

I guess this is the normal place in a review where you might see an arbitrary fraction. Often in the form of stars for whatever reason. Or perhaps this is where you might see the sentence ‘if you enjoy other [insert game genre here]’s then you’ll certainly enjoy this one’!

Well neither of those things bare any actual meaning and I’m not a damn shill trying to convince you to spend your cash. There are no ugly advertisements all up and down the sides of this article nor endless fields of them below. At the end of the day, if this game sounds awesome and you have some spare cash you might play it. Or you might not. I really don’t care either way.

All I’ll say on the matter is that this game was made by a single person. It has already had a free content update that was the size of a premium DLC. It is relaxing and beautifully crafted and most important of all it is fun. If any of that sounds like a good time to you then by all means go for it. Get lost in the world of Stardew Valley and enjoy every minute of it.