Stardew Valley is a farming RPG that is SO much more than a farming RPG. This game has taken days, maybe weeks of my life, and I’m okay with that. It’s worth it.

Let’s start with the premise – you’ve inherited a large farm. It’s yours to do with as you will. That means clearing weeds/stones/logs, buying and planting seeds, watering and harvesting crops, caring for animals, making artisan gostardewmap.pngods, and selling the lot so you can afford to keep it all going.

So far, so farm-like. But there’s a huge map to explore. 30+ characters you can interact with, build relationships with, marry, have babies. There’s fishing. Mining. Foraging. There are endless quests to complete, with cute cut-scenes and mega rewards. I mean, there are even ALIENS to fight. Swords and other weapons to collect. Gems to find, ores to melt down into valuable metals bars.

The game isn’t easy. You might think ‘well, I’ll buy a load of seeds and live off the harvests from there on out’ – except, you might regret that when you realise you have to water every single plant once a day. It takes time, and it wears down your energy, limiting what else you can do that day. A solution comes in the form of sprinklers, but to make these you need mining and crafting skills, and a big lot of rare materials.

‘Okay, I’ll go the animals route. Milk is good’. If you want good quality milk, eggs, and wool, you need to pet your animals daily. Sometimes they’re in a bad mood and won’t yield anything. Sometimes they’ll go wandering all over your land and you won’t find them until they return to the barn at night.

Or maybe you would prefer to spend a day in the mines, collecting ores and fighting various monsters like little green blobs and metal coated bats. You have to be careful here – if your health drops too low, you’ll pass out to find the doc has charged you a large sum for taking care of you, and you’ll have magically (and often guttingly) have lost several items from your backpack. Oops

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There’s so much to Stardew Valley, it’s incredible, and I love that the basic question at the core of it is really ‘what do I want/need to do today?’ Oh I’ll water my crops, milk my cows, and go and track down Emily to give her a birthday present. Then I’ll head to the beach and try and catch the last ocean fish I need to complete a Community quest. Hmm, the forecast says it will rain tomorrow; since the crops won’t need watering I’ll spend the day in the mines. I’d better harvest some potatoes to rustle up a health-boosting snack to take with me; those flying dragons are deadly!

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There’s not much to criticise here. Sure, it takes a while to get going (if you invest your starting budget in seeds and plant them, it’ll be a while until you see a return), but if you’re really strapped for cash you can always try foraging and fishing to supplement your income. It can be irritating as a newbie when you realise you’ve made a mistake – most commonly selling every resource you find and going ‘WHOO MONEY’ and then finding later in the game you’ve left yourself unable to build anything, so I’ve ended up starting over a few times. The worst mistake was clearing my land of grass (‘yay, it looks tidy now’), and then in winter I had nothing to feed my animals unless I did the walk of shame to Marnie’s lodge and shelled out for expensive hay.

It helps to be smart about the seasons feature of Stardew Valley – in addition to weather, the seasons change every 28 days, and the crops you can grow/resources you can find are often season dependent. In Winter, nothing grows, which can come as a shock if you’ve so-far been reliant on crops to provide your income (instead this is the time to really explore the mines, work on your relationships with the other valley-dwellers, and upgrade your tools).

I could go on about Stardew Valley for days. There’s so much to enjoy, and so many different storylines to follow, that you’d be hard-pressed to make two run-throughs of the game exactly the same. I have played this game for hours and hours on end, and will continue to do so. Give it a try. Chances are there’s something in there that will get you hooked.

Final score: 10/10