Sleep through Year One? Good luck.

[Snowy Sprout]

I keep trying, and failing, to do this.
I've started so many saves with the idea that I'll sleep straight through a year, get the recipes from the TV, and let the farm get overgrown and just start playing in Year Two. But along the way, I get curious and then stuff always happens.

See, you can't just spam in and out of bed. If the day doesn't register at least ten minutes, then stuff doesn't grow, and part of the challenge is to let your farm get overgrown. So you have to find a way to waste a few minutes of time. But there's nothing to do inside. So you step outside. Then ideas start happening.

Marnie shows up with a pet, and you think "Sweet! I'll water and pet them and that will take my ten minutes per day". But now you're walking outside the house, and you notice there is some mail. So you read the mail. Money is being sent to you! And challenges! And gifts! All kinds of stuff happens in the mail. And then maybe you notice one of those artifact spots with the little worms. So obviously you gotta dig that, because it's RIGHT THERE.

But now you're curious. What about forage? Stuff that's just sitting around, outside your farm. You might as well go pick that up, right? I mean, it won't change anything about Year Two on your farm. It's just free stuff, like the recipes on TV. Might as well get ahead, right? So you walk around and pick up some free forage on the ground, in garbage cans, on the beach, and in artifact spots.

But now you're meeting people. Might as well say hi, right? I mean, it doesn't cost anything to be friendly. And wouldn't it be interesting to see if you could raise friendship with people so they send you gifts and money in the mail? And some have recipes too. You need those to start Year Two, if you're gonna do the Gourmet Challenge. Which of course you will, right? So now you're being friendly to everyone while you walk around the whole map picking up forage.

Then you think of gifting folks. You give away daffodils and berries, and whatever else you find around that would be liked by the townspeople. You start to receive their gifts and mail, and you start checking the calendar for their birthdays and looking up what their most loved items are. You start to wonder whether raising friendship with all the townspeople is a whole challenge by itself, worthy of your time as a player who is only supposed to be sleeping through year one to get to year two so you can do the gourmet challenge.

The thing is, it's really hard to decide whether it counts as "mining" to clear a pathway through your farm so you can keep watering your pet and walking out the exits to forage. You can raise mining skill with rocks on your farm, for sure. And you can get ore and coal and geodes from breaking those rocks. And once you do, you get a visit from Clint giving you the furnace recipe and then you get curious. How far can you get in mining without going into the mine? Can you selectively harvest rocks that spawn in your farm, and leave others to regrow? How many mining levels can you make that way? How many stone/ore resources can you get that way? What can you build with it?

Now you're thinking about Robin. With wood and money you can buy a house upgrade. How funny it would be to start your Year Two Gourmet Challenge with an upgraded house already, which you'll NEED because it has a kitchen! So you think you might as well chop down the trees in Cindersap Forest etc. because they'll grow right back and it'll only raise your forage skill, which you were already raising by gathering forage, So that's not really cheating, right? So now you have an upgraded farm house with a kitchen, and a lot of wood and sap and tree seeds. So naturally you want a few tappers, right?

Tappers have something to do with forage skill. So it won't raise your other skills. So you might as well get those resources going. It's not like you're planting crops, or fishing, or mining.

But now Demetrius visits your farm and that's how you discover that somehow you've made $25k without even realizing it. You pick the mushroom cave, naturally.

Now you've got all kinds of resources that keep pouring in. You're not farming, mining, or fishing, but you keep seeing things at the Travelling Cart that could be good to put into the Community Center. You start wondering whether you could actually complete some bundles just with stuff you've scavenged and bought from the cart.

Then you see an Ancient Fruit Seed Packet at the Cart! It's only $200! You find a basic sprinkler too! It would be a crime to not take advantage and plant that, right? So you do. It's not like you're "farming". You haven't planted any "crops", right? Just taking advantage of a special opportunity that you know will put you ahead for next year, and it's not like you're gonna find another deal like this, right? But you would obviously have found an ancient seed at some point once you started mining and fishing, so it's not like it's a real cheat, right? This still counts as your "no-playing, just sleeping through" year.

But now that you have a basic sprinkler it makes sense to plant those three little spaces going to waste. Might as well buy a coffee bean, amiright? Or possibly a hops vine, or something else that regrows. That's not "FARMING" farming. It's just that you're not wanting to be wasteful, right?

So now you have crops coming in.

This is where I am now. It is not even mid summer yet. I swear I'm trying to sleep through/skip this year still. I'm counting it as a skip because I still haven't gone in the mines or used a fishing pole or watering can. I'm still not leaning into any of the skills we normally do to raise money. This is just piddly-ant stuff, right?

This happens to me every time.

What would you do?

[romy]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I do apologize, truly, for how I've behaved in this thread. As I mentioned elsewhere, I probably should not have started it. I was feeling snarky and lonely because I have this one way I like to play, and I recognize that nearly nobody else likes to play this way, and it makes me so sad to be so alone. I know it's not my writing style that's the problem. It was my writing motivation that was bad. I was being very self-centered. I was humble-bragging, hoping it would catch someone's eye who likes that kind of verbose overthinking and self-flagellation. As you say, finding creative ways to eat soup with a fork.

hey no ! your original post was great, it was a good reading that I (and others) could definitely empathize to, it's the way you scolded people engaging conversation that wasn't very nice.

but the telltale of the game you played was enjoyable and definitely interesting, it was like playing it myself (in some kind of very accelerated version lol).

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I hoped people would think my "inability" to do the original goal was funny,

I thought it was pretty funny ;)

Though I'll admit, the idea of sleeping through a year before starting ... I dunno ... I don't think I could do that. There's too much to do! I'd be off and running with a farm before I'd even thought much about the nominal goal.

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

The things that I think are obvious, or funny, or inspiring rarely match up with how others see the world. I did try to offer something that might have been worth a chuckle or some engagement to someone. But I guess I shot it in the foot by leaving something a bit too literal at the end.

I often think of poetry like that. There's lots and lots and lots of poetry. And ... most of it doesn't speak to me, or move me.

But some of it does. And when it does, it speaks to the core of who I am more accurately and precisely than I could have imagined would be possible. And that's worth slogging through the stuff that didn't work in order to get to.

Originally posted by Robert Bly:

The toe of the shoe pivots in the dust ...
And The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and goes back down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and did not climb the hill.

[ULTRA]

I already slept through like 30 years in real life no problem

[Maya-Neko]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

I was feeling snarky and lonely because I have this one way I like to play, and I recognize that nearly nobody else likes to play this way, and it makes me so sad to be so alone.

Just because people aren't interested in doing these challenges themselves, doesn't mean that they're not interested in general. You could do some YT-videos about it, cutting out some repetitive, boring things and take viewers on your journey. You might be surprised of how good some of these challenges actually play out with proper video editing.

Like i often doesn't have the time and dedication to do some hyper specific and sometimes even hard challenges myself, but i've watched countless challenges being played by other players for various games.

And if you want to talk about challenge stuff with others, it's probably best to get into contact with the speedrunning community, as they've usually more dedication than most casual players who're looking into the Steam forums every now and then.

[Max's Guy]

Okay imagine this.. I wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, I yawn, scratch my face and sure to god hope this is a dream. OH NO.. wait.. I think to myself, this doesn't look like the real world It looks like stardew valley. So I decide to ponder, how do I sleep an entire year away within 6 hours and a bit of real life time. I look over to my goldfish bowl instinctively and realise Goldie has passed, so I come up with a plan.

I walk outside, oomf I say out loud as I hit my head on the beams holding the constructs of my all so familiar house, my shipping bin to the left, a whole lot of rock and weeds and trees covering a mass of land in front of me. I grin to myself, because now I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and cause trouble with Joja man. I walk into town, i walk past pierres store and walk right up to Joja man. "Hi" I say nervously, a little too timidly. within 5 minutes Joja man has given me the task of standing there looking like I'm busy, but with no customers and no real goal. It's a step up from not knowing what to do, i glance at my watch, little to no times gone by. A whole year of this would surely drive me mad.

so instead I go and flirt with everybody I can, but that gets boring after twenty minutes. so I decide to break the fourth wall, and find a way to hook up a computer within the confines of the stardew library and start messaging on a strange piece of the internet called Steam. I'm probably going to do a whole bunch of other things, but thankfully it's getting to the end of my first day. One down another 111 to go.

[The Spiteful Clam]

I really enjoyed reading your post. Your write-up of the ever growing (and very enjoyable) conundrum that is Stardew's emergent gameplay loop is spot on. It's actually made me start a new game right now!
And the first two responses were a very glib 'I would use a mod', and then an actual link to a mod. For what it's worth, I would be a fairly unimpressed too.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by The Spiteful Clam:

And the first two responses were a very glib 'I would use a mod', and then an actual link to a mod. For what it's worth, I would be a fairly unimpressed too.

Understandable if that's what you were expecting, but I think both of those responses are perfectly reasonable with how the opening post was structured.

Op explained the scenario they're experiencing, and others simply use mods, so they completely avoid even running into that situation where they could experience similar scenarios. Since the final question was "What would you do?" and not something along the lines of "Do you experience similar scenarios? Tell us about them!", I think those responses were very much within the scope of what the thread was presented as.

OPs initial response was somewhat inappropriate, but I think they handled the situation very maturely afterwards, even though I and some others had given responses that could be seen as a bit trollish.

At the end of the day, I think this is just an example of how the same words can be interpreted very differently by people who work off different experiences.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

"What would you do" didn't mean "how would you accomplish the boring original goal". It was meant to ask folks to open their minds to the interesting things that developed, and try to imagine what interesting things they might consider doing, rather than be stuck limited by a boring original goal.

are you new to video game challenge runs or min/maxing? or just bad at self imposed limitations?

and yeah, using mods/cheats to create alternative/interesting starting conditions for a game is just a lot more convenient than grinding it our yourself.

if i wanna start skyrim in winterholme it's 10x more fun, immersive and convenient to use alternate start mod than to do helgen and run to winterholme manually while ignoring everything you run past.

[iLovePie_42]

snowy why do you want to sleep for an entire year? even bears hibernate for a shorter time

[Hiroko]

Cicadas hibernate up to 17 years. Bears have skill issue.

[iLovePie_42]

Originally posted by Hiroko:

Cicadas hibernate up to 17 years. Bears have skill issue.

Don't give Snowy ideas, he might try to sleep for 20 in-game years, lol

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by AfRu:

snowy why do you want to sleep for an entire year? even bears hibernate for a shorter time

LOL!

The original reason I wanted to sleep for a year was to attempt the Gourmet Challenge (to cook every dish and win the Chef's Hat) within one year. So for the first year I need to pretty much do nothing except collect recipes.

Also, a lot of the game play is slightly different in year two, and I'd like to see it. I wonder how it will influence my choices when prices at Robin's and Clint's are higher to start with, and seeds like garlic, red cabbage, and artichokes are available right away. Certain dialogue interactions are different at festivals, and Kent starts off as an active NPC.

The thing is, quite often my challenge runs don't last into year two, so I don't see it very often. A lot of them are phrased as "see if you can do X thing before year two". So I finish and never see all that second year content. I just thought it would be fun to start from a different perspective.

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by Max's Guy:

Okay imagine this.. I wake up in unfamiliar surroundings, I yawn, scratch my face and sure to god hope this is a dream. OH NO....

(pandemonium ensues)

.... I decide to break the fourth wall, and find a way to hook up a computer within the confines of the stardew library and start messaging on a strange piece of the internet called Steam. I'm probably going to do a whole bunch of other things, but thankfully it's getting to the end of my first day. One down another 111 to go.

This is fascinating! It feels like the beginning of a book, and I'm interested to read what happens next!

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by Maya-Neko:

Just because people aren't interested in doing these challenges themselves, doesn't mean that they're not interested in general. You could do some YT-videos about it,
...
And if you want to talk about challenge stuff with others, it's probably best to get into contact with the speedrunning community, as they've usually more dedication than most casual players who're looking into the Steam forums every now and then.

I hadn't considered trying to find a speedrunning community. I assumed that it wouldn't fit me since I don't really do speed runs, or even have a competitive mentality. I like challenges for the ways that it can open up different ways to see/value aspects of the game which had become too familiar, and shake me out of using the same old tactics again and again to win every time.

How could I find a community like that, which might be interested in challenges like I do?

Also, I really really do wish I could make a YT channel about these challenges!! I tried once to make a video, but for me the editing process was extremely painful and no fun, even though I was passionate about the subject. I don't think I have the skills to be a youtuber. My ideal situation would be to find someone else capable of handling the uploads and I would just focus on the gameplay.

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by The Spiteful Clam:

I really enjoyed reading your post. Your write-up of the ever growing (and very enjoyable) conundrum that is Stardew's emergent gameplay loop is spot on. It's actually made me start a new game right now! :corncob:
And the first two responses were a very glib 'I would use a mod', and then an actual link to a mod. For what it's worth, I would be a fairly unimpressed too.

That is very kind of you to say! Thank you. I had felt pretty discouraged when I checked in last, because it seemed everyone either didn't understand me or was just mad at me. It feels really good to hear someone else understand my point of view. Even though I admit that getting snarky wasn't the most useful or polite way for me to respond, thank you for at least seeing why I felt a bit unhappy at the first responses I got.