So, what do you do in this game

[green]

I see people saying it's like Harvest moon etc but that doesn't give much evidence as to why people have 100+ hours, thinking of buying it but what do you do that keeps you coming back for more?

[uuuhdavid]

LIST: mods, and sandbox capabilities, relationships, mining, combat, foraging, fishing, bartering, building, choices that affect your life, replayability, loot, farming, profits, landscaping, and social events.

It's like Animal Crossings and Harvest Moon.

[Jack]

The core gameplay loop of purchasing seeds, planting them, tending to them and then collecting a massive reward is pretty compelling. It's kind of hard to just quit when you know how much those strawberries are going to make you when they turn into wine or whatever. It's also very relaxing, and helps me to cope with playing XCOM lol.

[Hammertone]

Let see....... main difference between harvest moon and stardew?
Harvest moon have a limited activity, no skill progress at all, not even a single monster exist as well. Fishing is bare bone, compared to stardew, we have skill progress, enemies, equipment, skills, and a "build anywhere" mode. You can build or place something, anywhere in your lands. Skills give better capability when do a certain activities, such as better price for crops, a chance to double forage material, etc.

You can try wiki for some comparison, better yet, test it. You have 2 hours anyway

Forget to add, i'm talking about back to nature and innocent life, compared to stardew

[Dark]

It is a reousrce managment game, themed around farming. Your actions are gated by energy, time, and money to various degrees. Your activites include farming, ranching, lumbering, mining, fishing, socializing, treasure hunting, collecting, ect.

What the game does really well is by having a very compelling progresion system. You are constatly making progress to some goal, whether it be upgrading your equipment, unlcoking new utility buildings, and building your econemy. But it presentes it with a laid back pace so you can do things in your own time, and choose to pursue the goals you want without feeling rushed.

Thats combined with the ability for the player to pursue their own self generated goals as well. Whether it be to make an asethicly pleasing farm, creating a specific type of character ("I want to focus primarily on anmals!", "I want to make a lumber/orchard character", "I want to ignore farming and focus primarly on mining and fishing"), or being a completsionist.

Each game day takes around 10-13 minutes of real time, except the game is paused while you are in inventory or talking to people so days could be much longer if you are planing. A year in the game comes out to about 30-40 hours of play time, and the game progresion is probably balanced to aply out over 2 to 3 years (though there is no hard end date, and the dev wants to expand the end game content eventually).

This type of progression system leads to the 'I will play just one more day! I have a harvest/upgrade/traveling merchant day tommorow' type of compulsive play.

[nickwithtea]

It's casual and has a feeling of progression

[Venom]

Originally posted by sir yohoshuwa:

I see people saying it's like Harvest moon etc but that doesn't give much evidence as to why people have 100+ hours, thinking of buying it but what do you do that keeps you coming back for more?

I wasted few hundred hours in Harvest moon (BtN)
and this one have more stuff compared to HM:BtN ... so do the math

Too bad I don't have as much free time now ...

[CoLS Firestar]

Just one more turn.

[Nyan_Pur_San]

hit on all the ladies and slay monsters

[Thorstorm]

Just one more day

[kuromi]

It's definitely a lot more advanced than HM and AC.

[Gnorak]

game gud. not ask, buy.

[CatPerson]

Originally posted by sir yohoshuwa:

what do you do that keeps you coming back for more?

Striving for organizational/efficiency perfection.

...not a super-deep game but there's so many little "tasks" you want to do each day for progression that you just can't stop now. Gotta keep going, see the next day, so you can tend to crops, get that barn started, tell someone happy birthday, stalk after the paramour of your choice, get the next 5 lvls in the mines, check that mushroom cave, dump for-sale stuff in the bin, rush to bed before you fall asleep in the dirt, then wake up and ...

[Cornflakes]

It's a Skinner Box. Short repeated cycles of rewards.

[Daniel_USA]

Fish and play Prarie King.

[equinewolf]

Originally posted by sir yohoshuwa:

I see people saying it's like Harvest moon etc but that doesn't give much evidence as to why people have 100+ hours, thinking of buying it but what do you do that keeps you coming back for more?

have you ever played HM? it takes FOREVER to get anywhere