Stardew Valley

''Stardew Valley'' is a 2016 farm life simulation game developed by Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone. Players take the role of a character who inherits their deceased grandfather's dilapidated farm in a place known as "Stardew Valley". ''Stardew Valley'' is an open-ended game where players manage a farm by clearing land, growing seasonal crops, and raising animals. Players can build skills in farming, foraging, fishing, mining, and combat. The game also includes social features, such as building relationships with townspeople, with the option to marry and have children. A later update added multiplayer, allowing online play with others.

Barone developed ''Stardew Valley'' by himself for over four and a half years. He was heavily inspired by the ''Story of Seasons'' series, with additions to address some of those games' shortcomings. He used it as an exercise to improve his programming and game design skills. British studio Chucklefish approached Barone halfway through development with an offer to publish the game, allowing him to focus more on completing it. The game was originally released for Windows in February 2016 before being ported to other platforms.

''Stardew Valley'' received generally positive reviews from critics and has been cited as one of the best video games ever made. Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of ''Story of Seasons'', praised the game for retaining the freedom that later entries of his series had lost. It also became one of the best-selling video games, selling 41 million copies by December 2024.

Gameplay

''Stardew Valley'' is a farm life simulation game set in top-down perspective while being open-ended. The game is primarily inspired by ''Story of Seasons'', a series by Marvelous and previously known as ''Harvest Moon''. The game starts with the player character leaving their corporate job to manage a farm just outside of Pelican Town, a town in the eponymous ''Stardew Valley''.

The main objective is to restore the farm of the player's deceased grandfather and assist in the town’s revival by completing bundles of goods to help restore the Community Center. As the game progresses through its four 28-day seasons, the completion of bundles will unlock new areas and activities, such as exploring a new island. Players may select from several different farm types, each with a unique theme and different benefits and drawbacks. On the farm, players need to cut down trees, break rocks, and use a scythe to clear weeds to make space for tilling and planting. The farming system allows players to plant seasonal seeds that need daily watering and must usually be harvested before the next season. Players can also build barns and coops to raise animals for products like eggs and milk.

The player assumes various roles, developing skills in farming, foraging, fishing, mining, and combat. Interacting with townspeople and giving them gifts builds relationships over time. Players are further able to marry one of 12 bachelors or bachelorettes (regardless of gender), which allows the spouse to help with daily chores on the farm, such as cooking, feeding animals, or watering crops. After marriage, the character and its spouse will have the option to conceive a child. Time in the game is divided into day-length segments. Each morning the player begins with a full energy bar which decreases as tasks are completed and can be replenished by eating food. A nearby cave system holds ores that can be mined and smelted (using a furnace). The caves also house monsters, giving the mining experience an action RPG feel. Switching between a pickaxe and sword is necessary while exploring deeper levels, where more valuable treasures can be found. A multiplayer mode was introduced in a later update, allowing online play with other players.

Development

''Stardew Valley'' was originally titled ''Sprout Valley'' and was created by American indie game designer Eric Barone, known professionally as ConcernedApe. Barone graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma in 2011 with a computer science degree but was unable to get a job in the industry, instead working as an usher at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Looking to improve his computer skills for better job prospects, he had the idea to craft a game that would also pull in his artistic side. Barone grew up in the Pacific Northwest and incorporated many elements of the region into the gameplay and art.

''Stardew Valley'' originally began as a modern fan-made alternative to the ''Story of Seasons'' series, as Barone felt the series had gotten "progressively worse" after '' Harvest Moon: Back to Nature''. Unable to find a satisfactory replacement, he created a game similar to the series, saying he intended "to address the problems I had with 'Story of Seasons'' and that "no title in the series ever brought it all together in a perfect way". Barone was also inspired by other games, including ''Animal Crossing'', ''Rune Factory'', ''Minecraft'', and ''Terraria'', adding features of those games such as crafting, quests, and combat. He was the sole developer of the game, creating all of its pixel art, music, sound effects, story, and dialogue. Barone used Reason Studios, a digital audio workstation, to create all the music and sound effects within the game and Paint.NET for the pixel art.

Initially, Barone considered releasing ''Stardew Valley'' on Xbox Live Indie Games due to the ease of publishing on that platform, but found that his scope for it became much larger than originally anticipated. He publicly announced the game in September 2012, using Steam Greenlight to gauge interest in it. After the game was shown a great deal of support from the community, Barone began working on it in full, engaging with Reddit and Twitter communities to discuss his progress and gain feedback on proposed additions. Shortly after the Greenlight period in 2013, he was approached by Finn Brice, director of Chucklefish, who offered to help publish the game on release. Chucklefish took over many of the non-development activities for Barone, such as site hosting and setting up his development wiki. Barone decided not to use Steam's early access feature for development, as he felt it was not well suited to ''Stardew Valley''. Barone spent four years on the project, redoing it multiple times and often spending 10 hours or more a day on it. He originally programmed it in C# using the Microsoft XNA framework, but later migrated to MonoGame in 2021, which, according to Barone, "futureproofs the game and allows mods to access more than 4 gigs of RAM".

Barone aimed to give players the feeling of immersion in a small farming community, saying he wanted ''Stardew Valley'' to be entertaining while also having "real-world messages". In contrast to earlier ''Story of Seasons'' games, which could end after two years of in-game time has passed, Barone kept ''Stardew Valley'' open-ended so that players would not feel rushed to try to complete everything possible. During development, he recognized that some players would attempt to figure out mechanically how to maximize their farm's yield and profit through spreadsheets and other tools, but hoped that most would take the time to learn these on their own. To that end, he designed the cooking aspect of the game purposely not to be profitable, but instead to pay back in bonuses that aided exploration, farming, mining, and fishing skills. Barone also opted not to include the butchering of farm animals for meat products, encouraging players to name and tend to each animal.

Release

In April 2015, Barone announced he intended to release the game only once he felt it was feature complete, refusing to put it onto the Early Access program or accept pre-sale payments. The game was released for Windows on February 26, 2016. After its release, Barone continued to work on it, taking feedback from the community and patching bugs, and stated plans to add more features. Barone anticipated adding more end-game content, as well as ports for other platforms. He said that he initially planned a four-player cooperative mode to be released in the game at launch. In this mode, Barone planned that players would share a common farm, each player tackling different tasks, such as one player mining while others tended to different parts of the farm. The multiplayer feature supports both local area network and remote online connectivity. Barone had planned for public beta testing of the multiplayer feature in late 2017 for the Windows version, but was still working to improve the network code by early 2018. The multiplayer beta for Windows was released in April 2018 and officially launched for all PC platforms on August 1, 2018. In December 2018, the multiplayer update was released for the Nintendo Switch. An official sheet music book for piano and album was released in 2018 by label Materia Collective.

Mobile versions for iOS and Android were developed with help of The Secret Police, with the iOS version released on October 24, 2018, and the Android version on March 14, 2019. Both versions include the ability for Linux, macOS, and Windows users to transfer progress to their device. In 2018, Barone said he wanted to assemble a team of developers to help continue the game's development. By 2019, all versions of the game, except on mobile, were self-published by Barone. In 2020, Barone collaborated with Fangamer to announce the physical release of the game's standard and collector's edition, as well as the Switch and PC versions.

In November 2024, Barone published an update significantly expanding on the initial features of the game, which was released on all platforms including PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox.

Chucklefish's involvement

In May 2016, Barone announced that Chucklefish would help with non-English localizations, Linux, macOS, and console ports, and the technical aspects required for online cooperative play, allowing him to focus solely on the first major content update. The Linux and macOS ports were released on July 29, 2016. Ports for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were announced at E3 2016 in June. At the same event, Barone said that a port for the Wii U would also be released; that version was later canceled in favor of a version for the Nintendo Switch. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released respectively on December 13 and 14, 2016. The Switch version, ported by Sickhead Games, was released on October 5, 2017.

In early 2017, Barone stated his intentions for the possibility of a PlayStation Vita port, which was released on May 22, 2018. Retail versions for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are published and distributed by 505 Games. A collector's edition released at the same time included a physical map of the game's world, a download code for the soundtrack, and a guidebook.

In December 2018, the publishing rights for all platforms outside of Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch reverted to Barone. He regained the rights for the Nintendo Switch release in October 2019, the official wiki in February 2021, the iOS release in December 2021, and the Android release in March 2022, ending Chucklefish's involvement.

Mods

''Stardew Valley'' has also seen an active modding community, with players adding various new features to the game. One of the most popular mods is ''Stardew Valley Expanded'', which has been downloaded over 3 million times. Other mods offer more cosmetic options ranging from changing the overall appearance of the game to introducing new animal designs. The majority of mods are only playable through the PC version of the game. Later updates to the game have added features for mod developers.

In March 2025, a fan made ''Baldur's Gate 3''-themed mod was released, titled ''Baldur's Village''. The mod received praise from Larian Studios co-founder Swen Vincke. In the same month, lawyers representing Dungeons & Dragons company Wizards of the Coast have had the mod removed under DMCA. Vincke took to social media to voice his support for fan-made mods, raising concerns about how they are handled and urging for a solution to be found. On April 1, 2025, Wizards of the Coast has issued a statement on the DMCA, saying that it happened in error and apologized for the situation.

Other media

In September 2016, '' Stardew Valley: Original Soundtrack'' was released, containing the game's official soundtrack. In November 2016, the ''Stardew Valley Guidebook'' was released, written by Barone and Ryan Novak and illustrated by Kari Fry. The book has been revised and reissued multiple times to align with the game's update versions. '' CBR''s Rebekah Krum lauded the illustrations, and ''Polygon''s Liz Richardson praised the book for making the game more relaxing to play. In September 2017, Jason Schreier described the development process of a number of games, including ''Stardew Valley'', in his book ''Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made''. In December 2019, ''Stardew Valley'' was added to the Tesla Arcade, a Linux-based video game service incorporated within most models of Tesla electric cars. On August 15, 2020, the orchestral album ''Symphonic Tale: The Place I Truly Belong (Music from Stardew Valley)'' directed by Kentaro Sato and performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra was released.

A cooperative board game adaptation, '' Stardew Valley: The Board Game'', was released in February 2021. Barone collaborated with Norihiko Hibino on an album series called ''Prescription for Sleep''. The series remixes video game soundtracks with piano and saxophone. The ''Prescription for Sleep: Stardew Valley'' album was released in May 2021. It includes 10 tracks from the game's original soundtrack and one new track called "Beauty in the Seasons". '' The Official Stardew Valley Cookbook'', featuring adaptations of more than 50 in-game recipes was announced in August 2023 and released on May 14, 2024. Barone promoted the first ''Stardew Valley'' concert tour, '' Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons'', on October 10, 2023. The 2-year-long construction of the ''Stardew Valley'' town out of Lego won the "People's Choice" award at BrickCon 2024. In October 2024, American singer-songwriter Soccer Mommy released a song called Abigail, in reference to the ''Stardew Valley'' character Abigail. In October 2024, "Friends of Jimbo 2" update for the '' Balatro'' video game featured some ''Stardew Valley'' characters. Barone has announced the second ''Stardew Valley'' concert tour, '' Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons'', on November 20, 2024.

Reception

Reviews

''Stardew Valley'' received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. As per OpenCritic, 99% of the 75 critic reviews recommend it. It has been cited by several publications to be among the greatest video games of all time.

Jesse Singal writing for ''The Boston Globe'' wrote that the game was "utterly compelling, lovingly crafted", and provided players with numerous varieties of activities to do without falling into a cycle of repetitive activities. Elise Favis of ''Game Informer'' found that watching her autistic brother play ''Stardew Valley'' helped her understand his condition better, as the game provides enough structure of present events with enough of a view of future events to allow her brother to enjoy the game. Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of the ''Story of Seasons'' series that ''Stardew Valley'' was inspired by, stated that he was "very happy" with the game, as it has shown to him that ''Story of Seasons'' was not a forgotten series and continued in spirit. He also stated that the approach taken by Barone with ''Stardew Valley'' was able to retain the freedom that he had wanted to keep in the ''Story of Seasons'' series that had been lost in the later games, with more focus on animation and graphics. ''Gamasutra'' named Barone one of the top ten developers for 2016, identifying that he had "single-handedly" developed something that "breathed new life into a genre" otherwise dominated by the ''Story of Seasons'' series. In 2017, ''Forbes'' named Barone one of their "30 Under 30" people to watch in the area of video games by citing his commitment towards making ''Stardew Valley''. ''Stardew Valley'' has been praised by critics for its music's integration with the game's atmosphere.

Many media outlets praised ''Stardew Valley'' for its LGBT options and representation, notably including the option for the player character to marry one of 12 villagers regardless of gender. '' Gayming Magazine'' praised the option for a player to engage in same-sex marriage, while also criticizing the lack of racial diversity. '' Paste'' described the game as being anti-capitalist, citing the negative portrayal of the fictional Joja Corporation.

Sales

''Stardew Valley'' sold roughly 425,000 copies across Steam and GOG.com in its first two weeks, and more than a million within two months. Valve reported that ''Stardew Valley'' was in the top 24 revenue-generating games on Steam during 2016. Journalists noted that the gaming community had shown support for Barone and his game. While some players obtained the game illegally, many of them were impressed and indicated they planned to buy it. Others offered to help cover the cost for players who could not afford it.

By the end of 2017, ''Stardew Valley'' had sold more than 3.5 million copies across all platforms. The game became the most downloaded title on the Nintendo Switch for 2017, despite launching on the platform in October. Following its mobile launch in October 2018, Sensor Tower estimated that the game generated more than US$1 million in revenue within its first three weeks on the Apple App Store. By December 2024, ''Stardew Valley'' had sold over 41 million copies, 26 million of which were on PC and 7.9 million on Nintendo Switch.

Accolades

''Stardew Valley'' won the Breakthrough Award at the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards, in addition to receiving two other nominations. At the 13th British Academy Games Awards, the game was nominated as Best Game. It received further nominations as Best Debut at the Game Developers Choice Awards and Best Independent Game at The Game Awards. At SXSW Gaming Awards, it was nominated as Most Promising New Intellectual Property. It further was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival.

Several Publications have placed ''Stardew Valley'' in their year-end lists, including ''The Guardian'' (5th), ''Paste'' (8th), ''Polygon'' (8th), ''Slant Magazine'' (25th) and ''The Verge''. ''Game Informer'' awarded the game as Best Simulation Game of 2016. In 2024, the game received the Best Ongoing Game award by ''PC Gamer''. ''Gamesindustry.biz'' featured it as one of their Games of the Year in 2024.

Legacy

According to '' Inverse'', ''Stardew Valley'' has played a key role in bringing farming and cozy games to broader audiences over the years. In 2022, ''Destructoid'' attributed a large part of a recent resurgence of farming simulators to ''Stardew Valley''. They further described the game as a "full-on cultural phenomenon" and one of the most successful indie games. In 2024, ''Game'' ''Rant'' stated that it is still considered one of the greatest entries in the farming simulation genre. They further noted that it revived the genre in the indie scene and led to many new titles for players to explore.

According to ''NME'', ''Stardew Valley'' has been ranked first among the best video games for reducing stress.

Notes

References

External links

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{{Stardew Valley

2016 video games
505 Games games
Android (operating system) games
Apple Arcade games
Cancelled Wii U games
Chucklefish games
ConcernedApe games
Farm life sim video games
Golden Joystick Award winners
Indie games
IOS games
Linux games
MacOS games
Microsoft XNA games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Nintendo Switch games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation Network games
PlayStation Vita games
Retro-style video games
Role-playing video games
Steam Greenlight games
Video games developed in the United States
Video games using procedural generation
Video games with gender-selectable protagonists
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