Stardew Valley

ShneekeyTheLost

Too Much Free Time
Dec 8, 2012
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Lost as always
So, this game. It's made by Chucklefish, which gave me high expectations. And I'll admit, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it actually was.

In effect, your main character gets bored of being a cubicle jockey and opens up his grandfather's present, that being a deed to a farm out in the sticks, and decided on a change of pace.

For those who liked Agricraft and Pam's Harvestcraft, you will probably really like the farming aspect of this game. You've got several different types of crops to grow per season, however the majority of the crops won't carry over from one season to another, so you have to be careful to not plant too late or you may waste your cash on the seeds.

Until fairly solidly mid game, seeds are purchased from the local store, so you are looking at cash in versus cash out, plus various quests you might need some things for. Once you get a Seed Maker, however... things start to change. That's locked behind tier 9 Farming (out of a possible 10 tiers).

The 'main quest' revolves around the Community Center, which has various quests for spirits to accomplish and will yield various rewards. Much of the early-game quests revolve around what you can plant and forage, later quests tend to focus more on what you can craft from them.

There's a mine for plumbing the treasures of the earth, a smith who can use these treasures to upgrade your tools. A fairly deep mine, too. However, you've got an elevator that goes to every five levels, so you don't lose too much progress. Each section of the mine has its own resources that can be found. For example, soot-spirits are found down around 50ish and are a ready supply of coal.

There's also a social interaction side to the game, where you can become friends with and even get into relationships with some of the various members of the new community you have joined. You can even marry one of ten eligible individuals, five of each gender. It explicitly permits same-gender relationships too.

There is a very active modding community. In fact, I even saw King Lemming stick his nose into the modding forums (although I don't know if he was involved at all in any of the mods himself). They're coming out with an API called Storm which has been likened to Forge for Minecraft, so expect more mods as they develop.

I will warn you: this game will steal your life. You start playing, then suddenly it is four hours later. This is subtly encouraged by the game saving system (only saving when your character sleeps) and how it keeps dangling something you want to do the next day. It's the 'just one more ...' syndrome. You wouldn't think a game about watching crops grow to be so engaging, but you have enough other things you can do that it really is.