Stardew Valley

Farm, Farm, Farm, Winter, I don't know why, but I have to farm! I just keep playing every night. I started off with 15 parsnips and now my 2nd year farm is going strong and making some money. The wife will sometimes perform some work that's helpful. The combat is not really any fun, but you need to dig "too" deep in order to get rare ore. You should play this.

A relaxing farming game, no stress involved. Your character escapes the city to farm on his grandfather’s estate. You grow and sell crops, go fishing, get married (same-sex marriages allowed!), fight monsters and mine ore, and upgrade your house. The primary gameplay mechanic is planning out your day, week or season (depending on how far out you like to plan – not too far if you are me). My only complaint is that the artifact system is broken – it requires too much grinding. But if you just ignore this (it's optional anyway), it’s a great game.

Deceptively complex yet charmingly simple. Hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of enjoyable gameplay for low price. The kind of game you start playing and before you know it the sun is rising again and you have no idea where the last 12 hours went.

Picked this game up for full price based off of reviews. Loved it and would pay full price again! Other reviews have gone into various features of the game itself, so I'll skip that. However, I figured I would mention a bit about the Controller support. The game was definitely made with the keyboard/mouse interface in mind. However, I have been playing using an Xbox 360 Controller with only minimal difficulty. The right thumbstick controls the curser just like a mouse would. Unlike some games, the thumbstick/cursor isn't slow or clunky. Switching between items in your inventory is done using the L and R triggers and is quick and easy. The only downside is that you need a keyboard to name yourself and if you want to give custom names to your animals. Controller support isn't perfect on it, but its very playable. I've spent 40+ hours playing using the controller and its been quite a comfortable experience.

I have been hearing about stardew valley since last year, but only this month did I pick it up. It starts out familiar enough. Grow crops, chop trees, talk to villagers. If you're played HM or AC you'll recognize this pretty quickly. But it really evolves into something really cool. There are a TON of crops, animals, fish, mining areas, crafting and cooking recipies, things to forage, quests, combat areas, and places to spend your hard earned money. The scaling is really good, you always unlocking something new to work towards so you're never doing the same thing for too long. The excitement of unlocking useful things is great, like when you first make sprinklers meaning you don't have to water 200+ crops for 14+ days in a row . When you have a goal in mind there are always 5 sub-steps you have to do to prepare such as collecting resources or doing quests. Even in the mid to late game there is still stuff to keep you engaged for a while like achievements, very expensive and useful items and hidden secrets all around the world. Plus a strong modding community. You can also start over with a new character in a different starting farm with different materials and earn your money using different methods than last time. This game has been surprisingly addicting and fun. I didn't expect to become so engrossed with it because I usually get bored of games pretty quickly. But I can sit for hours and hours and just soak in the beautiful art style, sound track, and gameplay. The game is so good and accessible to anyone that I'll even be recommending it to my mom!