星露谷

This game was made by one developer to recreate was was so fun about the old harvest moon series. While most modern games sacrifice game play for graphics, this is better than than games it was originally based on. Simple 2D graphics, but great depth of customization. You build your farm how ever you want, meet and develop relationships with the townspeople, take part in festivals and explore a dungeon for ores. This game is the reason why farming sims are a popular genre.

Stardew is a fun game. Outstanding for those who haven't played competitive/similar games on game consoles. However, those of us with preexisting notions fashioned by similar games may not be so pleased for multiple reasons... - Very limited saving option discourages experimentation, freewheeling. - Time passage is too quick; short days create pressure. The issues above were especially frustrating. There were a handful of other irritations. e.g. fishing is just not fun. Combat is only somewhat better. I put the game aside, but then realized that I could cope with the bummers and that that most of the game is fun, because there is lots going on. (Others who feel like me about game saving and time passage issues have created mods that fix these issues [not reviewed]. Yeah!) This game is deep. Relatively complex but smart about it. Generally, better layout design than similar games. The whole character relationship thing with NPCs is fun. Farming is a blast. Online resources take the hassle out of planning the farm and make it pure fun (open source planner by concernedape). Meaningful options encourage replaying. Everything works. Designed by one person, this game makes you want to meet the guy, buy him a few beers, and talk about life. Stardew Valley is a winner, but maybe not so much for those who have logged many hours in competitive/similar games on game consoles. If game saving and time passage were fixed, Stardew Valley would rate 5 stars and probably be the best of its type for most players.

To start off: I own this on another platform outside of GoG, and if the issues I'll describe below were addressed, this game would warrant 4 stars. The issue comes into play *almost* immediately, when you get chests. There are places the game will let you put chests (indicated by a green box) and places where the game will not let you put chests (indicated by a red box.) You would think that placing a chest in a green-indicated location would eliminate any issues, right? Wrong. Chests disappear all the time, along with any contents placed in them. A response from the dev has explained that this is because of NPC pathing issues: if a chest is in the way of an NPC's walking path, it will be destroyed to allow them to walk through. When asked about whether this issue would be fixed (either by making NPC walking paths show red for chest placement, or by allowing NPCs to walk through chests,) no response was offered. The issue has been known on forums for a long time, and hasn't been addressed. Knowing that at any point the materials I have worked for and stored can be lost and there's no in-game way to know where it is safe to place a chest ruins this for me. It gets 2 stars because the rest of the game design is more or less flawless, as indicated by other reviews. But with the ability to lose a significant chunk of progress at any point in time without warning, I can't give it more than 2.

Excellent game, but -1 star for this completely unnecessary and out-of-this-time checkpoint save system, especially because this game is all about optimising your days and depending on the cutscenes when playing it for the first time, a day can be 40 minutes or 3. It's a shame that you have to finish the day if you want to save. This is a total no-go for a game like this.

1 in game day is 14 minutes (with no pauses, 6 AM to 2AM), I tell you that first, because will get stuck in the "one more day" mentality quickly, but with pauses (opening menus, talking to people, etc), it can easily get up to 20 mins. It is a time management game, where you have to manage your real life time, not just in the game. It is very reminiscent of the HM games, particularly the earlier ones, but with much more to do. There are some things that are not real well explained in the game, as I think the dev assumed people who will play this, played the HM games, and this is such a good game, that it turned out to be more popular than he expected. Winter can be a little slow, as nothing grows, but that gives you tons of time to build relationships with the townsfolk, and a bachelor or bachelorette of your choice, and to go spelunking or fishing. All in all, tons to do, in the fall days are too short to get done what you want, and winter days can seem long by comparison, but that is what makes this a truly great time (and energy/money etc) management game. If you enjoyed the early HM games (SNES or N64), this will feel nostalgic but better, as there is much more to do, if you didn't play them, the learning curve will be a bit steeper I think, but it is still a wonderful game and experience, and after an in-game week or two, you will be hooked.