I'm planning to get Stardew Valley but I have a very risk-averse personality combined with a loathing of drudge-work (which might explain why I have so much programming experience).

While sandbox gaming isn't "drudge-work" (I love Minecraft, Terraria, and OpenTTD, among others), being forced to replay hours of work because I didn't realize the significance of a decision is enough to drive me away from games. (For comparison points, I generate and harvest newer Terraria worlds to supply my pre-hardmode, generated-on-older-Terraria world with a fuller experience and, in visual novels, I'll create a new save at every conversation to min-max return on time invested.)

In fact, it's bad enough that it's lead me to avoid playing games in the past because the fun was spoiled by worrying over whether I'd missed something tiny and would have to repeat hours of gameplay in order to get 100% completion in an RPG.

As a kid, my solution for RPGs (and, sometimes, Sierra adventure games) was to get a strategy guide and read it cover-to-cover before I played in order to ensure I couldn't overlook something. However, being older and wiser now, I'd really rather not spoil the joy of discovery.

Is there a minimally spoilery guide (or even just a list) covering significant decisions I can't take back, like the JojaMart membership and what to do with the cave? (two pages on the Wiki that I read because I'd heard that the JojaMart warehouse thing was time-based like the "did you do well enough to keep playing?" event in Harvest Moon for Game Boy.)

There's no timing involved with the JojaMart membership decision, you have to go into the store and decide if you want to be a member or not. That is the big one you can't take back, and does change parts of the game considerably. The least spoilery way of saying it is that becoming a member changes the game into more money based and less community and item gathering, so there's a lot you never get to see and do if you join, but it's the easier path (I've played both ways).

The cave choice is a minor one, just giving you easy access to a few items you can find elsewhere, one of those items is somewhat harder to find making the choice pretty easy.

That's about it I think. There are other choices that come up as you respond to the questions villagers ask you, but those only change your level of friendship with them, so easily undone by giving good gifts. There are community events that come around every year so you get the chance to redo those multiple times, but other than boosting your inventory or friendship levels they could even be skipped without consequence.

Oh, I guess there is one other choice you can't take back, if you marry someone there is no breaking up and marrying someone else.

Thanks. I actually was aware of the nature and implications of the JojaMart decision though. (I won't mention them in case anyone else who doesn't want to have it spoiled )

I originally mentioned it as an explanation of how much Wiki reading I'd done and why. (ie. I read the JojaMart stuff on the wiki because I originally thought it was a timing thing.)

Regarding the cave choice, the conclusion I drew from the wiki was to choose mushrooms because, in the long run, you can just plant trees. Was my interpretation correct?

Also, speaking of the cave choice, as a 30-year-old who loved to watch nature documentaries as a kid, it never ceases to amaze me how often I see misconceptions about bats to this day... with only a few exceptions, fruit bats don't roost in caves because fruit bats can't echolocate.

(The exceptions are certain types of rousettes, which developed a primitive tongue-clicking echolocation and are only found in Madagascar and Indonesia. The fruit bats everyone knows are flying foxes, which can't echolocate, roost in trees, and eat fruit that's either fungus-damaged or too ripe for commercial harvesting.)

Yes, getting all the various types of mushrooms is harder than planting fruit trees.

I always thought that cave choice was easy, as well as choosing wood over foraging because by the time I get asked that I've gone full on farmer and only forage when really really bored, no to mention I'm always running out of wood.

The Jo Jo thing though, that's new. I never even considered joining them. I know it's just a game but I don't think I could live with myself if I did. :P

Yeah, I'm pathetic. XD

Oh and since we're here, OT, can I plant regular (oak, maple, pine) right next to each other? One wiki says they need space like fruit trees and another says you can cram them all together. I'd like to make a little separate bed for my syrups with the trees all nice and in a row.

I've planted those seeds right next to each other but I don't think I've seen them all grow to full size, I remember pines growing full size every other one with the ones between staying smaller, I was chopping them down for wood so didn't wait very long for the smaller ones to grow, but it seemed like they need a little space but not as much as fruit trees.