What does "Mild Language" mean? (From ESRB rating)

[Teralitha]

Im wondering what kinds of things my kid would see in the game.

[Homer Morisson]

From what I've seen so far, and be mindful that it will contain early game minor to medium spoilers potentially:

There is a homeless person that has to root through trash to survive, but the village community so far (I'm still in the first season) shows bucketloads of compassion when finding hobo dude out, haven't seen any trace of mobbing, not even passive aggressive stuff.

There are also topics revolving around social and financial standing among the not-homeless villagers, with one family living in a trailer, while others live in shiny and quite expansive houses.

A very central tropic, at least early on but I expect throughout the game, also is local store owners getting sabotaged and bullied by a big corporation trying to muscle their way into the village by employing openly hostile business tactics, but that's more implied than outright "verbally" communicated.

For example the store manager of the franchise invader comes into the local village store, inside the store, and starts bribing the local store owner's customers with 50% on everything vouchers... openly hostile maneuvering, but the language remains, on the surface, perfectly civil, while as an adult or otherwise intellectually more advanced person (compared to a young child), you won't be be able to miss the extreme cynicism and sarcasm which that exchange entailed.

Your avatar can also sometimes engage in multiple choice dialogues, and there are some mildly confrontational choices, but even those are still very much child-friendly.

For example, a seemingly stereotypical "jock" tells you that he'd love to play catch right now, but that you didn't look like you could put up much of a challenge.

You then get three choices, two that continue this relationship event, one that aborts it, and that's the confrontational one, but a) even that is just "What's that supposed to mean?!", and b) it is clearly marked with a blinking question mark so that, in a way, especially for children, the game tries to steer the player towards the non-confrontational options.

There also is rudimentary combat, but with the cutesy artstyle including also the enemies ("worst" thing so far was one of them buzzing like an angry insect), that doesn't really communicate violence so much as it is more of an added challenge and a bit more active gameplay. Adding to that, so far any and all combat I've seen was always in self-defense due to the "monsters" attacking me, and the lore clearly establishes that exterminating these monsters is being done with the express goal to save the village and its people.

With all that said, language- and content-wise I would call this game fully child-friendly.
The only thing that could be an issue, in my opinion, is the level of complexity it *can* take on if you try to complete the quests instead of just freely doing your own thing, as that will require growing the Farm exponentionally, and it can become quite a challenge to handle everything that entails:

Time management, responsibility for your pet and potential farm animals, your crops need daily watering, the fields need regular pruning, etc pp.

[Clovis Sangrail]

You might have to explain to the little moppets how the mayor happened to leave his shorts at Marnie's house.

[Homer Morisson]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

You might have to explain to the little moppets how the mayor happened to leave his shorts at Marnie's house.

He had a potty accident, everybody poops.

That wasn't so hard, now was it?^^

[Nakos]

In terms of language ... I think the word "damn" might be used once or twice, but that's as bad as it gets (as I recall).

The game is about a "Peyton Place" kind of small town. There are all sorts of small intrigues between various members of the town. The Mayor's lucky purple shorts are probably the most overt thing, but there are a few others.

Shane has an alcohol substance abuse problem, and there is a confrontation scene where he says he wants to end it all

Pierre has a "secret stash" which he hides from his wife, the contents are never revealed, and are left to the imagination

digging further into the history of Pierre and Caroline, one can learn that Caroline used to go and visit the Wizard when she was younger, and it's possible that Abby is his child rather than Pierre's

Pam also has a alcohol substance abuse problem, and Penny is an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, who spends most of her time facilitating her mother's problems

Kent (Jodi's husband), who does not show up until the second year, has been "in the war" and suffers from PTSD, and there is a scene where the player is present for one of his episodes


Over all, I'd say the game is pretty mild in its approach to these issues, but it's not all sweetness and light, and there might be some questions arising from these scenes (and perhaps some of the others).

[RobbEJay]

Just to clarify, "Mild language" refers to Mild to moderate swearing only, or music lyrics referring to violence, sexuality, or substance use. Normal dialog references are categorized separately.

As for how more mature topics are handled, I'd compare Stardew Valley to something like Little House on the Prairie or King of the hill. The game tackles them in a pretty family friendly manner, and while they aren't exactly good situations they do mostly revolve around some sort of positive message, or at least light-hearted humor. Its not trying to be gritty, edgy, or dark at all.

In the first scene with Shane for example, he inadvertently says it in front of his niece, upsetting her and showing him the impact his attitude has on the people who care about him, that they do care even.

[darkdisciple1313]

This isn't a kids game, even though kids should be perfectly fine playing it. At most, there will be times when the adults in the game will do things that make them go "huh?" and might ask questions about it.

As others have mentioned, the mild language is nothing more than what you might find in the first Harry Potter movie (in talking about Quidditch, when Oliver Wood says to Harry, "Ah you like it [the Golden Snitch] now...but it's hard to catch and damn near impossible to see."

Then again, I'm probably not the person to make such judgments, since I saw my first Playboy at age 7 and Halloween (the movie) at age 9. I was a twisted widdle kiddie. Mwa-ha.