Stardew Valley: Indie Harvest Moon on PC

[Bahamut]

Oh well seems like this game is a worthy successor to HM, addicting as fuck
Shame that Chucklefish will get profit from this...

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Huh, I didn't know that those little squiggly bits you get sometimes, those which look like three small tentacles sticking out of the ground, are diggable.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Yeah, you can get some good artifacts and books from worms.

 

[Blaine]

 

[Blaine]

I've obtained the objectively best hat in the game.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Just got refined quartzes from broken CDs and old glasses! Long live the Recycling Machine!!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to decorete every inch of me farm with crystal floors.

 

[GrainWetski]

You need to play with your chicks.

Right click them every day.

 

[Mozg]

The dev guy seems like such a wriggling millenial hug bug larva that I'm worried he gave away a huge % to Chucklefist.

 

[J1M]

Made it midway into summer before deciding to drop this. I don't like the real-time aspects of this game. Maybe that's just what the genre is, but I do not enjoy the repetitive daily upkeep jobs on the farm.

Can anyone recommend a light-hearted farming sim like this that is more focused on the planning and engineering challenges, and less on the daily watering? ie. You have a stream and can dig dikes to water your crops. The gameplay is how best to plan and dig the dikes, not a daily chore to repair them.

 

[Blaine]

Actually, Stardew Valley has arguably the most prominent planning and engineering challenges among animu farming sims, mainly because of the large size of the farm and all the many things that can be done with it.

If the watering and chores are such deal-breakers, then this probably isn't the type of game for you. Surely you realize that chores are essentially what farming is? There's plenty of variance in Stardew Valley's gameplay, but yeah, hoeing is still hoeing and watering is still watering. Later on you almost never have to water or hoe at all and the game becomes almost purely an exercise in planning and logistics, but you do still have to craft and place your own fences, plant your own trees, gather your own eggs, wool, and milk, etc.

It sounds to me like you planted far too many seeds your first summer and got butthurt when you had to spend a lot of time watering them. You failed your first planning challenge by not accounting for the fact that you still have to do all of your watering manually, and probably with a fairly basic can. I'd advise sticking with it. If you're really that oversensitive to any amount of repetition in a game, finding a game you like must be even harder for you than it is for me. That's rough.

 

[Lemming42]

Having just gotten the big fuck-off house upgrade and adopted a child, I think I'm done with this. Got all the upgrades to the town (there is absolutely no reason on Earth not to join Joja rather than pissing about with those faggot forest creatures), middle of year 2, don't think anything much else is gonna happen.

Still played for about 50 hours over the course of just a few days, so it was a top-quality experience all around while it lasted.

 

[Blaine]

Got all the upgrades to the town (there is absolutely no reason on Earth not to join Joja rather than pissing about with those faggot forest creatures)....

Suck it, corporate shill.

 

[Talby]

I'll never join Joja. Never.

 

[SirSingAlot]

actually, after i vsited them once and saw they cant even beat the prices of Pierre, i didnt even step into the supermarket at all

 

[Blaine]

The only reasons to visit JojaMart are cheap sunflower seeds and additional rotating flooring/wallpaper selection.

 

[someone else]

I mined early and got sprinklers ASAP so watering isn't a chore.
I got hooked 10+ hours into the game yet I'm asking myself, why am I playing this? I'm playing to upgrade and collect stuff like Sims. Well at least there is combat in this game.
I wish I can do more things with my doggie.

 

[SirSingAlot]

drown him

signed:
a cat person

 

[Blaine]

I'm playing to upgrade and collect stuff like Sims. Well at least there is combat in this game.

Sounds like 90% of RPGs. Stardew Valley also has a great deal of NPC dialog and interaction, although I feel there needs to be more of it, enough to last through the end of year 2 while seeing only occasional repeats. As it is, you'll be recognizing quite a few repeats in year 2, although you'll probably see plenty of new cutscenes (possibly the majority of them) in year 2 also.

One facet of Stardew Valley that may not be clear to outsiders: There are five skills in the game, with ten levels each. They improve through use and you can choose between two "perks" or specializations for each skill every 5 levels. Some of them are no-brainers, especially if powergaming or metagaming, but such is life.

 

[Talby]

signed:
a cat person

You don't fool me.

 

[Blaine]

Some of them are no-brainers, especially if powergaming or metagaming, but such is life.

care to elaborate?

Yeah. Tiller -> Artisan is a good example, certainly the most profitable route. Crops are worth 10% more with Tiller, and artisan goods, already by far the most profitable goods in the game, are worth 50% more with Artisan. The alternative is Tiller -> Agriculturalist (Agriculturalist makes crops grow 10% faster), or Rancher -> Coopmaster/Shepherd (animal products worth 10% more -> befriend coop animals quicker and incubation time halved/befriend barn animals quicker and wool production is faster).

The three high-end fruits are worth more than nearly any animal product even before they're processed into wine or jam, and without the specialization bonus.

 

[Blaine]

Thanks, I feel better about going Tiller now. I feel less good about investing in a coop, 4 chicks, and a silo of hay to feed them.

You'll need chickens anyway if you're repairing the Community Center (unless you get lucky with the Gypsy, but that's unreliable and can be said of almost anything) and to complete the highest-tier achievements. If you're going with a JojaMart membership, they're a lot less important. Ideally you want at least one brown and one white chicken raised to maturity so you can get large white and brown eggs.

Does food quality matter at all when processing into preserves etc? Should I just sell the gold stars?

This is one of the game's annoyances, in my opinion: With very few exceptions, no, it doesn't. Exceptions include large cow and goat milk, which process into gold-star cheese and goat cheese, and large eggs, which process into gold-star mayonnaise.

It does make some sense, though. Crop quality is a way to improve the value of pure crops sold as-is. If quality carried over into processed goods, they'd be even further ahead of crops.

HOWEVER, I should mention that processed artisan goods being very valuable isn't necessarily "unbalanced." You need to sink a lot of resources into the processing gadgets; once crops are grown, you have to pop them into the gadgets and wait quite a while for the finished product. If this only increased the value of the processed crops by, say, 1.2x or 1.5x, it'd be shit and no one would bother (particularly since gold-starred crops are worth about 50% more than base). Instead artisan processes increase the value by 2-3x, depending on the process.

The same is true of cooked dishes. You can use all gold-starred ingredients and it won't matter.

Finally, making the max amount of cash possible isn't necessarily the be-all, end-all. Chances are you'll have more fun if you make a variety of things.

TL;DR: Quality exists to increase the sale value of fresh crops (and raw fish and forage), not to supercharge artisan goods and food.

 

[Blaine]

Interesting little mystery revealed as friendship levels increase:

Cuck Alert

Caroline mentions she used to take "secret walks" to the Wizard's tower, and asks you not to tell Pierre, her husband.

The Wizard mentions that he believes he may have a daughter among the villagers.

Abigail (Caroline and Pierre's apparent daughter) can sometimes be seen hanging out near the Wizard's tower.

Caroline further mentions that Abigail's hair used to be chestnut before she started dying it purple. The Wizard's hair is also purple.

 

[Perkel]

Actually, Stardew Valley has arguably the most prominent planning and engineering challenges among animu farming sims

That would be Rune Factory 4.
Currently playing it and amount of stuff you can do in this game is just mind bending. At start it looks like Harvest Moon light with combat but almost everything in it is way more complex and you get something else to do outside of combat like taming any monster or boss in game, cooping with companions etc.

Sucks though that RF4 developer folded if they would release it on PC they would make a bank.

 

[Perkel]

Can anyone recommend a light-hearted farming sim like this that is more focused on the planning and engineering challenges, and less on the daily watering? ie. You have a stream and can dig dikes to water your crops. The gameplay is how best to plan and dig the dikes, not a daily chore to repair them.

If you don't like chores = reward combo of farming games then maybe you should try this :

 

[Blaine]

That would be Rune Factory 4.

No way, dude. Rune Factory 4 is the only other game in this genre I've ever played, I put something like 100+ hours into it, and there's nowhere near the amount of logistics and planning required in that game.

However, RF4 is probably one of the very best games in the genre other than Stardew Valley. Granted, these are the only two I've played, but they were too damn good not to be the very best.[/QUOTE]