I can see how this game wouldn't be for everyone. There is no way to win, and no way to loose. The fun in this game is what you make of it. And while that can be a bit open ended (I sort of had a 'midgame crisis' so to speak. "If I can't win or loose, what's the point??"), it really grew on me. It's one of those "just one more day" games. The town and the charaters are much richer than I expected. Not as in depth as Dragon Age, but there were people I couldn't stand, and people I wanted to be friends with. I really came to love the town and my farm. I even love fishing now, although I started out hating it with a passion. I would recomend giving this game a try, even if it doesn't quite sound like your cup of tea.
Clearly developed by someone who remembers what made the games industry so popular in the first place. This game is an absolute blast to play, and has some of the best gameplay mechanics of its type that I have seen for years. It is a game that wants to be played, and rewards the gamer generously for their time, rather than trying to beat them or trick them.
The hours just fade away as I go about my daily farming/animal husbandry routine, built up from scratch, while occasionally breaking away for some NPC interaction in the town, mining, fishing, foraging or dungeon looting. Now and again there is a festival of some kind, which means you only have time for the bare essentials on the farm. My only criticism would be that these festivals are extremely repetitive, and are a carbon copy year on year. NPCs say the same thing, the mini games dont change etc. It spoils the immersion just a little bit.
The game has a brilliantly thought-out pace, and I STILL haven't unlocked all of the secrets after over 120 hours of playing. There is just so much to do, and so little time to do it in. It is one of those games that you intentionally slow down playing, so that it will last as long as you can get it to.
Whether it has much replay value remains to be seen, but I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Stardew Valley, and hope the developers invite us back for more of the same in the future.
An absolute gem, and thoroughly recommended.
There are many things said about this game. I have nothing more to add, I can only repeat - Stardew Valley is a great relaxing game, the pixelated graphics are beautiful, the sense of progress is very satisfying, this game is addictive, the developer is great and keeps adding new updates for free.
The game starts with your grandpa, who on his dying bed leaves you a mysterious envelope. You are not permitted to open it till your midlife crisis. When the day comes, you find out you inherited a farm in a charming Stardew Valley. Your grandpa didn't say "I love you" or "I'm proud of you" or "Go and find what you would like to do with your life". He said "Here's a farm which I'm gonna leave in disrepair when I die. Good luck". Thanks, grandpa.
Having played Harvest Moon and some Rune Factory, both being farming type games, there's really a lot of similarities. Unfortunately these include the sun that moves at apocalyptic speeds, which is a shame because Stardew Valley has an amazingly calm vibe that makes it fun to turn auto-run off and walk slowly along the map, maybe go fishing, or get engrossed in the mines, wandering about and slaying enemies that don't like you doing that (btw, combat is barebones - not something to buy the game for) - all good things I love doing when I just want to relax my nerves. Given that by default 10 minutes pass in-game every 7 real life seconds, there's very little time to enjoy any of these without worrying about getting in bed by in-game 2AM! So I use these mods: SMAPI (of course) by Pathoschild, Timespeed by cantorsdust and Save Anywhere by Alpha_Omegasis (because after installing Timespeed and configuring it I ran into the problem of not being able to save when I want to quit without skipping to the next day). After editing the config file of the respective mods, it becomes the game I'm talking about right now. There's still the main quests, like meeting the Wizard, but those can just be delayed forever as long I avoid his house, which is good. The way I'm playing the game leaves a lot of opportunities to eventually get bored, which tells me I've taken enough of the game inside me to relax, recover and get back to doing whatever I wasn't. Kinda what a game is supposed to be, sometimes. It's not always good to have incentives to play too much. To close this one, I'm not sure if anyone on video sharing sites plays it the same way as I describe here. so it's probably not helping your buying decision. Best you can do is take a normal gameplay vid, then think about doing all of the things in a much slower way. but that still might not help...
I´ve spent already 80 hours through 15 days. The game unfolds slowly but steadily, and it provides a super relaxing, but never boring, experience. Bought it at sale, but if I knew how much I was going to love the game, I would have paid the whole price without a doubt.
