Stardew Valley

This game is truly a masterpiece. Balances between the mundane regular tasks and optionality to explore, develop friendships, or design your farm how you like. My wife plays. My 12 year old plays and my 8 year old plays. 4 out of 4. Few games can do that. The soundtrack is perfect. The game is chill yet addictive. A true escape and source of joy.

I'm a massive fan of indie, RPG and simulator games, and stardew valley ticks all the boxes. It's a great game to sit down after a long day and play casually, or min-maxing if you're into that. The soundtrack is awesome, and everything fits together perfectly. Great game, I'd recommend.

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.