What is this game?

[TomTomTwig]

Hi im thinking about getting this game but on the surface it doesn't really look like alot of fun.

Ive watched a couple of reviews but they were kinda vague about it.

[Ryvaken Tadrya]

Stardew Valley calls itself a farm simulator. The core of the game fits that: you own a farm that you need to fix up and make profitable. Buy seeds, plant them, tend them, sell fruits and vegetables. Build a barn and raise cows. A chicken coop. You also have a few side ventures: a local cave has a mine you can get resources from to craft tools with, there is a beach and a few rivers to go fishing in, there's a forest for collecting wood and wild produce, and so on.

The other aspect to the game is social. There's a town with twenty-thirty NPCs with small storylines and simple personalities, the occasional festival and event, and a run-down Community Center that magic forest pixies want to repair.

The magic forest pixies create lists of things to farm, gather, fish, and otherwise collect. That can create direction and give you goals (and rewards) to focus your game. There are goals that lead you all the way to 100% completion of everything.

Or you can ignore it. There's no penalty for not accomplishing goals in so many days or even years; you just don't get the rewards. If you want to ignore fishing, ignore mining, ignore the NPCs, and just build a farm that produces enough coffee to drown a small city and put Starbucks out of business for good, you can do that. Like most simulation games, "success" and "failure" are subjective.

[{O|G} Erik the Red]

Others might call it Existential Crisis Therapy Simulator. You leave your own problems behind in the city, to go farm on your grandpa's plot of land, and make your impact impressing the locals and helping them with their own issues. Overall though, its a very chill and relaxing game as you grow and harvest your crops, apart from exploring the mines.

[LotusFlowerFF]

its a really fun and relaxing game definalty try it.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by TomTomTwig:

on the surface it doesn't really look like alot of fun.

Sounds like you already decided you're not going to like the game, given it's 98% Positive review rating with *hundreds of thousands* of reviews.

[TomTomTwig]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by TomTomTwig:

on the surface it doesn't really look like alot of fun.

Sounds like you already decided you're not going to like the game, given it's 98% Positive review rating with *hundreds of thousands* of reviews.

*sounds* like it.

[Jaysia]

Basically the goal is to create a farm and you can customize this farm any way that you'd like. You can befriend and marry the npc's and have up to two children (a boy and a girl). You have the ability to name your farm and name all of your animals. Honestly the game is very relaxing so if you like games where you don't have to worry this is the one for you.

[Howard Roark]

If you are on the fence about the game I recommend you check out some gameplay on Youtube. It's what made me decide to give the game a try (got it on gog) and I don't regret it.

[Carambar]

Wasn't the store page description extensive enough? All of what what has been said here was written very clearly there and more.

There's also this fantastical website called Youtube with thousands of videos reviewing this game with litteral gameplay footage and routines.

Oh well... I suppose you still give us steam users some enjoyment out of writting stuff on this page for when we're bored enough. Thank you.

[Queen Droxxanna]

the great thing about this game is you can decide how you want to play it, and has great replay value. No one tells you what story line to follow. The game is also very relaxing to play, but you can get imaginative in designing your farm and family.

There are also more mods then we can count, so you can choose to make all kinds of changes. Big farm or little farm, or farm location. Stay single or get married and have a tonne of kids. Add expansion mods and visit other towns. Get rich or do a poverty run. Its all up to you. Play alone or invite a few friends to play with you. Do all the work yourself, or learn to automate and hire help.
Its up to you, what do you want??

[kxtsu]

Hey, I don't know if you're still thinking of getting it, but I have this game and I would like to tell you that my preference of games are competetive FPS. I also thought the game was boring from the looks of the game, gameplay, and vague reviews..but i still decided to give it a try. Now, I love the game and even bought it for my friends and started a co-op farm which actually made them all hooked onto the game. You can even add "mods" (addons i would technically call them) to the game and make it more fun. They balanced their mining,farming,combat, and foraging aspects of the game so you get most of everything. You can choose to ignore some of these aspects, but you will sometime have to end up doing some things in those categories (some tasks will make you mine, farm, forage etc). I could say that this game isn't for everyone, but I would recommend just buying it and playing it for an hour and 50 minutes and see if you like it and if u don't like it you can just refund it.

[Dan Niton]

If you are familiar with harvest moon, then think of it as harvest moon with a lot more content.

[Amberbaum]

Watch a gameplay vid. Then decide for yourself whether you may like the gameplay loop. You have to like the farming-sim grind to play these games. It can get really repetetive and you have to put up goals for yourself for the most part.

[Domo de Jong]

Give it a try, its worth it. It didn't looked so fun for me at first, but watching my gf playing made me wanna buy it for myself.

[ChrillBill]

I get it, I wasn't entirely sold either by just watching the trailer and reading some reviews. What actually made me finally go for it was after watching some playthroughs on youtube I think. Really glad I did cause turned out to be one of my favourite games for PC :>

It is a very relaxing game first of all and very easy to learn. You can get really creative when it comes to taking care of and building your farm. If you like farming, pixel art style and don't mind a lot of "rinse and repeat" then I am sure you will have a good time in game. Aside from farming there is also fishing, mining and some very basic combat. Combat is probably the least favourite aspect in the game for me because it really feels like it was just something that was added to spice things up a little, rather than providing a sense of "adventure". But I can still appreciate it for what it is (meaning I don't think it is terrible, I just wish there was a bit more to it). And then there is the social aspect. You can get to know a lot of npcs in the game and some of them has quite interesting stories and cute events :> You will even be able to romance and eventually marry some of them and later start a family with your husband or wife (you can have up to 2 children together).

When you have done a vanilla playthrough you can also dive into the very active and fabulous modding community for this game (if you want to). There is so much nice additional content created by talented mod authors that really enriches the game. Everything from good expansion mods to simple quality of life mods. It is something I can really recommend exploring if you enjoyed the game.

[bee]

I was in the same boat as you when i first got the game as a gift, but it very much has a LOT more to offer than first portrayed. The more you dive deep into the game it becomes more and more fun, especially if you're a gamer for completion and want to achieve as much as possible.