Stardew Valley

It took me a long time to give this game a chance, because I played Rune Factory and never got into it all that much. With Stardew Valley, I got really interested in exploring every aspect of the game. It was a lot of fun! Yet at some point, everything felt like it plateaued and I was just going from one day to the next, hoping for the season to change or some other big event to come along. The beginning of the game is awesome and sets up an enjoyable experience. Granted, the fact that I lost interest in Rune Factory probably should have told me what to expect! All in all, though, I put in somewhere around 40 hours before I felt like nothing was happening and stopped playing. That's certainly not a bad deal! I was under the impression that this was a game that would stay fun and interesting for me. I certainly recommend checking it out if this sort of game might be appealing. It does have a lot of fun moments: I only wish the monotony would have been broken up some more.

+ Adorable, sweet and with just a tinge of melancholy. + Pretty music, but not so epic and loud as to be distracting. + Plenty of options and great replay value. + Very moddable (adding crop types etc). + Story is mid-length. Not so long as to become stale, but definitely short enough that you'll want to see more. + You do NOT have to have played any other games (like Harvest Moon) to fully enjoy this. - Not a flaw of the game itself, but of the genre as a whole: If you want a particular outcome, you'll have to look up spoilers. There's just no way to predict how things will turn out. And that's common among games, and it's realistic. But it can be a little disruptive at times. - Some things are time-limited. E.g. you have to do certain things on certain days, and there's no way to know these things in advance. As a tall, bearded man, this game made me squeal with joy. Definitely one of my secret favorites.

For starters, I play this game offline. I wasn't a fan of Harvest Moon, so I was put off by this game for a long time. I wasn't interested in "wasting time" in another fruitless game, trying to achieve something for nothing. My best friend loves this game and it was she who is responsible for me buying this. Granted, I whined about it, but I bought it nonetheless. This game feels closer to Minecraft than it does Harvest Moon (I never played Terraria, sorry). It has something for everyone to enjoy. It teases you with new areas to explore, secrets to uncover, and skills for you to unlock. Stardew Valley allows you the freedom to do these things at your own pace. To break the monotony of farm life, you'll have town activities, side jobs, and quests--- all optional but worth doing. The problems I have with this game comes down to certain mechanics. I don't like the save system. You save by sleeping. If you accidentally ate a rare fruit you meant to get more seeds from, you'll have to exit and restart the entire day. The rewards you get from bundles don't always make it worth it. Thousands of gold for a lightning rod when it rarely rains in my game? The writing at times is hit or miss, why give me the option to tell people about a secret I can't do? A certain character regressed the moment I married him, even after reaching 14 hearts. I also found the unlocked areas underwhelming after the first time exploring it. I'm still hungry to do and see more of Stardew Valley. Ape has done an amazing job with the game thus far. The modding community is the icing on the cake.

I, like many PC gamer's now, almost never pay full price for a game. This is one of the few that I would pay double the release price for. Thank You for releasing this pure gem. I will certainly be telling all of my friends to pick up a copy here on gog.

Stardew Valley is a breath of fresh air into the genre of what can only be described as "farm life" sims. First pioneered by the Harvest Moon series and later continued and expanded upon with the Rune Factory series, this genre of games is among the most relaxing and laid back genres on the market. Stardew Valley takes this genre to a new level by introducing new mechanics and choices into the realm while maintaining the overall feel that made this style of game so wonderful. Prepare to farm, fish, ranch, forage, and mine your way to success as a farmer while building relationships with the local townsfolk and even marrying the guy or gal of your choice after romancing them. Stardew Valley is without a doubt the current pinnacle of the genre's evolution and will continue to be so for quite some time thanks to the selfless efforts of the one man dev team, ConcernedApe. SIDE NOTE - A word of caution though about purchasing this game on GOG. I prefer, whenever possible, to purchase my games on GOG rather than Steam due to their much more consumer friendly practices; however, there are a couple of issues which are causing concern among those who have purchased the GOG version. Those being the inability of developers to get updates published on the platform over the weekend and the agonizingly slow publishing of uploaded updates on normal weekdays, The game's developer, Concernedape, has been working tirelessly since release to squash bugs and address community concerns with numerous updates coming out in short order only to be in essence, exclusive to Steam users for a quite some time due to these concerns. This is not a marring on the game but rather on GOG's policies which I hope to see resolved quickly.