The gameplay blends farming, crafting, and exploration in a world of stylized pixel art where seasons change and discoveries can be unlocked by your progress. There are friends you can make in town, each with relationship quests involving giving them their favorite gifts, and learning their backstories.
As the in-game months and years roll by, you bring your grandfather’s farm back to its former glory and beyond, growing the homestead into whatever you can envision.
Old McCullough had a farm
In Stardew Valley, you can do as little or as much work on your farm as you want, and there is no way to lose the game.
The day cycle begins with your character waking up at 6:00 a.m. You can complete tasks like planting seeds, watering crops, foraging, harvesting, fishing, feeding and tending to livestock, buying, building, crafting, and combining ingredients to create more valuable goods. You can then sell these goods by dropping them in a bin, where they get turned into money at the end of each day. That said, there is no penalty for opting out of the free enterprise system; making money isn’t required.
Nothing can hurt you in this game unless you willingly choose to enter the game’s danger areas, which you can completely avoid if you prefer. Even if you lose all your health in one of these areas, you simply wake up in your bed as if it were all a bad dream, with just a few dropped items as a penalty.
You start with a few goals that you can work toward (gather enough wood to build a barn, earn enough money to buy strawberry seeds). You can water plants and harvest the produce. You might go on a foraging mission from time to time, or you might go to town to visit and talk with some of the non-player characters (NPCs).
At first, it’s simple. But as you move through the game, your day-to-day revolves around bigger ambitions, with multi-layered tasks and stacked goals.
Once you have rows and rows of plants, you’ll want a sprinkler system so you don’t have to run around with a watering can every morning, doing things manually and using up all your energy. To build a sprinkler, you first need iron, for which you need a furnace, for which you need charcoal and iron ore, for which you need a pickaxe to mine said ore. Mining requires extra energy, which requires extra food, which requires—you get the picture. (If you’re familiar with this type of farming/crafting/survival game type, none of this is new to you.) And as you go about these tasks, there is relaxing music and friendly villagers in a quaint, rural atmosphere.
You can’t die. You can’t lose. The entire game is what you make of it.
Naturally, here in this idyllic world, I managed to make myself miserable and stressed out beyond reason.
The daily (digital) grind
Here’s what a typical day in Stardew Valley began to look like for me.
I wake up with a plan of attack (e.g., I need lots of iron ore for that shiny new thing I’m trying to build, so I’m heading to the mines).
I have specifically planned this activity for today, because the forecast said it’s going to rain, so I don’t have to water the crops, thank the digital creator. I also placed plenty of food in my inventory the night before, so I won’t have to waste any time trying to grab some before I leave, because time is precious. I wish I could wake up earlier and cram more hours into the day, but your wake-up time is preset.
The rooster crows, and I navigate my guy straight out of bed, straight out the door, at a dead sprint, no petting the dog, no greeting the cows. I take the quickest route to the caves. There is work to be done.
On the way to the caves, I see an interesting item, but I pass right by it. I won’t have the space for it—I’ve already cleared all non-essential items out of my inventory the night before, so I would have as much room as possible for ore and loot.
The minutes are ticking by. I sprint by a friend from town without saying hello. I like the guy, but time is money.
Delving deep underground, I kill enough bad guys to clear a route to the good stuff. Precious, precious ore. The rise and fall of my pickaxe pings a steady rhythm that echoes through the caverns. It sounds like progress.
I work all morning and into the afternoon, refueling my energy as needed with the food I brought with me from home, and I fill my inventory with enough time to spare that I think I can make it to the blacksmith’s shop and have him crack open a few of the geodes I found before he closes for the day.
I am injured from monster attacks and almost out of energy, but I can pick up some berries along the path to town to keep myself going. Just have to stop and do some quick inventory management: drop my pickaxe, pick up the berries, eat them, pick the pickaxe back up. No problem. I’m an old pro at this.
Marnie ruins everything
I race along the path, bear south, and cut through town. Sorry, Penny, no time to talk about your struggling mother in the trailer down by the river. Places to do, things to be—er, you know what I mean.
Halfway to my destination, I realize I have misjudged my time. The blacksmith will be closed before I can get there after all. Time to call an audible. I need to get some hay from Marnie for my cows.
Now almost out of energy, I have to resort to the pickaxe trick again and forage enough salmonberries to stay on my feet as I take the long route around town so I can get the hay on the way home.
Disaster. Marnie isn’t here.
Why isn’t she here? Seriously. The blacksmith closes early, I know that. I can plan my day around that. But Marnie is supposed to be here until 5:00. For some reason, on seemingly random days, this chick closes up shop to go and do yoga behind Pierre’s store. Must be nice to just do whatever you want, whenever you want, with no regard for anyone but yourself.
